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 Kristin Kaufman, the founder of an amazing consulting group called Alignment and the author of the Is This Seat Taken? series of books. Kristin, welcome to Women Mean Business.

Kristin: Oh thank you Leisa, I’m delighted to be here.

Leisa: You’ve had a lot of success in your life in a lot of different industries from technology to healthcare, what advice would you give someone else who wants to achieve that kind of success and especially I love the idea of Is This Seat Taken? and this never too late. What advice do you have for people like it’s never too late to be successful?

Kristin: Right, well I think there are a couple of things; one is be open to the possibilities. I think oftentimes when we get in a career we think that there’s a serial path to wherever it is we think we’re going and we’re not open to what I would call splatter paint; you know, just be open to whatever comes across. And the first book about the random encounters is why I wrote that book because we can meet people randomly who absolutely can turn your life on a dime if you’re open to the possibility of what potentially is out there as opposed to being rigid about where you think you’re supposed to go. So that would be one piece of advice.

Another piece of advice is define success on your own terms. I think, again in my corporate career I had a definition of success that the corporate arena – and society actually – put on me; you know, X amount of people reporting to you, X amount of revenue streams, a title, a revenue stream, married, 2.5 children, living in a big house, driving a fancy car. That is not necessarily success for everyone; everyone has to define success in their own terms and to be open to what that is. And not be, again, handcuffed to what you think society or the expectations of the people, your coworkers, have of you and give yourself the freedom to color outside the lines.

And I think the last thing I’d like to say, just because I’ve had a couple of near death experiences, what I know for sure – and I know this as sure as I’m sitting here – we always have a purpose to be on this planet as long as we have breath. And that may not reveal itself until late in life, it could even be on the last day of your life, but as long as you have breath you have a reason for being here. So our job is to be open to what that reason is and that purpose and to lean in to it and just embrace it.

Leisa: Thank you very much. There you have it, extraordinary advice from and extraordinary woman. I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile technology company. You can find me at ContactActive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.