The holidays are all about:
Family.
Getting together.
Creating joyous memories .
Honoring those special passed-down traditions.
What are your holiday traditions?
Who inspired you to start them?
Traditions and inspiration help you grow, improve, and be your best self so that you can inspire and pass down to others.
You can do this by using:
The Three Best Practices for the Holidays:
Giving:
This special time of year where we give
Our time.
Gifts that you hope will put a smile on someone’s face.
Special care to making the holidays memorable with food and decorations.
Reflecting:
It is the end of the year. It is the time to reflect on
The things and people you are grateful for.
Your personal growth and accomplishments.
The people that have come into your life and the people that may have left us.
Starting fresh:
Renewal, reinvention and positive change can happen at any time.
But the holidays always feel like
The close of a chapter and the beginning of a fresh start and a brighter future.
An opportunity to take that well deserved vacation to recharge and feel rejuvenated
A great time to set the goals that you want or need to start for the New Year ahead.
But Giving, Reflecting and Starting Fresh shouldn’t just occur during the holidays.
We should try to do these things all year round.
I want to share with you my personal reflection of the three men who have given me so much to be grateful for and to which I owe my Fresh start (at the age of 45) to.
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
You have and meet certain people at the right times to complete the puzzle of your life that reveals your purpose.
Mine was to start Rejewelvenated Designs which not only transformed my life, but through helping my clients redesign and custom design jewelry, transformed their lives for the better too.
The Design seed was planted with:
My Grandfather
He was the reason that I even started creating custom designed pieces.
He would ask me to create a present for any person that he befriended or for my mother or someone else he liked—he was very generous and loved to give jewelry gifts. He was also a very business-like man who loved to buy jewelry and had a lot of loose diamonds and gemstones.
We didn't have much of a friendly relationship growing up, so after my schooling at GIA, he used Jewelry as a way to bond.
I would take his loose stones and create pendants, earrings, whatever I liked, so that he could give as presents.
Through the diamonds and jewelry, we grew closer, which really gave me a chance to get to know him and his amazing life.
My grandfather not only lit a passion that I didn’t even know I had, but also ignited a rocky personal relationship which I cherish even now that he has passed.
The nourishment came from:
My Father
I can write all day about a father & daughter’s relationship and how much my father means to me, BUT, I will stick to my point about my fresh start.
My father has always been my Rock & my Support. He has always believed in my talents and was the push I needed to finally bring my dream of Rejewelvenated Designs into Reality.
How?
Funny Story…
A few years ago, at the end of October, I was visiting my father in the hospital (ok, that’s not the funny part). He told me that his Podiatry Academy is having a conference in February at a hotel in New Orleans.
Ok, so what does that have to do with me?
He said, “Now is the time to start your business. I will get you a table next to me at the conference and you will show off what you can do.”
Like you are thinking right now, I thought too: “That’s a weird place to start”. But, I was thankful for the offer and agreed!
I hired someone to make my website, ordered some banners, bought a portable ultrasonic, steam and jewelry cleaner to have at my table and put together a video of past projects.
By February, I had everything I needed.
The conference was great because amongst all the Podiatry vendors, the doctors would stop and be curious about what I was doing there. I offered to clean their jewelry and answered any questions they had about my Jewelry Transformation services.
I had my mother as my model, since she was my best customer at that time. And there, I got my very first client who wanted to make a bracelet to remember his father!
Ok, so funny strange, not funny ha-ha.
But I am grateful for the Push to finally start and thankful that I have been growing each year from awesome referrals and testimonials from the clients whose expectations are exceeded every time!
The Growth and the Beautiful Reality came from:
The Love of my Life and Partner Michael
Everyone says so & I believe it: “Everything happens for a reason”.
I never would have met Michael if it wasn’t for the tumultuous times of 2008-2009. I got downsized from the diamond lab in Manhattan that I have been working for, for 10 years!
After 6 weeks, I was offered and accepted a job as a Jewelry Appraiser for a jewelry store on Long Island that I would never have gone to on my own.
My first day as their appraiser, I met Michael who was their diamond setter.
After 10 years into our relationship, I told him I wanted to start my own Jewelry Transformation business and asked if he would help with the jewelry work and setting.
Of course he agreed!
I am so grateful that I have such a talented partner who can bring his 40 plus years of jewelry and diamond setting expertise to execute the quality I want in the amazing jewelry transformations for my clients.
I do believe that all the choices you have made in life and the paths that you have taken all lead to the EXACT place you need to be.
Creating fine quality, meaningful customized jewelry for those who see how special it is to have the memory of their loved ones in a new form--a form that they will love and cherish-- is EXACTLY the place I want to be!
So, for the holidays, and EVERYDAY, make room for these three practices of Giving, Reflecting, and Starting Fresh.