SOAR TO SUCCESS / Feature Article For over 21 years, Alicia Forest has taught service-based entrepreneurs how to create profitable online businesses in their spare time. Alicia decided to learn about working from home and online marketing when she and her husband were considering starting a family. Even though she earned her MBA, she didn’t want to work for someone else, but she still wanted to make her own money and wanted to be home to raise their children. Alicia has always had a passion for business. In fact, she started with penny carnivals in her front yard at the age of 8. By the time she was a sixth grader, she was selling handmade ribbon braided barrettes for $2 per pair to the other girls in her class, and she continued with other business ventures as a teenager and throughout her twenties. Even when she had a nine to five job working for someone else, she continued to pursue individual business opportunities, like resume writing and editing manuscripts for the selfpublishing arm of Barnes & Noble. “As entrepreneurs, we work hard and we’re passionate about what we do. We put a lot of time and energy into our businesses. But I neverwanted to do that at the expense of living my life. We all have that intention, but sometimes we get busy or bogged down because we’re trying to figure out how to make it all work, and living our life gets pushed aside.” One key strategy that works for Alicia is having a wall-sized calendar that she plans out her work schedule so that she can have the summer months free to spend with her family. Her parents always enjoyed the summer months with family at the lake and she has continued that tradition with her own family. “I’m running my business, it’s not running me. We started spending summers at the lake as a family when my daughter was born, and this year will be our 17th summer.”
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