**Disclosure: I received compensation for this sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of State Farm®. The opinions and text are all mine.**
Life is full of ups and downs but the ultimate winning moment is how you deal with the challenges that life deals to you. It’s important to remember that you won’t be running through the rose garden everyday and even if you do, there’s always a thorn in place to prick you to bring you back to reality.
The month of June is monumental to me as it represents several wins and a lose in my journey to living my dreams. As a mother of three young men it is imperative that I strive for excellence and be an example to my kids that they too can live their dreams. This month marks the transition of my oldest from high school graduate to a first year freshman and although it has been a shaky transition with him getting accepted into college the end result is he has finally found his way and will be attending college in the Fall. This is a major win for our family because it marks his independence, a new beginning to him becoming a man and he’s one step closer to living his dreams of being a professional athlete.
My younger kids were both promoted to grades seventh and third which marks another step for each of them to living their dreams of becoming an engineer and geologist. This month also marks the point of my transition from a full-time employee to a self-employed single mom raising three sons. It was this month on the twenty-third last year that I received my notification that at the end of June 2014 I would no longer have a job. What was I to do with a mortgage, bills, student loans and three kids to care for?
I took a few months to wrap my head around the sudden change while looking for a new job. The truth was I had already been looking for a job for a little over a year with no luck so I decided to utilize my branding and marketing experience to start the process of building my own brand. After all I had started an International Lifestyle Blog almost a year before and I was building an audience so I decided to begin the process of building my brand. I soon realized that it was definitely my niche after spending years building large corporation social media presence when I served as their Social Media Manager. I soon found out that social media was a passion of mine and it soon provided the freedom to create editorials, attend social events, interview celebrities and best of all make money doing something that I loved!
I realized that I was on the journey to living my dreams. My role as a social influencer has provided me the freedom to be a stay-at-home mom and have the opportunity to spend more time volunteering at my kids schools and working off a schedule that I create for myself. My dream when I worked in Corporate America was to one day have the opportunity to spend more quality time with my kids and actually watching them grow. What seemed like a challenge when I initially lost my job actually turned into an opportunity for me to get one step closer to my dreams. The journey hasn’t always been a walk in the rose garden but the thorns that pricked me were all a part of the process to guide me to Live My Dreams. Living my dreams is the sole reason that I #GetInTheGroove on a daily basis rather its an unplanned break out dance of happiness for accomplishing a goal or overcoming a fear, practicing yoga when I’m having a thorn prick day or just having fun with my friends and family.
How do you #GetInTheGroove? Here’s your chance to show me how you #GetInTheGroove and also an opportunity to win a trip to the 2015 Essence Festival in New Orleans. It’s super easy to enter:
Just Instagram a photo or video of your best dance moves using #StateFarmGrooves & #ContestEntry . Click st8.fm/SFGroove to submit your entry! Good Luck! See you at the Essence Festival!
~Turkesha
As a member of The bLink Marketing Network, I received compensation for this sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of State Farm. The opinions and text are all mine.