This article was first published in the Chicken Soup for the Working Woman’s Soul book in 2002.  Listed under the Category of Living Your Dream, it is titled, “Tuning In”.

The basis of the article is about how tapping into your intuition allows you to spot opportunities that present themselves.  They are stepping stones provided to you that will assist in realizing your dreams – something we all desire, men and women alike.
I’ve pulled this article off the shelf to honor all women and the people who love them.

Tuning In

“Realistic people with practical aims are rarely as realistic or practical in the long run of life as the dreamers who pursue their dreams.”  Hans Selye

I never thought I’d be a working woman, in the sense of working in a career.  I thought I would be an at-home mother, raising my children the way my mother did.  Some of my fondest memories are of rushing through the front door after school and flying up the stairs, two at a time, to tell Mom about my school day over freshly baked cookies and milk.  This is what I saw for my own future someday.
Yet after only a short marriage and before children had expanded our family of two,  I became a young widow at the age of twenty-five.  Within months of my husband’s passing, my young mother died of cancer of the colon.  Life as I knew it had ended, and I found myself thrust into a new world that required a career.
Setting the course for a new identity, I decided to move over two thousand miles from my little Pennsylvania town for a fresh start in Southern California.  I was at National University in San Diego one weekend, taking a career development seminar to determine what I would like to do every day, when a woman who was also attending approached me.  “Have you ever thought about sales?” she asked.  While sales to me screamed polyester suits and door-to-door insurance salesmen, I stayed open to her suggestion that I contact her husband, who had just opened a computer store.  This was 1980 and just before Time Magazine named the personal computer as Man as of the Year.  I carved my new identity in the rapidly changing world of computers, and within a couple of years, was recruited by AT&T to head up their National Data Sales Organization.  I had discovered a lucrative career with stability and a future.  Yet, inside, I felt a nudge.  A feeling unfulfilled.
Each Mother’s Day since my mother’s passing I had baked apple dumplings as a celebration of our time together, and baked more cookies than I could give away at Christmas time in remembrance of my mother’s custom of doing so.  Baking was a way to continue family tradition – a way to stay close to my mother.  Baking was my way to nurture.
Southern California sunshine breeds healthy exercise routines, and I joined the large health conscious population with visits to the gym during lunch breaks and short runs before or after work.  The mileage increased until eventually the daily runs turned into training preparation to run organized marathons.  I would get up at 5:30 AM and run ten miles before I headed to my office located in downtown San Diego to begin my workday.  Many times I would participate in an early morning meeting that included greasy donuts, and I’d think – “what I wouldn’t give for a good home baked muffin instead”.  As my dissatisfaction with working in a corporate culture rose, so did my desire to create work that fed my soul as well as my bank account.
Running was like a form of meditation when at a certain point my mind released rampant to-do lists, my breathing became even and synchronized with the up and down motion of my legs, and in between these spaces spontaneous and unexpected thoughts would surface.  In the cool mist of an early morning run, a thought came through the fog loud and clear: “You can build a business on muffins.”
January 1, 1987 was the beginning of a new year and a new business of my own called “Lil’ Miss Muffins”.  With me as its owner and spokesperson, I saw myself as the healthy Mrs. Fields. I had taken all of my savings and then some, and left the secure job and life I had created, betting it all on a dream.  I had no training to own and operate a bakery, but I hadn’t had any background in selling computers and had done very well.  This is what I kept reminding myself as I hired minimum wage staff who would be so different to manage than my corporate sales people had been; and started my day in tennis shoes on concrete floors, mixing large tubs of muffin batter – so different than my stylish pumps worn with suits in business board room meetings.
My staff of three and I baked thirteen different kinds of muffins each day that included favorites like blueberry, apple cinnamon, and honey bran, in addition to the ‘flavor of the day’.  Our customers were the same companies that I had sold thousands of dollars of computer equipment to: law firms, banks, utility companies.  Not only did I get to eat my fresh baked muffin each morning, so did others in San Diego!  As the business grew, so did our product line and staff.  Within a year’s time, we baked cookies, croissants, brownies and more, and expanded our sales to two off site sales locations in Balboa Park.  Another year later, two more additional locations included juice bars in local gyms.  We were five locations and fifty-five employees strong.  Lil’ Miss Muffins was becoming a household name.  Yet, I had created a business that operated 24 hours – baking by night, and operating five locations by day, and had lost any life outside of muffins.  I was running very little now – just a few miles first thing before the workday began, and there was no balance.  I had purchased a home closer to my business to eliminate the half hour commute that had provided any personal time, albeit small, and now I literally slept and worked – eating muffins along the way.  While the dream of creating something wholesome and healthy had been realized, I had forgotten to nurture myself along the way.  Running the business had become like running a marathon – when you hit the wall and keep on going to the end, no matter how it feels.  I began to question what end did I desire for my business?  How did I really feel about my life?  Was this the life I wanted to create for myself?
Balance now became my goal.  As a working woman and business owner, everyday occurrences like buying groceries, doing the laundry, keeping my barely occupied house clean were like unclimbed mountains in the scale of my day.  Returning to a gentler more joyful life where I could enjoy all parts became a ‘one step at time’ process with no more ‘running forward in constant motion’.  I started to tap into that same intuition that had guided me across country, into a lucrative career, and then to the exhilarating experience of starting and owning a business. I knew that I had all the answers inside to guide me – I just needed to tune in.
The same nurturing person inside me, who wanted to offer “milk and cookies” to the world, needed to take time to enjoy some myself.  Little by little, I handed off more duties and daily tasks to my employees.  I retrained staff to acknowledge I had a job, and it wasn’t helping them each with theirs.  I set better guidelines and standards for them, so that I could improve the standard of living for us all.
The business flourished and so did I. Intuition once again nudged me in a new direction.  I felt ready to experience other things in my life, and to make the space for a simpler life.  Turning inside and tuning into an inner voice, I decided to sell all but one location.  As soon as I put out that message to the universe, and compiled the appropriate financial and equipment list, than a friend I hadn’t seen for several years came into the main location inquiring if I would be willing to talk to her brother-in-law about starting a small deli.  He and his wife were in town, visiting from the bay area, and would love to get together with me over coffee.  I said, “Kate, I can do better than that.  This business is for sale!”  Just that easily, and one meeting later with a wonderful and enthusiastic young couple, the business was sold.
In the following months I learned to fly an airplane and received my private pilot’s license – a life long dream; and, have continued to create work from my heart, listening for when it is time to build, when it is time to nurture, and when it is time to let go.  We all have the answers inside if we take time long enough to stop working, and tune in.
Copyright 2002,  Susan L. Gilbert