Elizabeth Werner had her life all planned out: studying political science, going to law school, and fulfilling her dream of becoming a lawyer for life. Then a chance event changed her whole life.

After having great national and international internship immersion experiences in a variety of areas of law, Elizabeth was hooked; she had found a career path she loved where she could help people and use her love of research and communication. She moved to Maryland with her family due to her then husband’s career as a product inventor. He need someone to talk on QVC about a product that he had invented, and since she was waiting for her bar exam results, Elizabeth agreed to do it. She fell in love with being on live TV; it had so many parallels with law, from the amount of research involved to properly understand the product to always thinking about how to answer questions and present information in the most positive way possible. She wasn’t ready to give up her career in law, so for a couple of months, she just collected business cards of manufacturers who were requesting her to promote their products. One gigantic stack of cards later, she realized that this could be a career of its own and started calling manufacturers. One of the best pieces of advice she received during this new part of her career was that as a new mom, she’d easily be able to connect with that audience; taking that to heart, she decided to become a toy expert!

As a toy expert, her job is widely varied depending on the time of year. She spends the first part of the year testing and evaluating new products. Then there’s a whirlwind of research, interviews, and traveling to talk with manufacturers and then she shares her findings on air. In July and around the holidays, it’s especially busy because of Christmas in July at QVC and the holiday shopping rush. Her favorite aspect of her job is getting to see the joy in kids’ and parents’ faces that comes from opening the perfect toy; it truly makes everything worth it.

Her main piece of advice for young women is to never close your eyes to opportunities that may arise. Many people tend to set a rigid path for themselves and are afraid to wander from it; Werner thinks that the best thing you can do is explore the paths that you come across because you never know how positively life changing it might be. She never dreamed she’d have a career on live TV, but if she hadn’t allowed her path to shift, she wouldn’t have found her dream career.

Contributor: Megha Keshav