A young girls dream....

Ever since I was 12 I wanted to be a Fashion Designer. I would spend my lunch hours and as long as possible after school ended working in the home-ec room making clothes. I LOVED it! I altered my families clothing and my brothers friends....it was my hobby. When it came time to decide on my career it just seemed obvious what I was to do...design! So....I did! I went to The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in downtown Los Angeles and got my degree as a designer. What I also did was work my little butt off and graduated Phi Theta Kappa which as of today is still something that I am very proud of : ). It's easy to do well in school if you are studying what you are passionate about. That is something you will find I speak a lot about...PASSION. It is so important that you not only have it burning inside of you but that you recognize what it is that excites you and let it lead your life. So many people these days are living unhappily because they are too afraid to take the risk to do what they are passionate about.

So for 10 years I worked in the fashion industry. I was so excited to actually be paid for what I loved to do after working so hard throughout school. I envisioned fashion shows, models, beauty, glamour, magazine articles, a beautiful office with an amazing view overlooking Los Angeles....walking down the runway to a standing ovation....NOT Cockroaches running across my desk already infested by ants.....a disgusting dirty factory with a crack house across the street and crazy people lurking outside my barred office door....climbing through bags of dusty clothing remnants to find a bag of zippers my boss lost, 10 hours a day without air conditioning in the sweaty summers or heat in the freezing cold winters. If I wasn't dripping with sweat then I was trying to squeeze feeling into my frozen fingers. Dis organization, dishonesty, backstabbing and discomfort. I was lucky if I got to the bank fast enough to cash my check before the factory workers so I would get paid.....all for a dream...THAT was my first job in the 'glamorous' fashion industry. It was one of the worst jobs of my life but I made the best of it! I was organized and it didn't take long before I was re-organizing the system. I went outside of my assistant designer job duties and started to clean and re-structure the factory. I began to offer common sense solutions to my boss that I felt would make production more efficient. I took it upon myself to make sure the orders were shipped on time and suddenly I was running the factory and my new title was "Production Manager". I was by far the lowest paid production manager in the entire industry but that crappy job helped me throughout the rest of my career. What's the point of this little story....make the best of every situation. Yes I had to pay my dues and wow was it brutal but it gave me an immense amount of knowledge and experience and EVERY job was better after that one!!! I was driven by my Passion to be a designer and that alone got me through the hard times.