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Make the best of a bad situation Photo by Craven Gwen LaShonse found that running her own Web-based business allowed her to work while dealing with a sometimes debilitating illness. By Shari Downhill Gwen LaShonse is a survivor with style. Opening her front door in a chic business suit and a smile, LaShonse gives no hint of the struggles she has fought to get to the place where she could smile. Making the transition from fast-paced corporate life to home-based business can be a welcome but difficult road for those who make the lifestyle change willingly. For others, like LaShonse, health concerns play a pivotal role in their choice. Some transitions work. Some don�t. So far, LaShonse has found a way to make it work, turning a personal Internet experience into the seed of an idea that grew into her own online business. LaShonse found her high wire corporate career as an employee broker in the San Francisco Bay area in peril three years ago after being diagnosed with vertigo, a debilitating dizziness which made everyday activity impossible. When the vertigo didn�t go away, LaShonse resigned and moved with her husband to Ashland into a house owned by her mother. While her husband found employment, the former professional ballet dancer continued to look for answers to her illness and a way to make a living. Her pirouettes became a dance of desperation. Though delicate in stature, LaShonse, 43, exhibited her tough determination in a relentless search for answers, both in business and in her fight for better health. She found hope in the former after maneuvering her way through a successful deal on e-bay, a popular Internet site for selling everything from cars to collectibles. "It was great," she said. "I thought, �This is easy. I like this Internet thing.�" LaShonse began developing a Web-based gift retailing business in July with seed money provided by her mother. Heart Felt Gifts went online in October. The items LaShonse carries in her catalogs reflect her tendency toward romance and flair. Home decorating items like Grecian statuettes and terra cotta angels are shipped by vendors, resulting in short turn-around times, she said. "I�ve been in retail and I know what it�s like to have inventory and to have it sit on your shelf," she said. "I didn�t want to invest in inventory." Conducting her business from home means LaShonse is able to face the world on her terms, when she feels well enough. And she can do it in slippers if she chooses. "I needed to do this in the security of my home," LaShonse said of her new venture. "The only pressure is from myself. I know the commitment of a full-time job with an employer. If I get up some morning and I want to put on a sweater and slippers and come in and get orders out to my customers, who�s to say what my dress code is but me?" LaShonse knows what it takes to succeed. By 19 she had developed a faithful following of 250 students after opening her own dance studio. She later moved into the corporate world as a headhunter, seeking out qualified applicants to fill jobs in the booming Bay area job market. After her move to Ashland, LaShonse researched ways to battle her illness and simultaneously bring her business to life. The answers to LaShonse�s affliction would come to her through a series of chance meetings Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.