Rachel Bastarache Bogan

The Unexpected Journey

If you had told me five years ago that I would become an entrepreneur and a business woman, I would have laughed in your face! Me, an "entrepreneur?" Hah.

Since high school I told stories. My primary method was by making videos about my favorite subjects and cool people in my community in Central New York state. That storytelling eventually took me to a media production department at an international mission organization in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2008.

Fast forward to 2013.

I lost my job. I wasn't fired; a departmental reshuffle dealt my job out of the deck and I was out of the game. It shook me to my core about my abilities as a video producer and storyteller. I couldn't find another production job where I lived. Push came to shove and without my salary, my husband I lost our ability to pay for our apartment in early 2014.

We started living with friends--technically homeless--and tried to figure out our next steps. That journey led us all the way from Charlotte, NC to Denver, CO. We moved in--with more friends--in Denver in October of 2014.

But I was still depressed. I wasn't a video editor anymore. I hadn't been able to get work in two years. And worst of all, I believed I sucked at my work. Everybody seemed better than me and I had no clue how they crafted such beautiful stories and work.

I was hopeless.

Then in December of 2014, I found a class in Hollywood that taught video editing. The class was five weeks long and started the second week of January 2015. And so, a few days after the New Year, I found myself driving another thousand miles across the rest of the United States, my editing computer in tow, to discover whether or not I was still a storyteller.

My teacher at that class said something very important on the very first day. He wrote a sentence on the white board, a few minutes into class. It changed everything. This simple phrase became my mantra. What were the words?

"You can do this."

The "this" had meant editing in Hollywood, but it became so much more.

I returned home from Hollywood in the middle of February, invigorated by my class and my discovery that I was indeed, still a storyteller. But that phrase perked along in my mind.

Later that spring, I had an idea. An idea that would change everything about my life--and it had already changed so much since I lost my job in 2013! I noticed that video producers, especially the small guys, were often stuck in the video editing process. They were missing out on new jobs and away from the thing they loved the most, the actual video shoot itself.

I loved post-production, and realized I could help those guys out. I could build a business offering video post-production to producers anywhere across the country.

I became an entrepreneur.

And in the process, I discovered that sometimes fate is as simple as deciding what you want and then going after it. It looks like luck, but really, it's the accumulation of consistent actions and determination that makes things happen. And once I started doing things for my life, taking action and working towards my goals, my life changed.

The more I built my business, and the more I talked with friends who wanted to get more out of their lives. They asked questions and wanted to pick my brain. I realized that I could offer more to the world. I could share my journey as an entrepreneur and a goal-getter with others.

RachelFinder has been my platform since the early days of my journey as a video editor for that international mission organization since 2008. Now I'm using it to help you achieve the life you WANT to live. Not the life somebody else thinks you should live. The life YOU want to live. Whether that's becoming the best in your field, growing a business, or just learning how to pursue your goals, I'm committed to helping you.

I'm excited to help you on your journey.