Living the life you want often means making some big changes. For Cassie Johnson, that meant a change of career. Regardless of how outside the boundaries of reason others thought her decision to give up a steady paycheck and trade it for a commission-based income sounded, Johnson trusted in the vision of who, what, and where she wanted to be in the future and took the leap to sell real estate full time.

Last August, Johnson was taking online classes through UM-Western and teaching K-2 students at Zurich Elementary School. She was on a path to becoming certified as a teacher, believing that...