About Organized for Life (OFL)
Some of you are familiar with the OFL story. For those of you who aren't, here's the Reader's Digest version:
In 2001, while at a crossroads in my career, I did a review of all of my old school report cards, looking for common threads among teachers' comments about my strong suits. Three things came up over and over again: Organizing, Speaking (well, that I talked a lot, anyways) and Writing. With great excitement, I set out to start my own business using those three vehicles as my guide.
By September of 2007 I had grown my one-woman company into the first ever franchise system in the professional organizing industry worldwide. We had three locations in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and were just about to go forward with the next phase of our expansion. I was among the most "successful" people in my field... yet I was miserable.
What I hadn't understood as I charged forward with my 'growth is good' mindset, is that as soon as I became a franchisor, I was no longer in the business of building and growing the best organizing company on the planet: I was now in the business of selling franchises! That would be terrific for someone whose strengths and passions lay in this area - but I was not that person. Not only was I not getting to explore my love of speaking and writing, but as a stay-at-home CEO I had set myself up for a lifestyle that would not allow me the freedom I valued so highly.
I couldn't help but ask myself then, what on earth had I just spent the past five years doing, if I wasn't going to proceed with our North American expansion plans? To just abandon the enormous amount of work we'd put into creating the manuals, systems, processes, methodologies, templates, forms, training program and the brand certainly didn't seem like the answer. And yet, I knew that if I didn't follow my heart - which would mean changing course dramatically - I was going to crash and burn.
Whether through an inner faith, or by sheer desperation (or maybe a little of both) I came upon the answer. Everything that it had taken to franchise my business - to identify HOW I, as a professional organizer, actually "did" what I did, and to document the process so that it could be replicated by others - all of it had qualified me to be the ultimate communicator on the subject. Speaking... writing... teaching and training... I had just spent five years creating the content for all of the above. All of the things I LOVE to do, in the field that is my passion, serving more people than I ever could before.
Yes, things do happen for a reason, and no moment will have been without purpose at the end of one's life - mine included.
I'm not sorry for the winding road, or for having taken the long way around. I've made a hell of a lot of mistakes, and spent a hell of a lot of money on things that didn't work out, but damn straights that makes me a pretty valuable resource to people who are in business trying to figure out what to do - and what NOT to do - without suffering the pain and heartache I've already been through!
