Leisa:  Hello, I’m Leisa Holland Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things.  My guest today is Denise Hamilton, the Founder of an online digital community for business women called WatchHerWork.  Denise welcome to Women Mean Business.

Denise:  Thanks so much for having me.

Leisa:  You’re really successful; you’re also pretty young.  I’m curious, and I know our listeners are, as to how this success.  What advice do you have for someone else who wants to get where you are?

Denise:  I have a guiding principle that I take through everything that I do.  I have developed the ability to be comfortable with discomfort.  I think far too often people are seeking the path of least resistance but the unfortunate thing is success doesn’t lie there.  You’ve got to take the risk; you’ve got to take the leap.  You’ve got to do that thing that you’re a little bit scared to do and if you’re willing to do that that’s where the rewards lie.

Leisa:  What pushed you over the edge to do this?

Deinse:  This is not anything different than anything else I’ve done in my life.  I’ll tell you a quick story.  When I worked for AOL I was hired to do a particular job, went to new employee orientation, when I landed and got back to New York where I was living at the time they called me and said we changed our mind and want to go in a different direction.  We want you to pick one of these 20 cities and we want you to run Marketing for that city.  I had never done anything like that before.

The cities from the list that I was familiar with were all taken so I had to take a city I had never been to.  And so I went down the list and it was like Denver, Boston, cold, cold, cold, Miami and I said if I was going to do this I would do Miami but obviously that’s going to be a popular city, you have to move fast.  When I landed I called them and said I’ll take it, 3 weeks later my daughter and I had moved to Miami and we were running marketing promotions for AOL for South Florida.  And I lived that way in my entire life in every single way.  You can always move home.  You can always go back to the safe familiar, that’s always going to be there.  But when those once in a lifetime opportunities come you’ve got to grab them.

Leisa:  Take the leap.

Denise:  You’ve got to leap.

Leisa:  Thank you very much.

Denise:  Thank you.

Leisa:  There you have it, extraordinary advice from an extraordinary woman.  I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, author and voice of Women Mean Business.  You can find us on Facebook at Women Mean Business, follow me on Twitter @LHNelson or come back again next week for another episode.