Ponte Vedra Beach author shares sweet road to happiness
Abby Vega found happiness through a Sno-Cone truck.
The Ponte Vedra Beach resident retired from her sales and marketing vice president position for good a few years ago to run the Sno-Cone truck. The next eleven months running the business was a process in reinventing herself. That experience led her to write her second book- titled Sno-Cone Diaries-and become a motivational speaker to women between the ages of 40 and 60 also transitioning out of motherhood.
“I just wanted to change how I was feeling as a woman. You know, how you hit a midlife crisis-empty nesting, mother passing away, a dear friend of mine at 53 passed away and they never got to fulfill the dreams that they had,” said Vega. “So, it was like what was I waiting for?…I just needed to do something fun and interesting and totally different, and I think through that I will find what my life purpose is.”
Owning a Sno-Cone business is Vega’s childhood dream. She grew up in Baltimore with the trucks on every corner, and always wanted to have one of her own.
As an adult that was replaced with a drive to excel in a corporate career. She was the vice president of sales and marketing for large corporations and business start-ups, as well as owned an executive coaching business.
However, that drive started to dwindle with the death of her mother and close friend. She realized how much life she missed while focusing on a corporate career and family, and turned back to her childhood dream as a way to earn a living while spending time with the people she cared about the most.
Her book Sno-Cone Diaries details some of the people she got to know and the challenges in running a mobile business. She had to figure out how to apply her skills in sales and marketing to her own start-up, and get over her presumed judgment about running a mobile business from neighbors and peers.
The truck also gave her a sense of community. She booked spots to sell Sno-Cones at high school sports games, charity events and local church events. She donated 20 to 30 percent of her profits at each event to charity.
She even touched the lives of a New Jersey family through the truck. At the request of the mother, she drove the truck to a drug rehab facility in Georgia for the son’s 21st birthday. He later wrote the foreword to her book, and said that her visit showed him that his family still cared and helped him graduate from the facility.
Vega is now using the book as a platform for motivational speaking opportunities in front of women going through a similar situation. After she self-published the book in 2016, she got emails and letters from women who are also going through an empty-nest home and need to change careers. Vega said that all of the feedback was gratitude for knowing that they weren’t the only one going through that uncertainty.
Vega plans to continue to write books. She’s currently working on one about how she mentored a corporate team to a promotion. She said that through her career, running the Sno-Cone truck and writing the book, she felt the happiest when she was guiding others. She hopes to do the same thing through her books and speaker presentations.
The book can be purchased through amazon.com or through abby-vega.com.
Tiffanie Reynolds: (904) 359-4450
