Goals are a bit like pearls.
One thing has to get inside your mind to encourage you to do what you by no means thought potential.
For pearls to be made, an irritant should discover its approach contained in the shell of its host.
For people, that “irritant” may be ardour or goal. For mollusks (e.g., oysters and mussels), parasites, crabs or worms can get into the liner of the shell and trigger irritation. A liquid substance coats the irritant, which hardens to grow to be a pearl over time.
The wonder that outcomes from a mollusk’s inside battle can take years. For Matt Harris, it took half a lifetime.
As one of many world’s most sought-after pearl specialists, his ascent didn’t occur in a single day. And it didn’t occur with out many “irritants” coming into his mind earlier than he discovered the profession he was destined for.
Discovering a brand new ardour
When he turned 50, Harris had a job he favored “simply wonderful” and was making good cash, however he wasn’t fulfilled. Change could be arduous, but it surely’s even more durable, he admits, “the older you get, when you’ve got mortgages and payments.”
Fortunately, he is aware of arduous could be straightforward when it’s the suitable factor for you.
Having completed all the pieces from conducting on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas, and promoting wonderful artwork to managing all of Warner Brothers’ West Coast retail shops and operating his personal software program firm, Harris’ niche-fluid profession helped him grow to be a lifelong learner.
So, it was no shock that, in getting ready for his marriage ceremony, he volunteered to analysis a subject that fascinated him.
“My spouse and I made a decision to get pearls for the bridesmaids, however neither of us knew purchase them,” he recollects. As a result of he’d accompanied his mother to her jewellery making lessons when he was a baby, he was comfy strolling into a store on the California Jewellery Mart in Los Angeles and asking the ladies working there in the event that they’d train him Chinese language pearl stringing, which makes use of silk and carefully knit knots. “They thought it was the cutest factor on the planet,” he says, “so I realized string this conventional silk methodology.”
When his software program firm reached its 20-year mark, he moved to Napa Valley with the intention of constructing a vineyard however says he felt stagnant.
“At a sure level later, I’m like, ‘The place did the hearth go?’” he says. “It wasn’t that I used to be in unhealthy form. It’s simply that I obtained comfy, and I spotted I didn’t wish to be mediocre anymore, so I needed to reignite that.”
Reigniting the hearth
The hearth returned when Harris moved to Austin, Texas, and began promoting his pearl creations at an area jewellery retailer. He satisfied the proprietor to let him handle the shop and earn 50% of the income if he doubled their income.
After quadrupling their income—and having reached a milestone birthday—he says he requested himself, “Do I wish to die being generally known as a extremely nice jewellery retailer supervisor, or do I wish to depart a mark? One thing folks can bear in mind me by—one thing that my daughter can bear in mind me by and say, ‘My dad did that.’”
Seems, the mark he needed to depart was sitting in his drawers. With hundreds of collected pearls, Harris realized pearls had a narrative to be instructed, but nobody was telling it in a approach that did them justice.
“There was nobody person who was the particular person,” he says. “It appeared like there’s this spot open, and it appeared prefer it was ready for me.”
Just a few years and lots of movie star and journey experiences later, Harris has discovered his goal. He has some recommendation for dwelling the life you had been meant to dwell.
Discover your 2.0
Harris attributes his shifts to The Tremendous Connector Mastermind run by Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield. Within the 2.0 train, the place attendees had been requested to think about themselves a yr into the longer term, he remembers questions like: “How do you are feeling?” and “What does it appear like?”
“I noticed myself talking about pearls in unique areas like Tahiti, the place quite a lot of pearls come from,” he says. “And I noticed myself being recognized within the trade… because the man that’s instructing folks about pearls.”
Harris 2.0 was born.
Take a leap of religion in your self
When Harris realized of a convention in Tahiti for jewelers touring pearl farms, he requested to talk about the historical past of pearls. He obtained the gig.
He didn’t have a speech written or expertise however nonetheless pitched himself as the suitable particular person for the job.
“There’s a saying that I like: ‘Argue for your limitations, and positive sufficient, they’re yours,’” Harris says. “If I might have had the slightest thought that I couldn’t have landed that, then I wouldn’t have requested. So, I did. And earlier than you realize it, someone says, ‘Oh, Matt, you’re talking [in] Tahiti?… Why don’t you converse over right here?’”
A yr later, he’s in a video in regards to the historical past of pearls proven on all Air Tahiti Nui flights—all as a result of “I obtained into 2.0, and I believed that I might do it. And that’s sort of like that leap of religion in your self.”
Don’t be afraid to ask
When Harris began designing jewellery as a passion—lengthy earlier than he launched into it full-time—he emailed everybody he knew, asking if anybody knew actress Debra Messing, who he thought would look good in one in all his necklaces.
A buddy who Harris shares wine tastings with responded. “He says, ‘I don’t know if you realize this, as a result of we don’t speak enterprise over wine, however I’m a photographer for NBC, and I work on the Will & Grace present.’”
Harris gave that buddy a necklace for Messing, and her wardrobe particular person referred to as, asking to fulfill. After designing for Messing for 2 seasons of the present, he requested her to attach him with Britney Spears, who was going to be a visitor on an upcoming episode.
“Britney then requested if I might make a necklace and earring set for her,” Harris says. “For those who don’t ask, you’re by no means going to get it…. With a view to have the braveness to ask, you must imagine that you simply’re the individual that can do it…. You might be your 2.0.”
This text initially appeared within the March/April 2025 challenge of SUCCESS journal. Picture courtesy of Matt Harris Designs.
