As the production stage manager for Spamalot, at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, Tom Bartlett has his hand in just about everything. In third grade, when the class was producing a play, Tom wanted to pull the curtain and run the lights; many years later, he is essentially doing the same things. “I get to be the center of the hourglass,” says Tom. “Just about everything filters through the stage manager.” Passion, in Tom’s eyes, “is what you cannot wait to do in the morning.” “If I wasn’t making a living as a stage manager,” Tom adds, “I’d be doing it for free.”

After following his passion through high school, Tom found that college was not for him, and left after a year. Through friends, he found his way to become a touring stagehand, and the rest is history. “If you put your passion out to the universe,” says Tom, who has made it to the very top of his field, “there is really no reason for the universe not to support you. But you have to put yourself out there.”

Although he is somewhat stable in Las Vegas, Tom admits that in the theater business, “traveling is the price you pay.” If he were able to give himself advice at 23, it would be about listening. He says: “Listening is a skill and requires practice. I would practice being intently involved in what people say. Stop formulating the next thing you want to say, and sit back and listen.”

Besides being a single mother raising four kids, Tracy Boyce’s full time job is a feng shui practitioner.

Originally an accountant, Tracy never knew something like feng shui existed. The seeds for her profession were planted after receiving a home consultation twelve years ago, and were sowed once a divorce became eminent.

With a settlement that barely covered the mortgage, Tracy decided that her part time feng shui practice did not have enough of a steady income to support a family. Falling back on a part time bookkeeping position to pay bills, she found that her time was being consumed by calculations, and not by color coordination.

Overwhelmed and overworked, Tracy walked into her boss’s office one day and requested that she be compensated fairly for the extra workload she was assuming. The next day she was a full time feng shui consultant, fired from her bookkeeping job.

“I guess my ex-boss did me a great favor by firing me. I’m not sure if I would have taken that step on my own. It was a pretty scary thing to do, financially. No one was offering their support to me or even help. From the vantage point of now, he was my biggest supporter.”

Going from accounting to design isn’t necessarily the recommended career course for designers, but as the feng shui practice preaches, it was Tracy’s “path.”

Check out Tracy Boyce at http://www.tracyboycefengshui.com/

We immediately had a similarity with Jen when we sat down at our business office, aka Starbucks. She took a 3 1/2 month road trip in an RV when she graduated college too! Unfortunately that road didn’t lead her to her true passion, but she learned a lot along the way. These lessons later gave her the courage to leap head first into what eventually would become her career.

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Jason Mayden is a Designer for the Nike’s Jordan Brand, and got to where he is today through a combination of persistence and determination.

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D’Wayne Edwards is the Design Director of Footwear for the Jordan Brand, probably one of the coolest jobs on the planet. He has designed the latest pair of Jordan’s, the XXI’s, Roy Jones boxing shoes, and the Melo shoes. He has been with Nike for over six years, and it is pretty clear that he loves his job.

When we walked in his office, he had a sketch of a shoe he was designing, possibly the new Melo shoe, and was surrounded by shoes that he had designed over the years. It takes around 18 months to design the new Jordan or Melo shoe and actually get in on the shelves, and these are the two shoes that D’Wayne works on now.

His office has jerseys hanging up on one wall, including an Inglewood high school jersey, where he went to high school, and where our story of his journey begins.

D’Wayne started sketching shoes at age 12, and dreamt of designing them when he was older. When he was in high school, he went to his school counselor for guidance, and received none. The counselor told him to join the military, that’s the only option or else he wouldn’t be anything.”Now what kind of guidance is that?” D’Wayne remarked to us when telling the story.

D’Wayne ignored the “advice” of his counselor and went on to enroll at the Santa Monica and El Camino colleges. While attending school, he started to work as file clerk in the accounting department at L.A. Gear, just to get his foot in the door. While working there, he would stuff the suggestion box with shoes that he designed everyday for the next six months, before he finally received a phone call asking him if he would like to design.

During D’Wayne’s experience at L.A. Gear, he worked with the guy who designed the brands most recognizable and famous shoe; the Lite Bright. But even he was hired and fired five times by the company before he designed the shoe that the brand would millions on and become known for. Just goes to show what persistence can do for you.

D’Wayne had a friend by the name of Paul Wilkinson who in turn was friends with Drew Greer, an employee of Nike. As a favor, he shopped D’Wayne’s resume around to the right people at Nike, and ended up getting him some interviews. A few weeks later, D’Wayne received two offers from Nike, and has been with the company ever since.

One of the things that we pulled away from this interview was that our mission for the trip was too narrowly focused. D’Wayne made us realize that high school students need guidance too, and that lack of guidance in school is one of the most prevalent problems in schools today. So after visiting Nike, the trip now has a goal to reach out to high school students as well, and to challenge them to find their passion.

One question from the interview that we had for D’wayne was what is the most rewarding experience in your position?

“The most rewarding experience is seeing a shoe that I designed and seeing it outside of Nike on someone else’s foot or on the shelf of a shoe store. That, and being only one of six designers to EVER design an Air Jordan shoe. And working with Michael.”

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