Will you give yourself permission to reinvent your life?

Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, shares stories of men and women who have completely reinvented their lives to become home stagers.

Will you give yourself permission to reinvent your life?

Watching the comments pour in after posting an article about a registered nurse and mother of four finding great success and creative fulfillment as a home stager inspired The Staging Diva, Debra Gould, to share more stories of those who’ve changed careers to completely reinvent their lives.

Marketing consultant turned home stager, Debra Gould says, “It’s rare today for anyone to keep the same career for an entire lifetime. We’re all living much longer than our parents’ generation, and many people at the traditional retirement age are realizing they still have many years ahead that they’d like to be productive, not to mention doing work they would love.”

One of the comments that came in was from 62-year old Carol who shared that after working for 36 years as a hair dresser she made the decision to make a change and start her own home staging business.

Pauline commented that her career in criminal law had her so miserable, she would find herself literally getting sick on her way to work in the morning. Since changing her life and becoming a home stager, she’s eager to start work every day.

“Reading those comments made me dig deeper and take a closer look at what other Staging Diva Graduates have done in their lives before turning to home staging, and there were several cases where people made a very drastic change,” says Gould.

One of those Staging Diva Graduates is Fran Matsumoto, co-owner of Pristine Staging in Beverly Hills. Fran had worked as an airline employee and also as the office manager to Rodney Dangerfield and his wife Joan before reinventing her life as a home stager.

The mother of a large “yours, mine, ours” blended family, Jayne Steuart’s career was spent caring for eight children, waiting for her turn to do something for herself. With her youngest child now 14 years old and her own work off the back burner, Jayne is having the time of her life as a home stager and owner of Pearl Home Staging and Redesign. (Read about one of Jayne’s home staging success stories here.)

In her early 50s, a layoff saw Donna Dazzo out of a 25+ year career in the field of financial services. Rather than taking that time to find another job in her industry, she started her own successful home staging business, Designed to Appeal. (Read more about Donna’s success as a home stager here.)

Gary Baugher left a secure management position he’d held for 15 years at a car rental company to start his Nashville home staging company, An Eye 4 Change.

Ken Sater in California started his home staging business, Creative Home Visions, after working for 18 years in mortgage banking and 14 years in the insurance industry. (Read more about both of these men and their stories here.)

“In one of the more recent stories I’ve heard and possibly the most romantic, Sophia Mose ‘escaped’ her job in London where she worked as a lawyer, to the countryside of France to work as a home stager,” says Gould.

Sophia writes, “I’m not having an easy time getting clients as Home Staging is an unfamiliar concept here, but I’m not giving up. If it doesn’t work here, we’ll just move to a more populated area! All the time, people are questioning my choices and telling me that I’ll regret it, but you can’t listen to that. You have to give it a try, otherwise you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area