Confessions of a Rehab Addict | Nicole Curtis | TEDxDetroit

[Music] well I have to tell you when I said I was coming here today there was a huge discussion amongst my crew specifically my eldest son who's now 21 years old and it wasn't about what are you gonna talk about because I'm nicknamed the filibuster it was simply what are you gonna wear and my son said I know what you're thinking not that shirt not the jeans and definitely not the work boots however you always want to be you and this is me they tell you to dress for success and I have to tell you this is what I look like as success they tell you to go after the job and where the JA wears something for the job that you want not necessarily the job you have but to me the work boots the jeans the ready - ready Detroit t-shirt and the jeans shirt this represents the job that I never knew I wanted and the job that I'm so grateful that I worked so hard to create I'm gonna take you back about ten years ago everyone recalled 2007-2008 in Detroit those years were not great I was hustling I had a cleaning business it was called mrs. clean and company it wasn't cuz I was a missus never was never happened don't know what the future holds but mrs. clean sounded a little better than Miss clean I was hustling doing these houses because I found it away to help pay for my early met her elementary education degree and it also got me in my first house a little bungalow in Ferndale and I had a small son so I was hustling cleaning houses and all of a sudden everywhere we looked people were losing not only their jobs but their houses so you certainly couldn't afford a house cleaner if you didn't have a job and you definitely didn't need wine if you didn't have a house so I stuck him in a position where I was like I don't know what I'm going to do and then a twist in my life took me to Minneapolis Minnesota now I packed out my Ranger pickup truck with about ninety five thousand miles on two dogs one little fourth-grader and we moved to a place where we knew no one Minneapolis was still booming it was hit by the recession a little bit but everything was still going well real estate what I was interested in was still doing very well because that was my passion for years I had been in all these people's homes seeing all this go on and I'm like I'm not just the person scrubbing your floors I actually know about this stuff but it fell on deaf ears because I was simply the house cleaner I got to Minneapolis and I thought you know what would be really great if I got a real job a salary benefits predictability a whole fresh start so I put together a resume a brilliant resume because I went to school and majored in English so it had a lot of truths and some stretched out truth but I looked great I knew I just needed to kick that door open right and then my god-given talent of this the big mouth should do the rest of the work I got a third interview for what I thought was my dream job it was to be on the target corporate commercial design team and target is headquartered in Minneapolis Minnesota and I was sitting in my car doing the interview with what I pictured to be maybe 23 maybe 24 year old Human Resources recruiter on the other end and I'm talking and all since she just cuts me off and she says you know what you're just not a good fit I don't think you're a good fit for target I just don't think you're a good fit for this team so thank you very much as she hangs up and my heart stopped I had banked everything on getting this job like there wasn't an idea out there of me not having this job what was I going to do now and I lost it the rains coming down on the windshield so anyone you know walking by didn't notice this blonde losing her mind in the car it just looked like this blur maybe like a rabid dog or something in there going crazy but I was just kept saying I'm not a good fit I'm not a good fit and I was getting angry and then I stopped and I thought about what would happen if I got that job one I'd be going to work every day before my child had to go to school which means he had to go to pre care and then after school he had to go to aftercare and then all those great things that I loved about having a child in elementary school and being a mommy the holiday parties the field trips if they need something if they just need a mommy hug and you can run up to school real quick and make them all better I wasn't gonna be able to do that anymore and more importantly I was gonna be sacrificing my creative soul for somebody else I was gonna be giving all my brilliant ideas over to them and they were gonna take credit for it and how was I going to keep moving on my dream of being a true bona fide real estate investor working 40 plus hours a week for somebody else so I sat up straight in my car and I thought damn straight I'm not a good fit I am NOT a good fit I drove home I put together the most brilliant business plan and I put it out on Craigslist I was hustling myself for $100 a pop doing kitchen designs kitchen color palettes everything you could dream of design in a house I got my real estate license in Minneapolis and nobody in Minneapolis might be selling real estate because it was slow and I was hustling every deal I could do I was selling antique furniture that I found in my neighbor's garbage on Craigslist and if they came by and they whispered the words shabby chic as they were loading my furniture back up another truck I'd be like yeah bring it back that's not going home with you cuz you can't paint it I was a hustler but most importantly I had my eye on the prize I bought my first house in Minneapolis to flip at the time and I went in there with my little guy right by my side and we did it we were really hustling with it and I got a call from a production assistant saying hey could you come in and do this cameo about real estate for a TV show and I walked in and they showed me this pretty little house that they absolutely gutted it was an old house and he took out the kitchen and they put in everything that I hate about it and I sat there and I said oh my gosh this is the most horrific thing I've ever seen so he said that's not what you're supposed to say just say something nice and I said I can't like this is horrible and he says who are you everyone wants to be on TV just do what you're told so he brought in somebody else and it was the owner of the production company Jon Kushner and he said to me he said I'm sorry what do you do because I didn't look the part that one day I didn't look like me I had on a black skirt a black vest even pearls and heels and I said I take old houses and I restore them I have a child he's always along with me and this is what we do it's our family business so he said if I show up with a camera tomorrow this is what you're going to be doing absolutely and they did they showed up they filmed me they left never heard from them again complete crickets so fast-forward about six months later I got a call they had sold my show I didn't even know I had a show I was like this is the most brilliant day ever that was in 2010 we went to work right away and within a few minutes time I was like please ditch the I'm going to like a bad wedding here and make up I don't want everyone crowding around me I want to be part of the production team I want to drive this train and I did and my crew and I went to work and we saved some brilliant houses in Minneapolis and it kept getting picked up season after season and all along I'm wearing these Detroit Rock's t-shirts and people kept saying what's with the Detroit stuff like Detroit why Detroit because all they ever saw is fires and crime and yuck and yuck and I was like glowing from there so I had all the success going on but it was bittersweet because I wasn't home in May of 2013 a tweet went out saying that Detroit was selling fire houses and I thought this is it I'm going home so I wrote a brilliant proposal to the network and I said we're gonna take the show to Detroit I'm gonna build a fire house I came to Detroit I saw the fire houses there wasn't even a fire pole in the firehouse this didn't make sense to me it wasn't a good fit and I was freaking out because I had already sold this show there dude he already sold the idea of Detroit so one name came to mine her name's Rosie and Rosie was what we like to call superfan she didn't just email she wrote letters about this house she hid so I made a quick call to her I stopped by and saw the house and it was my Campbell Street house all that was left was a front facade everything was burnt down and there was a burnt-out house leaning on top of the house no idea how we were gonna do this one and here I was gonna risk my own money in this house but we needed a house a month later we brought the show back to Detroit this was the pinnacle moment where I had to decide play it safe stay in Minneapolis or risk it all and come back to Detroit and this was the old Detroit mind you not that polished one with the coffee shops in the trendy areas we brought it back we rocked that house out and we went from this little tiny show to number one our Campbell Street house was seen on a global thing and often people were like Detroit that's where you have that house we want to go see that it was such an empowering moment because it was me making that decision that wasn't so financially secure but if I had played it safe we would have never gone to the successful level that we reached I had to come back to Detroit I had to feel and work where my home was and most importantly where my family was from my grandparents that were always on the show and came and saw the set they my grandmother grew up in an orphanage just down the street on Jefferson my grandfather when he came out of World War two they bought their house in Detroit so doing all this it took my business to another level and it took my heart and my passion so I say that I created this job because long ago when I was searching for that real job there was no lady contractor or does a TV show who randomly travels the world speaking about Detroit and all of her passions and old houses I just had to create it and I had to mold it and over the years that is the one thing I've worked on I was so driven to be a financial success that after the show got rolling I forgot the reasons that we were doing it and one day I realized I got all the money I could ever imagine having in my pocket it's time to step back and put it back to really where I want to be and that's where we're at right now putting the passion back into it and living for the joy in life rather than for the dollar I took a hiatus for the last two years from the show because we all needed a break I lost my grandparents in the past few years I had a second baby we lost a little test out on our crew and I wasn't sure if I wanted to come back and I have a lot of friends here today that kept pushing me and they said when you're ready we're gonna have your back so most recently I was asked to come out to LA to shoot on a show and I said I don't want to go and I was pushed to go again I jumped out in front of that camera and I teared up and I thought my god I'm back I feel like me again so I called my Network executive and I said three words I said I'm coming back and he said great where are we gonna film and I said where are we gonna film are you being serious Detroit it's a good fit it's the only fit for me so it's taken me that long to realize that when you chase the dollar you end up getting to a point where life is no longer joyful and when you finally get to that point where you can say I'm going to take back the reins and you move forward and you find the joy in life than it is and that's where I am today and that's what this job this look has created for me thank you so much for your time [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 207,214

Rating: 4.9020357 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Career, Design, Purpose

Id: oHZcsXk3pEA

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020