Desires are a bit like pearls.
One thing has to get inside your mind to encourage you to do what you by no means thought attainable.
For pearls to be made, an irritant should discover its approach contained in the shell of its host.
For people, that “irritant” is likely to be ardour or objective. 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 turn into a pearl over time.
The sweetness that outcomes from a mollusk’s inner 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 effective” and was making good cash, however he wasn’t fulfilled. Change could be exhausting, but it surely’s even tougher, he admits, “the older you get, when you might have mortgages and payments.”
Fortunately, he is aware of exhausting could be straightforward when it’s the correct factor for you.
Having achieved the whole lot from conducting on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas, and promoting effective artwork to managing all of Warner Brothers’ West Coast retail shops and working his personal software program firm, Harris’ niche-fluid profession helped him turn into a lifelong learner.
So, it was no shock that, in getting ready for his wedding 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 easy methods to 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 educate him Chinese language pearl stringing, which makes use of silk and carefully knit knots. “They thought it was the cutest factor on the earth,” he says, “so I discovered easy methods to string this conventional silk technique.”
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 fireplace go?’” he says. “It wasn’t that I used to be in dangerous form. It’s simply that I bought comfy, and I spotted I didn’t need to be mediocre anymore, so I needed to reignite that.”
Reigniting the fireplace
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 earnings if he doubled their income.
After quadrupling their income—and having reached a milestone birthday—he says he requested himself, “Do I need to die being referred to as a very nice jewellery retailer supervisor, or do I need to depart a mark? One thing individuals can keep in mind me by—one thing that my daughter can keep in mind me by and say, ‘My dad did that.’”
Seems, the mark he needed to depart was sitting in his drawers. With 1000’s 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 individual,” he says. “It appeared like there’s this spot open, and it appeared prefer it was ready for me.”
A couple of years and plenty of superstar and journey experiences later, Harris has discovered his objective. He has some recommendation for residing 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 12 months into the long run, he remembers questions like: “How do you’re feeling?” and “What does it appear to be?”
“I noticed myself talking about pearls in unique areas like Tahiti, the place numerous pearls come from,” he says. “And I noticed myself being recognized within the trade… because the man that’s educating individuals about pearls.”
Harris 2.0 was born.
Take a leap of religion in your self
When Harris discovered of a convention in Tahiti for jewelers touring pearl farms, he requested to talk about the historical past of pearls. He bought the gig.
He didn’t have a speech written or expertise however nonetheless pitched himself as the correct individual for the job.
“There’s a saying that I really like: ‘Argue for your limitations, and certain sufficient, they’re yours,’” Harris says. “If I’d 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 understand it, anyone says, ‘Oh, Matt, you’re talking [in] Tahiti?… Why don’t you converse over right here?’”
A 12 months later, he’s in a video concerning the historical past of pearls proven on all Air Tahiti Nui flights—all as a result of “I bought into 2.0, and I believed that I may 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 among his necklaces.
A buddy who Harris shares wine tastings with responded. “He says, ‘I don’t know if you understand this, as a result of we don’t discuss 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 individual known 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 may make a necklace and earring set for her,” Harris says. “If you happen to don’t ask, you’re by no means going to get it…. With the intention to have the braveness to ask, it’s important to consider that you simply’re the person who can do it…. You might be your 2.0.”
This text initially appeared within the March/April 2025 concern of SUCCESS journal. Photograph courtesy of Matt Harris Designs.
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