Kim Vivian-Downs: Breaking Free from a Government Job and Becoming CEO
Are you thinking of quitting your job and starting a business? Are you passionate about what you do every day? Tune in to learn how Kim Vivian-Downs quit her job, followed her passion and became successful.
Kim Vivian-Downs, Passionate CEO
Kim is the founder of a software company that has been in business for 25 years and has more than 80 employees. While working as a secretary in a Secondary School, she found a problem with one of the processes and decided to find a solution that could solve it in every school.
Here are three key elements that you can learn from this episode:
1) Finding Your Passion
Trial and error is going to help you find your passion. You cannot be certain you don’t like something if you haven’t tried it. You can like something, but if you are not fulfilled by it, it will never be your passion and you’ll always wonder “what if…”.
Kim always had that “what if…” in the back of her mind. After being in a job for a few years, she realized she wanted more and decided to go after her passion and start her own business. Kim believes that one of the most important ingredients to being a successful entrepreneur is having a definite passion for what you do. Finding that passion can be a long and difficult path, but when you get to it, you’ll find happiness and fulfillment.
2) Focus On One Thing At A Time
For some people, it can be easy to generate ideas. The difficult task is putting them to action. The first thing you need to do with an idea is to find a way to actually execute it! You can have 100 ideas but if you do nothing with them, then they are worth nothing. Focusing on one idea is going to help you and motivate you to get results.
Kim had a lot of different solutions to difficult processes in schools, but she realized that if she wanted to create something out of all her ideas, she needed to focus on one problem at a time. By focusing on one thing, she found ways to get people to use the software and recommend it. Her energy flowed collectively toward a focused target and helped her move toward her goal.
3) Priorities
Everyone has different priorities and you do whatever it takes to maintain them. With time, those priorities might change. Right now your priority can be growing or starting a business, but what happens when you have children? Maybe then your focus changes to your kids. It becomes more difficult to have both as a priority, difficult yet not impossible.
Kim is a single mom and a business owner, handling her business and raising children at the same time was difficult but she looked for ways to have time for everything. She created time for herself, her work, and her three kids. She hired people to help around the house so she could spend time and play with her kids, that was always a priority for her. If you want something so bad, you’ll find ways to make it work. Don’t be afraid to step out of the mold and find new ways to meet all of your priorities.
“Once you have control of your mind and feelings, you are unstoppable.”
Kim Vivian-Downs’ Social Link:
