Introduction: Meet Shane

Like many people, Shane finds herself at a crossroads in her professional life. She’s a middle manager at a reputable firm and likes her job well enough. She has good health care, enjoys her coworkers, and makes enough money to pay her bills, take the occasional vacation, and save a little on the side. But pushing papers isn’t her real passion—chocolate is. For years, she’s been concocting confections in her home kitchen, tweaking recipes and testing them out on an all-too-willing focus group of family and friends. Recently, she decided to take her treats to the masses—or at least to the weekend farmers market in her neighborhood. She rented out a corner of a commercial kitchen in the warehouse district, where she spends some evenings preparing and packaging the treats she’ll hawk every Sunday. At the market, she gets a great response—and even has some loyal, repeat customers—but the haul she brings in isn’t nearly enough to let her quit her day job. She’s convinced that if she really wants to grow her business and be successful in the long term, it will really help to get her MBA. But how will she find the time to do it all, and also have some semblance of a personal life? In the face of so many competing priorities, she finds herself procrastinating—instead of moving surely and confidently toward her goals, she waffles, gets lost in social media streams, and is often un-focused. Papers are strewn across her desk, and the tasks just keep mounting. If she’s going to keep her head above water, she needs to make some changes.