Monday, October 22, 2007
Business Insights From a Wedding -- The Bride (Part I)
My daughter, Rachel, got married last week. So, of course, what came to mind as we went through all the excitement of my first child to get married? Starting a business.
Well, I wasn't thinking only about starting a business. As a matter of fact, starting a business was only a momentary blip in thoughts that were filled with many years of watching that delightful little girl grow into a confident and successful young lady.
But starting a business did provide a blip in those thoughts.
It couldn't help but blip its way in because the whole wedding, dinner, and reception took place in her very own church.
She and her husband bought the church a year ago to use as headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program. She teaches acting to children and directs them in plays. She started this program in college and has built it in a little over five years into a theatre program that is on the verge of becoming a major player in northeastern Wisconsin.
One thing that came to mind as I saw her getting married in the church she and her husband converted into a theatre was a conversation I had with her as she was choosing a college.
She had already chosen a college where she hoped to become a high school theatre teacher and director of high school plays. She had scheduled a college visit to another college, though, where her older brother was studying art and theatre.
She went there more to visit her brother than to seriously consider the school. But she came home with a new direction to her life.
"I want to teach, but that's not all I want to do," she told me upon her return. "I want to act, too. And if I'm a high school drama teacher, I won't have time for that."
Her newfound career choice troubled me. I had taken a whirl at professional theatre, too, in my younger days, and I knew how tough it is to make a living at it.
I told her horror stories of how many of my friends had tried to make their living in theatre and ended up in mundane jobs that had no glamor or drama to them.
She was unfazed. Finally, I did something I hated to do, but felt I had to do for her own good.
She was a bright and lively high school senior, full of enthusiasm, but not one to push herself ahead of others.
I told her, "Rachel, I just can't see you succeeding in theatre. The only people I've seen succeed are those who push and promote themselves and stop at nothing to get noticed. I just haven't seen that in you. I always see you defer to others and let them get what you want. You can't make a living in theatre if you're not willing to fight for it."
"If I have to fight, I'll fight," she replied, with a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before. "I want this so bad!"
We talked a lot more over the months before she started her new career track. She went to her brother's college and became right-hand assistant to the chairwoman of the department. She acted in the plays and she worked with a children's theatre program at her college.
She came to see ways that the children's theatre program could be done better, but she was in no position to make changes to a long-running program. So she recruited several friends and started her own program. She ran it at first in local churches and theatres and eventually the college found a place for it in their summer program.
When she graduated, she found acting opportunities in plays and commercials throughout eastern Wisconsin. She took her theatre program wherever she went, wherever she could find places to host it. It grew.
And when she and her fiance found a lovely, old church for sale, the time was right to settle the program (and the two of them) in one place.
They bought the church and started converting it into a theatre. Rachel has put on two plays in it so far with a full schedule of classes and of ever more challenging plays in the works.
So as I gave my daughter's hand in marriage to a kind and devoted man in the church that the two of them owned, the thought passed my mind of how far that shy little girl had come since she decided, "If I have to fight, I'll fight!"
The key to her success, though, is not in making that bold-sounding declaration. It is in the fact that she DID fight. She took action. She progressed from sitting back and wishing to making things happen.
She took her dream, and acted on it. She didn't wait for everything to come to her. She started with small steps and built on each one until they blossomed into the life she dreamed of.
But then again, that's what it takes to start any business of your own.
Jeff
My daughter, Rachel, got married last week. So, of course, what came to mind as we went through all the excitement of my first child to get married? Starting a business.
Well, I wasn't thinking only about starting a business. As a matter of fact, starting a business was only a momentary blip in thoughts that were filled with many years of watching that delightful little girl grow into a confident and successful young lady.
But starting a business did provide a blip in those thoughts.
It couldn't help but blip its way in because the whole wedding, dinner, and reception took place in her very own church.
She and her husband bought the church a year ago to use as headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program. She teaches acting to children and directs them in plays. She started this program in college and has built it in a little over five years into a theatre program that is on the verge of becoming a major player in northeastern Wisconsin.
One thing that came to mind as I saw her getting married in the church she and her husband converted into a theatre was a conversation I had with her as she was choosing a college.
She had already chosen a college where she hoped to become a high school theatre teacher and director of high school plays. She had scheduled a college visit to another college, though, where her older brother was studying art and theatre.
She went there more to visit her brother than to seriously consider the school. But she came home with a new direction to her life.
"I want to teach, but that's not all I want to do," she told me upon her return. "I want to act, too. And if I'm a high school drama teacher, I won't have time for that."
Her newfound career choice troubled me. I had taken a whirl at professional theatre, too, in my younger days, and I knew how tough it is to make a living at it.
I told her horror stories of how many of my friends had tried to make their living in theatre and ended up in mundane jobs that had no glamor or drama to them.
She was unfazed. Finally, I did something I hated to do, but felt I had to do for her own good.
She was a bright and lively high school senior, full of enthusiasm, but not one to push herself ahead of others.
I told her, "Rachel, I just can't see you succeeding in theatre. The only people I've seen succeed are those who push and promote themselves and stop at nothing to get noticed. I just haven't seen that in you. I always see you defer to others and let them get what you want. You can't make a living in theatre if you're not willing to fight for it."
"If I have to fight, I'll fight," she replied, with a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before. "I want this so bad!"
We talked a lot more over the months before she started her new career track. She went to her brother's college and became right-hand assistant to the chairwoman of the department. She acted in the plays and she worked with a children's theatre program at her college.
She came to see ways that the children's theatre program could be done better, but she was in no position to make changes to a long-running program. So she recruited several friends and started her own program. She ran it at first in local churches and theatres and eventually the college found a place for it in their summer program.
When she graduated, she found acting opportunities in plays and commercials throughout eastern Wisconsin. She took her theatre program wherever she went, wherever she could find places to host it. It grew.
And when she and her fiance found a lovely, old church for sale, the time was right to settle the program (and the two of them) in one place.
They bought the church and started converting it into a theatre. Rachel has put on two plays in it so far with a full schedule of classes and of ever more challenging plays in the works.
So as I gave my daughter's hand in marriage to a kind and devoted man in the church that the two of them owned, the thought passed my mind of how far that shy little girl had come since she decided, "If I have to fight, I'll fight!"
The key to her success, though, is not in making that bold-sounding declaration. It is in the fact that she DID fight. She took action. She progressed from sitting back and wishing to making things happen.
She took her dream, and acted on it. She didn't wait for everything to come to her. She started with small steps and built on each one until they blossomed into the life she dreamed of.
But then again, that's what it takes to start any business of your own.
Jeff
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