About Michèle Meagher

Sometimes you just bust out later on!

Have you ever listened to a song that made you feel as if the composer had slipped inside your own skin? That’s how I felt the first time I heard jazz singer Louise Grasmere sing, Sometimes You Bust Out Later On. She electrified me with her sassy lyrics and her jazzy, bluesy music. You see, with this one song, Louise had read my mind, plumbed my heart and divined my aspirations. I recognized her story as my story.

Perhaps it’s your story too.

As you can see from the song's lyrics interspersed throughout this page, Louise captures what happens to many of us women during what author Gail Sheehy calls our "middlescence" when we declare, “now, it’s my time!”

“Oh you’ll never be what you want to be
If you believe what you are told.”

What did you dream about when you were a young girl? I was going to be Vicky Barr, flight stewardess (that’s what we called them when I was growing up), earn my wings, fly and solve mysteries.

I was going to be a writer, make up stories and be famous. I was going to be a linguist, fluent in several languages and able to talk to anyone.

I didn’t become any of those things.

“They told me I was this
But I turned out to be that."

"Be an English teacher,” I was told. "You love to read. You love to write. It’s secure. You’ll have health insurance. You’ll have a pension."

So I believed what I was told. I taught English for ten years, and the truth is that I loved it. I did (and do) love to read and write. I enjoyed my students. And I didn't mind having a steady income and a pension.

Except along the way, I realized that teaching wasn't all I wanted to do. If I kept teaching, I was afraid I would be stuck just like a needle on a scratchy record, never able to get out of the groove and hear my own song play all the way through.

How many of you, like me, believed what we were told about the importance of job security? That’s why even after I left teaching, I continued working at what Valerie Young of Changing Course calls “job-jobs.”

“It might have taken some time
But this road ain't nearly through."

I leapt from teaching to a small start-up venture, where I did a little bit of everything. When the start-up folded, I jumped to a much larger company in the burgeoning high-tech field. From there, I landed in public relations and freelance writing.

Then my path led me to a job where I was able to pull together all of my skills. As a director for a non-profit professional association, my love of reading and writing, my passion for sparking ideas and communicating has helped countless business owners and entrepreneurs to build their businesses.

"Well I've no regrets and I don't look back
Can't keep me down cause I'm all charged up"

Who I am now is made up of all I have done in the “job job” world. Those different experiences have moved me forward on my own journey. All along the way, however, there has been one constant.

"You've got to keep on keepin' on
You got to do what you love to do."

I have to admit that as I kept on keepin’ on, each “job job” included one facet I’ve always been passionate about—making connections. Whether it’s connecting the dots, connecting people with ideas, connecting people with other people, I can’t help myself, connecting just starts to happen!

"Yeah it took some time to just find my way."

Over the years and along my way, I discovered just how important connecting is to me. It's a passion that still reigns supreme, except in the last year, I have shifted my focus.