029: Caroline Hulse of Sew Caroline

Caroline Hulse is the author and content creator behind the sewing/DIY blog SewCaroline.com. She lives in Fort Worth, TX with her husband and pup as they eagerly await the arrival of their little one. Caroline is a surface pattern designer and sewing pattern designer with a love for handmade fashion. {You can find Caroline's fabric lines here.}

Find Caroline here:
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As we do with every episode our first question is always "What is your definition of success?" Caroline touches on a financial part of success that resonates so well with us and we are sure it will resonate with so many of you!

"Your success isn't defined by how much money you make, but on the same hand it kind of does for me because I don't feel as though I would feel successful if I weren't making an income on what I do."

We often share that money is not the only way to define success, but Caroline brings up a great point,  while she doesn't gauge her success solely on how much she brings in each month/year, she does want to feel like she is contributing to her family.  Yes, yes, YES! So again, while making money isn't the only way to be successful, money does play a factor in so many of us continuing to follow our dreams.  We want to know we aren't just "wasting" our time doing something that doesn't bring any benefit to our family.

Caroline shares many more ways in which she feels successful.

"Being successful comes from finding your fulfillment/your occupational fulfillment in something that you love and something that you are passionate about."
"Being successful to me is being able to make an impact on other people and sharing what I love."

Caroline also shares with us the major reality check she had as she was getting ready to graduate college. She talks about how she was attending job/career fairs as she was getting ready to get her degree in finance, but every time she would think about working in the corporate world she would get anxious and break out in hives! She knew working in finance was not for her! She decided to get the training she needed to be a middle school teacher.  A year after she graduated college she was ready to find a teaching job and get married, but thanks to some cuts and other state issues she was not able to find a teaching job.  While Caroline probably didn't know it then this was the best thing that could have happened! Because she couldn't find a teaching job she found a job at a local fabric store and while she already knew how to sew from this job she fell in love with everything that has to to do with sewing and fabrics.

"You may not even know what you want to do right this second, but that's ok. You'll figure it out."