Posted 3:47 p.m. Monday, March 4, 2013
Despite four recent surgeries and a scull fracture, UW-L Alumna Janet Sorensen has a positive outlook on life. She’s cultivated that outlook by providing a great view to others with her business, Anywhere Windows.
[caption id="attachment_3180" align="alignright" width="317"]
Janet Sorensen launched the business Anywhere Windows. She shoots photos, places them in a window frame and adds lights behind the image to replicate a real window view.[/caption]
Sorensen works diligently to make her windows appear like the real thing, placing small lights behind the image where the sun peeks above the horizon line or a crack in the clouds appears.[/caption]
“I believe if you give of a happy heart, the blessings you get in return will blow you away,” she says.
Sorensen has since built up her own business online with the help of Team National, a direct sales company that provides membership savings covering a variety of products and services in more than 20 different industries. She tapped into connections such as her former photography professor, Roger Grant, and skills she learned from UW-L’s Small Business Development Center such as website design, marketing and accounting.
But the road to growing a business has not been easy — especially on mornings when she woke up with such intense pain in her feet and legs from her surgeries she could do nothing but soak them in hot water.
“I gave up for a while. My body wanted to give up,” says Sorensen. “I will never give up again. I’m going to keep going.”
To motivate herself, she focuses on what she wants to achieve.
“If I focus on sickness, broken bones and a cracked hip, that’s what I’ll end up with,” she explains. “You focus not on the problem, but what can you do.”
She wants Anywhere Windows to go “viral.” She envisions her windows providing a view of home to military personnel or people living in nursing homes. She sees the windows lifting the spirits of people who are down and giving a view to those who don’t have one.
“God blesses me in strange ways,” she says. “I feel everything happens for a reason. You get what you seek if you are willing to work for it.”
Janet Sorensen launched the business Anywhere Windows. She shoots photos, places them in a window frame and adds lights behind the image to replicate a real window view.[/caption]
Alum overcomes pain, surgeries and launches business
Despite four recent surgeries and a scull fracture, Janet Sorensen wears a smile. She’s worked hard to have a positive outlook. And she’s done it — mainly by providing a great view to others. Sorensen, ’02, launched her business Anywhere Windows in 2010. She makes windows for windowless spaces — bringing anyone, anywhere a beautiful view. She takes high-resolution photos, places them behind real window frames and adds backlighting. Her bright idea, she says, started during a dark period of her life. After a accident about 12 years ago, Sorensen couldn’t physically do the lifting her job as a lab tech for Dairyland Power Cooperative required. The company supported her going back to school at UW-L to major in art with minors in photography and graphic arts. After she earned her degree, Sorensen says life was looking up. But then, she sneezed in April 2003 and a sharp pain in her body. What she initially thought was a pulled muscle, was really a shattered bone in her lower back, which was disrupting nerves. The initial problem was followed by four additional surgeries on her back, hip and spine. With so many surgeries, Sorensen says she was a high risk for employers and their insurance companies. Finding a job was tough. She was on disability and feeling defeated when the idea came to her for Anywhere Windows. Sorensen’s daughter was being deployed to Iraq and she wanted to give her a gift for her birthday. Her daughter wanted a view that would remind her of home. Sorensen put her artistic skills to the test and made her daughter her very first ‘’anywhere window’’ — a view of a sunset on her grandpa’s farm. Pleased with the result, Sorensen continued to make windows featuring country settings, flower gardens, lightening storms, bluffs and much more. She donated many, but when she realized the interest, she began to see how creating windows could be a business. [caption id="attachment_3190" align="alignright" width="550"] Sorensen works diligently to make her windows appear like the real thing, placing small lights behind the image where the sun peeks above the horizon line or a crack in the clouds appears.[/caption]
“I believe if you give of a happy heart, the blessings you get in return will blow you away,” she says.
Sorensen has since built up her own business online with the help of Team National, a direct sales company that provides membership savings covering a variety of products and services in more than 20 different industries. She tapped into connections such as her former photography professor, Roger Grant, and skills she learned from UW-L’s Small Business Development Center such as website design, marketing and accounting.
But the road to growing a business has not been easy — especially on mornings when she woke up with such intense pain in her feet and legs from her surgeries she could do nothing but soak them in hot water.
“I gave up for a while. My body wanted to give up,” says Sorensen. “I will never give up again. I’m going to keep going.”
To motivate herself, she focuses on what she wants to achieve.
“If I focus on sickness, broken bones and a cracked hip, that’s what I’ll end up with,” she explains. “You focus not on the problem, but what can you do.”
She wants Anywhere Windows to go “viral.” She envisions her windows providing a view of home to military personnel or people living in nursing homes. She sees the windows lifting the spirits of people who are down and giving a view to those who don’t have one.
“God blesses me in strange ways,” she says. “I feel everything happens for a reason. You get what you seek if you are willing to work for it.”
Learn more about Anywhere Windows
www.anywherewindows.com