Mindfulness Practice - Writing Headlines to Bring You Closer to What You Want from Life

Every day, headlines in the news capture our attention, either prompting us to read more or move on. Great headlines are clear, concise, and have a direct impact on the reader.

What if you could write a headline about your own life on a daily basis?

The good news is that you can.

Every morning before getting out of bed, grab a notebook or journal and envision a headline you would like to describe the day ahead. Begin the process by asking yourself these five questions that will help you focus, find clarity, and identify a vision:

What emotion do I want to focus on today? (i.e., gratitude, joy, fulfillment, perseverance)

What do I want to specifically achieve today? (i.e., a clear goal)

Who do I want to be today? (i.e., peaceful, grateful, loving)

What promise do I want to fulfill to myself today? (i.e., to be calm, passionate, or to talk nicely to myself)

What light can I shine on the world today? (i.e., kindness, the gift of listening without judgment, hope)

Close your eyes. Focus on your breath. Bring your thoughts inward. Take a few moments to contemplate what is really important to you today. It doesn’t have to be complex. Simple is better. Now open your eyes, grab a notebook, and describe what you want in a few words. For example, your headline might be:

Athlete Decides Progress, not Perfection, is a Better Way to Live

Job Seeker Dedicates One Hour to Networking

Executive Makes Good on Three Client Promises

New Retiree Says Goodbye to Bad Habits and Hello to Positive Changes

Entrepreneur Finds New Ways to Achieve Balance and Fulfillment

Passionate Helper Performs Two Random Acts of Kindness

Avid Reader of News Shuns News to Achieve Inner Peace

As the above examples demonstrate, there are many ways to write a headline that describes what you want for your day and how you want to present yourself to the world. The important takeaway is to remember that each headline you write brings you closer to what you want for yourself and your life.

Headlines can set the framework for solving a problem, help you see a better future, and ultimately guide you to remembering that it is you who holds the power to creating your own destiny, one day at a time, one headline at a time.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

How to Take Back the Reins of Your Life

You may have heard of the popular Zen tale about a horse and its rider. As the horse wildly gallops down a road with its rider tightly gripping the reins, both man and animal eventually meet a stranger standing beside the road who curiously shouts, “Where are you going?” The rider replies, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!”

Although this story is short, it contains a powerful and symbolic message about empowerment. Each of us, no matter what our struggles or challenges, has control over the direction of our lives. But how do we find that direction when all we feel is lost? First, ask yourself this question:

Who is holding the reins of my life?

If you believe you are the only one holding the reins of your life, terrific! You have realized the power you have within to take control of where you are going and how you want to get there by creating a concrete action plan, setting clear goals, and assigning someone to hold you accountable to getting from here to there.

If you believe that someone else (or several others) are holding the reins instead of you, now is not the time to worry or continue treading water. The first step in attaining life transformation is to recognize the need for positive change. Now, ask yourself this question:

What is one thing I can begin doing today to point myself in the right direction?

Perhaps you would like to become a healthier version of yourself. Beginning with that idea, think about how you can transform one less-than-ideal daily decision into a positive action that guides you toward a bigger goal. Pledge to go to bed one hour earlier every night so you can awaken sooner and exercise. Log everything you eat into a food journal. Prep meals to save time and avoid mindless snacking.

If you are unhappy at your job, think about how you can replace a robotic daily decision with a better one that leads you down a new path. Rather than complaining about events that are out of your control, update your resume. Set aside time once a week to apply for new opportunities. Talk to a recruiter. Network with your connections.

Every time you complete an action that moves you in the direction of a more content future, reward yourself with positive self-talk. Now, ask yourself this one final question:

How do I feel about myself and my direction when I take steps toward positive change?

When incorporating positive change in your life, you create a path forward that leads to contentment. Socrates once said, “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but in creating the new.” This is your life. Remember, you don’t have to be a helpless rider on a galloping horse. You have the strength. You have the courage. You have the power deep within to confidently take back the reins, make the changes you need to be content, and inspire others by walking the talk.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

Mindfulness Practice - Observing Your Life from a Different Perspective

Imagine that your superpower is the ability to fly. When you are ready, close your eyes and visualize yourself perched on the edge of a cliff. As the sun warms your face, spread your wings and slowly lift yourself into the air. Guided by your curiosity to know more, embrace the freedom that comes with soaring high above the earth with only the wind as your companion. Your goal of this special flight is to objectively observe your life from a different perspective.

As you soar over the road map of your life, what do you see?

All of our lives are filled with joyful times such as finding our true loves, witnessing our children enter the world, and fulfilling our dreams. These moments are the spa-like rest stops on our journey through life. Between all these wonderful stops is the winding, sometimes bumpy road that takes us from Point A to Point B, often without a rest stop for miles and miles or the ability to turn around and choose different endings. Yet it is during these challenging times that we are provided with the best opportunities to learn the most about ourselves, life, and those around us.

Where are you right now on your journey? Perhaps you are exactly where you want to be. Perhaps you have just realized it is time to detour off the main road and carve your own path through the wilderness to reach contentment. Wherever you see yourself on your journey, observe without judgment.

Now open your eyes. You have more control than you think over where your road map leads you from today forward.

Recognize. Believe. Act.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

Mindfulness Practice - Letting Go

Imagine yourself standing on the bank of this beautiful mountain stream. Now close your eyes, listen to your heartbeat, and breathe deeply.

What do you need to let go of today that is no longer serving you?

Take this moment to contemplate what you can control in your life and what needs to be lifted off your shoulders. These burdens can be emotions such as anger or jealousy; an unnecessary need to be perfect; or worries about how others perceive you that hold you back from pursuing your dreams. Whatever your burdens are, decide which one is the heaviest. Now imagine yourself lifting that burden off your shoulders, placing it on a raft, bidding it farewell forever, and pushing it downstream and out of sight.

Continue to breathe deeply. When you are ready, open your eyes and welcome the new day as a freer, lighter person.

Practice daily to ensure that you are not carrying baggage you no longer need on your unique journey through life.

“Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.”
― Roy T. Bennett

Photograph by Vicky DeCoster, Sawtooth National Forest, July 2019

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

How to Step into Someone Else’s Shoes

Our world is facing new challenges. As it has been since the beginning of time, we all have our own unique and passionate opinions, viewpoints, and objectives on how to best move humanity forward into the future. Unfortunately because of these differences in how we see the world and our obstacles, many of us find ourselves unable to see or understand the perspectives of others around us. It’s a tough place to be because in order to move forward, we must be able to objectively and collaboratively work together to find a way. Perhaps the first step is to imagine ourselves as another. But this is a skill that requires discipline and practice to execute. So how do we do that?

“Never judge someone until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.”

Native American proverb

In following this idea, I recently stumbled on information about a wonderful non-profit organization while thumbing through a magazine. Since TED speaker, advocate for the broken-hearted, and blogger Hannah Brencher founded moreloveletters.com in 2011, her helper writers have sent 250,000+ letters to recipients facing a variety of personal challenges in 50 states, 73+ countries, and 100+ campuses. I was immediately intrigued. After signing up, I soon received my first email that described the nominated recipients needing to be lifted up by strangers.

Jared is a young man whose father figure died at a young age. His stepfather was often cruel to him. His family was often homeless. Yet despite his challenges, he cared for his sister by brushing her hair, taking her to parks, and making her dinner. Now he is finishing trade school and doing his best to be a good father to his first child. But Jared, who doesn’t often appreciate his accomplishments, needed encouragement, said his sister in her plea for love letters.

Moments later, I sat at my kitchen table with a pen in hand. I closed my eyes and imagined myself standing in Jared’s shoes. What was he feeling? Why was he feeling that way? What had brought him to this place in his life? What could I do to help him find his way? As I began writing in a note card I found tucked away in the desk my grandmother left me when she died, I somehow felt connected to Jared, even though we had never met. Our backgrounds were different. Our obstacles weren’t the same throughout our lifetime. Our emotions were unique to each of us. Still, fate had somehow led us to each other in that moment.

Despite our differences, I could feel his pain. I could relate to his grief for all he had never experienced and lost. I could understand his challenges. I could help him realize that he’s stronger than he ever imagined. I could give him the gift of knowing that there is someone else out in the world who wanted him to become the best version of himself, perhaps more than he wanted it right in that moment. And so I wrote.

As I stepped out of his shoes, stuffed the card into an envelope, and sent it off into the mail to Jared, I was reminded that this—this moment of understanding and unconditional love for all humankind—is what we all need to have as our luggage as we travel forward into the unknown.

Taking a moment to walk in someone else’s shoes can be a useful tool in a business setting, with friends and family, and even during passionate conversations with strangers who may not believe the same things we do. When we listen with empathy to understand the challenges and viewpoints of others, it helps us open our hearts to the possibilities of what can be if we can work together for the betterment of humanity overall.

It’s that simple. Now go forth and spread your love, empathy, and appreciation for your fellow humans. Someone needs you to walk in their shoes right now.

To become a volunteer writer or to nominate a person in need of a love letter, visit moreloveletters.com.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

Living Her Passion – Dorothy Mielke

Dot Mielke hard at work sewing another mask.

Although Dorothy (Dot) Mielke has never experienced a pandemic like COVID-19, she did live through the scourge of the polio epidemic. Just before her second birthday in 1942, Dot, along with her three sisters, contracted polio. “While we were quarantined in the house, my dad was harvesting wheat in South Dakota,” said Dot. “They got word to him, but he couldn’t come home because he wasn’t allowed in the house.” Her mother was helped daily by a nurse and people in the community gifted the children with many toys. When the fever finally broke, all of Dot’s toys had to be burned except for one doll her mother set aside for her. Until the early 1950s when a polio vaccine was finally developed, Dot remembers not being able to congregate or swim in public pools, and the general anxiety surrounding the fears of contracting the virus. Unfortunately, the virus left Dot unable to walk without assistance again. Still, that did not stop her from living a full life, thanks to the mentorship and guidance from her father and greatest advocate. In a time when many people with disabilities were institutionalized, her father made her crutches and a ramp with rails so she could practice walking on her own—all while encouraging her to believe in her ability to persevere.

While growing up in Hastings, Nebraska, Dot learned to sew from her mother. “In that day and age if you knew how to sew, it saved money,” Dot added. The first thing she sewed with pride was a gathered skirt, a fashionable item in that era. After Dot matured into young adulthood, she learned to view herself without a disability, married, sewed clothes for her children, and eventually earned a degree in Special Education. When her battles with post-polio and carpal tunnel syndromes forced her to retire after nineteen years as a secondary special education teacher in the Omaha Public School system, Dot began sewing clothes and costumes for her grandchildren, and creating beautiful dance costumes for youth in the Omaha community. She hadn’t sewn for the past three years—until a new pandemic emerged on the horizon.

Just before Easter, a now seventy-nine-year-old Dot retrieved her sewing machine from storage and began creating masks. “I thought that since I had all this leftover material from sewing Halloween and dance costumes years ago, I might as well utilize it for good and sew masks for my family members,” she stated. Dot then conducted extensive research online on pattern development, filter options, and sewing supply availability and eventually decided that a triple layer of washable fabric, with an included pocket to insert a Scott’s shop rag, would provide the most protection. Her biggest challenge since then has been sourcing elastic and shop rags. Once her granddaughter, Gabby, began delivering the masks to family and sharing photos of the masks on social media, the positive responses were plentiful.

Dot utilizes many colorful fabrics for the masks she creates.

As Dot started feeling good about herself and her new purpose, she used her stimulus check to purchase more elastic, shop rags, and new cotton fabric she thought would bring a smile to people’s faces—even if they couldn’t be seen behind their masks. It makes her smile when she receives grateful messages and gifts from the recipients of her masks. “It’s the little things that mean so much more than money,” she added. Making the masks has rejuvenated Dot. Although her hands are numb on most days, Dot has sewn over 150 masks to date. She encourages her recipients to wash her masks between each use, so they stay sanitary and offer the best protection all around.

Today, she finds herself busier than ever, serving a new purpose that fills a need in her community. Her new mantra is, “Saving the world, one face at a time.” Dot takes special orders for masks every week, and continues to sew masks for adults and children, even when orders are low, knowing that soon school will be back in session and events will be re-scheduled. When asked what advice she would offer someone struggling with a disability, Dot encourages others to, “Just be you. I ask people to try to see me as I see me, not with a disability but just as Dot.” Although she is quite content with her life, Dot admitted that just for one day, she would like to stand on her tiptoes and be like one of the young dancers she once sewed costumes for.

Completed masks ready for her many recipients.

When reflecting on the pandemic and ways to cope, Dot urges people to use common sense, listen to advice from medical professionals, and not to believe everything they hear and read. Her own tactics include avoiding the news, binging on good television shows, and doing things that make her happy. As her life comes full circle and Dot is provided an opportunity to reassure all of us that this too shall pass, just like the polio epidemic, she gently reminds us of the importance of always being good stewards for others, no matter what the circumstances or challenges.

To place an order for a mask or masks, reach out to Dot at dotmasks@gmail.com.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

The Art of Self-Discipline: The Secret to Success

When I was in first grade, my mother enrolled me in piano lessons. Every day after school, I was expected to practice my scales. I hated practicing scales more than anything, but knew that if I completed that dreaded task every afternoon, I would be allowed to play outside with my friends. Anyone who heard me playing those scales—including me—knew I would never be the stand-out star of the annual recital or a concert pianist. Still, I now understand the motivation behind my mother’s resolve to ensure I rehearsed every day. While I was learning to read and play music, she was teaching me the art of self-discipline through a daily practice.

“Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you going.” John C. Maxwell

Throughout your lifetime, you will come up with ideas you believe are innovative, attainable, and even impressive to those around you. As the excitement builds around each idea, you may share it with trusted friends or family members; document related goals; and begin creating a plan forward that you think will turn that idea into a reality. But then just as you’re happily barreling down the highway of possibilities, you suddenly notice that your journey is more challenging than you imagined. As you come to a screeching halt, your motivation wanes as self-doubt creeps in, leaving you feeling vulnerable, discouraged, and perhaps ready to throw in the towel.

This moment is when great leaders take notice because vulnerability like this has the potential to be transformative and promote positive change. What every great leader knows is that in this very moment, they hold the power to move forward, for this moment is when self-discipline kicks in and leads them past the possibilities and into a fulfilling reality.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” Jim Rohn

Practicing self-discipline requires action. In this moment, you must now move from being simply a talker into being a doer by turning bad habits into disciplined daily actions that take you, one step at a time, toward fulfilling your dreams. Whether your goal is to run a marathon, start or grow a business, find a more satisfying career path, or even become the concert pianist I will never be, now is the time to implement daily, disciplined practices that will get you to where you want to go.

Today, begin assessing the daily habits that are currently holding you back from transforming your idea into reality and replace them with actions that will lead you through the discouraging and vulnerable moments to the life-changing realization that it is you who controls the outcome of every idea and, better yet, your overall destiny.

Your vision of success is waiting. Self-discipline is what will get you there.

“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” Lou Holtz

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

LIVING HER PASSION – Elissa Vilter, EV Floral and Design and Om Nom Nom Bakery

Elissa (on left) and Julie Ricceri, Owner of Diana’s Papillion Tea Shop

While growing up as the youngest of six children in Southern California, Elissa Vilter watched her mother whip up simple, elegant dishes while teaching her children that a meal is more than just a recipe. Instead, it is an opportunity to create a colorful presentation and table setting. Her family became accustomed to linens, candles, silverware, and a centerpiece of some kind on their table every night. When Elissa was eight, her mother signed her up for a summer school cooking class. “It was so much fun!” states Elissa. “I still remember taking what I learned to make a taco salad and decorating our table in a Mexican motif.” By the time Elissa was twelve, her mother was encouraging her to meal plan and recipe hunt. With her mother’s guidance that fresh was best, Elissa planned weekly menus, shopped for the ingredients, and prepared the meals. But the guidance from her mother didn’t stop there. Elissa’s mother also created decorated wedding and birthday cakes, sugared Easter eggs, and corsages and boutonnieres from flowers in her garden.

When Elissa was fifteen, her father left, forcing her mother to develop a catering business out of necessity. As she began catering and baking for weddings and other events, Elissa often accompanied her to help arrange flowers and decorate the space without any idea that she was already building a foundation of skills that would one day allow her to open her own business.

After her life journey led Elissa to eventually obtain a degree in Behavior Science from Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado, she married her husband, Scott, and began teaching. As his military career led them all over the world and finally to Nebraska, Elissa focused on raising their three children. But everything changed five years ago when Elissa created floral arrangements and baked cupcakes for a friend’s wedding. After that friend encouraged her to not only open a floral design business but also an in-home bakery, Elissa founded EV Floral and Design in 2015 and Om Nom Nom bakery in 2019.

An Elissa Vilter wedding reception centerpiece.

Elissa, whose business is generated by word-of-mouth only, contracts for about twelve weddings annually, creates flowers for proms, homecomings, and for seniors involved in athletics at a local high school; and produces floral arrangements and baked goods for ten to twelve additional events a year. Because her work comes in waves, Elissa doesn’t have typical days. “When I have an event coming up, my life gets crazy busy. When I’m not planning for a specific event, I’m answering emails, scheduling meetings with potential clients, ordering materials, and planning designs.” After visiting Diana’s Papillion Tea Shop in 2019 and asking if she could create baked goods for an upcoming event, a new relationship was formed. Today, Elissa handles all baking for the tea shop’s events and enjoys a wonderful friendship with the owner.

Elissa’s delicious baked goods at a recent tea party event.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her business in the short-term, Elissa is excited about the future of her businesses. “I learned long ago that this is a process and to have patience,” she adds. While pursuing her passion, Elissa has found great joy in meeting new people. “This life is all about relationships,” she says, “The people I have met have shared such amazing stories about their lives.”

A bridal bouquet designed by Elissa.

Today, Elissa describes her life as content. Her support group is her family and closest friends. Her husband, also known as her official taste tester, loves it when she is baking and creating. Both of her sons have helped in delivering her arrangements to weddings, and her daughter has also helped in deliveries and setting up weddings and other events.

This passionate entrepreneur advises anyone who wants to pursue a dream to go for it and allow others to help. “It’s never too late unless you never do it,” she states.

Everyone who takes a bite of her delectable baked goods and views her beautiful floral arrangements has to be thrilled that Elissa blended all her skills and talents honed since childhood and pursued her passion for creative design and, most importantly, for making people happy.

For more about Elissa and her products, feel free to call her at (402) 541-3084.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

The Gifts in Silence

We’re all living within a world where being busy has oftentimes turned into a competition. We run our children from one event to the next while eating a dinner we really don’t take the time to taste. We race home after work to throw loads of laundry in the wash, never stopping to inhale the scent of fresh clothes after we pull them out of the dryer. When a friend wants to talk, we might view that conversation as just another item to check off our to-do list rather than making a point to listen intently. As we race from one place to the next, feeling frazzled every step of the way, we may eventually realize that being busy is filling only our calendars, not our hearts and souls.

What if being busy all the time is not the best companion for contentment?

As we face the current crisis that has enveloped our world, we are now forced to deal with what many of us view as the most terrifying consequence of this moment in time: silence. Despite our fears of what might come with the overwhelming quiet associated with social distancing, there are many gifts that also come with silence. Remember when you learned the important rule to successfully crossing the street by yourself for the first time? Now is the time to stop, look, and listen.

“Listen to silence. It has so much to say.”

—Rumi

With this unplanned silence comes gifts. The gift of learning. The gift of unconditional love. The gift of a short commute or a commute with less traffic. The gift of sunshine. The gift of fresh, clean air. The gift of the sounds of nature. The gift of meditation and prayer. The gift of good books that help us leave our troubles behind, even if for a short time. The gift of technology that allows us to stay connected. The gift of the truth. The gift of positivity, even in dark times. The gift of hope.

“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

—Albert Einstein

Most importantly, this silence provides us with the gift of time. Time to think. Time to believe. Time to volunteer. Time to be creative. Time to contemplate where we want to go next. Time to reflect on where we’ve been so far. Time to wonder, dream, and share our talents with the world. Time to set goals. Time to write or journal. Time to just BE.

Take a deep breath. Now imagine yourself letting go of all your worries while floating on a leaf downstream. As the current carries you to places unknown, notice all the gifts that line the banks of the stream. A hug from a family member. A smile from a stranger. A phone call from a friend. An opportunity to stop, look, and listen to what your heart wants and needs, not what your schedule demands of you.

All these wonderful gifts are there, just for you. All you have to do is open your eyes to see them.

“Through the portals of silence, the healing sun of wisdom and peace will shine upon you.”

—Paramahansa Yogananda

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.

Living His Passion – Nic Bianchi, Bianchi Candle Company

Nic Bianchi, Bianchi Candle Company, with a few of his products.

When most fourth graders were mastering multiplication and division problems, Nic Bianchi was busy designing a logo for his future business. After creating leather and wood products in an effort to satisfy his hunger for all things entrepreneurial, Nic moved into fifth grade where he developed a catalog, hired two sales reps, and began selling used Oriental Trading toys at recess. “I knew I wanted to do something big,” Nic says. But everything changed in 2014 when he received a candle making kit for his twelfth birthday. Nic, who was now a sixth grader, began making candles with his father that night. A self-professed lover of science and math, Nic was immediately hooked on the process of creating the best, all natural soy candle in the industry. A short time later, Bianchi Candle Company was officially in business.

Boosted by advice from his sixth-grade teacher who told him that no matter how bad things might become in life to always hold his head high, Nic sold his first candles in a local boutique in 2014 and created an LLC. By 2017, he had increased his presence in the marketplace and launched a fundraising division. In 2019, Nic auditioned for the popular television show, Shark Tank, launched his products in Hy-Vee, and went live on Amazon.

Today, Nic has a commercial space and team of four who help him create a line of products that include the Wild Worksmen, the first candle he developed at age twelve, the Yes You Can candle designed to inspire others to have a “yes you can” mindset, and the Original Bianchi Candle (Bianchi means white in Italian) that is focused on home décor. Candles are poured in batches of six or seven and take typically 24 hours to cool and set. His wide array of scents include chai tea, lavender lime, sandalwood, sweet orange chile pepper, fresh brewed coffee, spring rain, and a variety of emotions such as joy, hope, and kindness that gently remind us that life is a gift not to be taken for granted.

Nic with his products.

Nic, who is a typical high school junior who loves hanging with his friends at the lake, attends class until 12:30 every weekday and then heads to either his commercial space to develop new ideas and make candles or to meetings where it doesn’t take him long to convince vendors that a seventeen-year-old has what it takes to run a successful business. Along the way, Nic says the biggest lesson he’s learned is that no matter what is thrown his way, he can always persevere. His future plans include majoring in some form of business in college, perhaps in San Diego.

As every business owner knows, learning is part of daily life. A year ago, Nic didn’t know how to manage a landlord relationship that includes rent, utilities, and a host of other unknown challenges. “I’ve discovered running a business takes a lot of hard work, but I love it when big things happen because of our hard work and focus,” he adds. When asked what one word best describes his life today, Nic answered, “Fulfilled.

Bianchi Candle Company

Nic advises anyone who wants to pursue their passion in life to “go for it, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Surrounded by an incredible support group that includes his parents, friends, and other entrepreneurs who mentor him, Nic has already discovered that owning a business offers wonderful rewards that include valuable life lessons that he can carry forward into the bright future that awaits him.

Jeff Bezos, Chairman and CEO of Amazon, once said, “You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.” Nic is an example of what one young man can do when he embraces his passion, walks through his fears, and creates a company that, in its own way, makes the world a better place.

For more about Bianchi Candle Company or to order products, click here: https://bianchicandleco.com.

Vicky DeCoster is a Certified Life Coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, who specializes in helping her clients both locally and nationwide to move past obstacles, create a plan for happiness, and cross the bridge of transition to find a new and fulfilling direction in life. To read more about her and her practice, visit her at crossthebridgecoaching.com.