nola is an inspiration to all of us who have ever thought about changing career and about discovering our passion.

She is an example too, of how to persue that passion and turn a romantic notion into an enthusiastic zest for life.

If you have ever wanted to do anything that you thought was not possible then Nola's journey is worth reading.

This is her story...

 Nola Diamantopoulos, 42, threw in her corporate position in the oil industry five years ago to become an artist - something she had a passion for, but not a clue about.

Her income immediately fell from $160 an hour to minus $5 an hour. Nothing, however, was going to stop this dynamo of a woman from pursuing her new journey, and succeeding. "One lucky attitude I have is, if I want to achieve something, I don't have any self-limiting beliefs." she says.

Today, from an old fire station building in Sydney's Rozelle, she runs Mosaic Madness and Art For Strictly Beginners. She also holds corporate workshop days where she encourages others to break out and discover the artist within themselves.

Explaining her background, Diamantopoulos says she grew up "in that wonderful wog era time, which was confusing. My parents were Greek, I was Australian-born, I wasn't considered Greek by the Greek community because I was a skip [Skippy], and to Australians I was a wog. Still, it was character-building."

"My parents ran milk bars and delis and believed strongly in education. Our social life was music, dancing and sport, never art. I had no interest in art, I never even tried to paint or draw until five years ago." Instead, she studied accountancy, and went on to become group tax manager at Ampolex, the oil exploration arm for Ampol, since taken over by Mobil.

"It involved local tax and a lot of travel as a tax lobbyist to China, South America and Papua New Guinea. I had a great time, I wasn't disillusioned, but the day came when I realised it was a full-on corporate job, not a life, that I was living. So I started thinking sideways: what do I really want to do? Then I realised the real question was: what kind of a person do I want to be?"

Diamantopoulos's first attempts at art had occurred a year earlier. She had become godmother to a baby boy and decided to give icons to the relatives as her traditional gift. Instead of simply buying them, she decided she would try to paint the icons herself. Her initial efforts were disastrous, but she became intrigued with the process. "I decided I wanted to be an artist. I didn't know why, I only knew it felt right, and I had a desire to learn, a driving passion," she says.

Money wasn't a big issue. She was single, had no children, owned a house and had received a sizeable pay-out on leaving her job. "My parents were more worried than I was, but I assured them that with my business background, there was no way I was going to be a starving artist," she says. "My mindset was to be a successful one."

Diamantopoulos worked hard at it: she read books about artists who'd started later in life, and she took classes. "At first the drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics I made were pretty bad, but then it all clicked and I got better and better. I found that the creative attitude I had in business and entertaining transferred into art." She soon found countless other people wanted to break out of their situation, "So I started my Mosaic Madness workshops and Art For strictly Beginners classes, and discovered I loved teaching and motivating people. So many started to come along that I bought the old fire station to use as my studio and run classes with other teachers."

Diamantopoulos says she still feels the same person, "but I'm now able to express myself as I want, instead of thinking I shouldn't be doing this or that because I'm in the corporate world. There's a certain code of behaviour there. Yes, I have a serious side, but I like to mix deep thinking with a lot of fun, and in the corporate world you have to he careful of perceptions - if they only see the fun side of you, you lose your credibility."

She's increasingly discovering, however, "that most people don't know what their passion is. That's both sad and frightening. These people feel half-empty and are looking for something, but they can't identify what because they've never unlocked all that self-limiting stuff and exposed themselves to enough new opportunities." A fervent advocate of positive thinking, she adds: "The message I give everyone is, you can do or be whatever you want in your own life. Nothing can stop you, except your own fears. Don't blame anyone else ... I couldn't do this because of my mother, husband ... you have the power to make the decision. Just do it. Get a life."