Category Archives: Inspiration
Three Steps, No Failure
When asked about her extraordinary success, recording artist and motivational performer Jana Stanfield said, “I believe in the power of small steps to create great changes.”
Jana left a lucrative career as a broadcast journalist and moved to Nashville to pursue her dream of securing a recording contract. While waiting for her breakthrough, she signed up for voice lessons and took classes in song-writing, stand-up comedy and dance. She took advantage of Open-Mic nights and sang for free in the evenings. With the help of a small producer, she made a few recordings.
None of the record companies were interested.
Continue reading on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog.
Happy National Day of Encouragement
The first proclamation for the Day of Encouragement was made by Mayor Belinda LaForce of Searcy, Arkansas on August 22, 2007. In September, Governor Mike Beebe of Arkansas signed a proclamation making September 12, 2007 the “State Day of Encouragement” for Arkansas. Later, President George W. Bush also signed a message making September 12 the official “National Day of Encouragement.”
Here are ten of my favorite quotes about encouragement…
“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” Alexander Graham Bell
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas A. Edison
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” C.S. Lewis
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” William James
Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment. Stephen Covey
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt
“If you dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.” Walt Disney
“Everything will be okay in the end.
If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.”
Ed Sheeran
A Message for All Teachers
Honoring Saint Teresa of Kolkata (Mother Teresa)
It’s official.
Earlier today, Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint at a mass in St. Peter’s Square. Two miraculous cures of the sick after Mother Teresa’s death in 1997 have been attributed to her intercession.
Born Agnes Goinsha to Albanian parents, Mother Teresa dedicated her life to helping the poor. She began her charitable work in the slums of Calcutta and later founded the order of Missionaries of Charity. Today, that network has grown to over 4,500 nuns, operating nursing homes, orphanages, hospices, and other programs around the world.
Honored by many world and religious leaders including Pope John Paul II, Indira Gandhi, and Queen Elizabeth, Mother Teresa has also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1979) and Congressional Gold Medal (1997).
My favorite quotations from Saint Teresa…
Peace begins with a smile.
In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
Some people come in your life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
You have never really loved until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
If you do something out of duty, it will deplete you. But if you do something out of love, it will energize you.
Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Black Belt at 72
“The journey was the cake. The black belt was the icing.”
That’s not the comment you would expect to hear from someone who has achieved the highest belt rank in karate. But then 72-year-old Gloria Smith is not the typical karate practitioner.
A quick look at her back-story…
• Eight years ago, Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery and radiation treatments.
• One year later, she retired from teaching at age 65 and decided to take up Tai Chi at the Academy of Martial Arts in Mississauga, Ontario.
• Two years later, she noticed a promotion for an eight-week class in karate. She signed up and was hooked by the end of the course.
While on the five-year journey…
“The more I got into it, the more I realized that martial artists are more than just people who can take a punch and roll on the floor and stuff like that. It’s a total way of life. You learn discipline, courtesy, respect.
“Nobody ever once said to me, ‘You’re too old.’ ‘You can’t keep up.”
This past Sunday, Smith celebrated this spectacular achievement with her husband and son. In a recent Toronto Star article, she stressed that her journey isn’t finished. She will continue training to move up the degrees of black-belt status.
Head instructor Ian Jay added his own congratulations: “There’s nobody who’s achieved their first-degree black belt in their 70s within our schools, so that’s very rare. This was new territory. She’s doing something that no one else has done.”
BTW…There are about 3,000 students enrolled in the Academy’s schools.
Takeaway for new retirees and wannabe second acters…
• Structure your days.
• Take note of all God-nudges and God-winks. If an announcement or brochure catches your attention, pursue it.
• Enjoy the journey!!
Source: Toronto Star, August 29, 2016
Achieving F.O.C.U.S
While journaling (and complaining) about my lack of focus, I received an email inviting me to a webinar featuring best-selling author and educator D’Vorah Lansky. Intrigued by the title—“5 Time-Generating Secrets to Get More Done and Have More Fun!”—I signed up and took notes as I watched and listened.
I paid special attention to D’Vorah’s acronym for F.O.C.U.S.
Fine Tune Your Projects List
Optimize Your Email
Concentrate on What’s Essential
Unplug and Take Time to Recharge
Streamline Your Social Media Systems
Here are D’Vorah’s suggestions:
1. Gather all To-Do lists and create a Master Projects List. Set deadlines for completion and organize the items chronologically.
2. Schedule specific email-checking times during the time. Use a timer if you are easily distracted.
3. Create folders—Receipts, Writing Ideas, Publishers—and tag each incoming email accordingly. Only emails that require immediate attention should remain in the In-Box.
4. Identify your most productive times during the day. Do not check your emails during these times.
5. Clean your desk or work area at the end of each day and make a list of the six most important things that must be completed the following day. Leave the list on your desk and discipline yourself to attend to each item.
6. Factor in “fun time” each day. It could be as simple as taking a fifteen-minute dance break, playing with your cats, or having coffee at your favorite café. Setting aside time each week for a longer activity such as a movie, lunch with a friend, or “Blow with the wind” time is also important. When we recharge regularly, we can stay energized even during the toughest of times.
7. Schedule fifteen-minute blocks of daily social networking time. On the weekends, set aside a one-hour block to roam online.
Any other tips?
Happy Serendipity Day!
Today is Serendipity Day, an officially recognized annual event and special day to celebrate unexpected and much appreciated grace.
Here of ten of my favorite quotations about serendipitous events…
The universe is always speaking to us…sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more. Nancy Thayer
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery. Jeff Bezos
Life is full of surprises and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns on the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure—do it well, enjoy it—and then, not now, think about what comes next. Dr. Condoleezza Rice
Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked. Elizabeth Berg
Unless you leave room for Serendipity…How can the Divine enter? Joseph Campbell
History is an intricate web of timing, people, circumstances and serendipity. Don Rittner
In reality, serendipity accounts for one percent of the blessings we receive in life, work and love. The other 99 percent is due to our efforts. Peter McWilliams
Serendipity: Look for something, find something else and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.
Lawrence Block
What people call serendipity is just having your eyes open. Jose Manuel Barroso
If you use it intelligently, Twitter can be a form of engineered serendipity. Jason Silva
Small Doses of Inspiration
While I enjoy attending workshops and lectures, sometimes I need inspiration in smaller doses.
During my teaching years, I would pop my head in a neighboring classroom and chat briefly between periods. Those three to five minutes of conversation would be all that I needed to receive (give) encouragement and support.
As a writer, I have to think outside the box if I want that small dose of inspiration. I could call a friend or family member, but the conversation could easily extend beyond five minutes and derail my daily writing practice.
I found the solution in the most unlikely of places—YouTube.
Continue reading on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog.
Dare to Think Big
Welcome to my Second Acts Series!
Today, we have author Nancy Raven Smith sharing her rich and varied life experiences.
Here’s Nancy!
The first stage of my adult life was all about family and animals, animals, animals. The animals included rescued racehorses, cats, and dogs. Luckily, I convinced my husband to move to a farm in rural Virginia against his wishes. At one point we had 28 rescue horses, 12 cats, 10 dogs, and a cow. And it’s not like we were rich. My husband was a Lieutenant JG in the US Navy. I was a stay at home mom raising two young kids, but I soon began running horse shows to help with our finances. We were also very fortunate to have two wonderful teenagers spend their time with us, trading babysitting for riding lessons. They quickly became part of our family.
It was a great life – kids, animals, the outdoors, and competing in area horse shows.
But then came the day that the kids all grew up and we arrived at empty nest syndrome. The fun went out of the animals, the farm and the competitions. I struggled to keep it going, but it wasn’t the same. It all came to an abrupt end when our oldest daughter and I went to a horse show on one of her college breaks. We were warming our horses up for the show when one of us said to the other, “Are we having fun anymore?” It was a shocking question because the answer was no. To this day we don’t remember which of us asked it, but the realization was gut-wrenching. It was the last time we showed our horses.
Our daughter went back to school. I was left with no idea what to do with my life.
So I cried for a year – in grief for the loss of a life I loved, and in fear of an empty future with nothing to replace it. My family was supportive and put up with me. For that year, I kept asking myself, what can I do with my life? I like being passionate and challenged daily, but I had no training for anything specific. Finally at the end of that year, I reversed the question I was asking myself. Instead of “What can I do,” I flipped it to, “If I could do anything in the world I wanted, what would I do?”
With the change in the question, all sorts of possibilities started popping up. The craziest of which was work in film, not as an actor, but behind the scenes. I knew absolutely nothing about how one worked on a film, so I bought books and read avidly. There wasn’t any film work locally, so I fixated on going to Los Angeles. My husband was about to retire, and the change to California mildly interested him. I heard all the “you’re too old to be hired,” (late forties), “you’re crazy,” and from my own mother, “I hope you’ll fail, so you’ll come back to Virginia.” My husband and kids weren’t sure about the move either, but they gave me the encouragement to go for it.
Relocated in LA, I did temp work at first and took film production classes at UCLA. Within a couple weeks I was applying for film jobs. Then I landed one as a production assistant which had over 100 applicants for a nonpaying position. The job got my foot in the door, and I was soon hired on with a salary. It turned out that my running of horse shows as events correlated directly to working on a film. I had had no idea. Other jobs came rapidly after the first one. And then one day I picked up a script and read it. I had always been an avid reader, never considered myself as a writer, but something about the screenplay writing pulled me. I had to face another choice. Go to school to learn screenwriting or continue working on film as a production coordinator. Film projects are demanding. Eighteen to twenty hours a day are not uncommon. If I tried to do both, I would miss the majority of any classes I tried to attend. I could only do one. The writing won. There was something about it that pulled me.
It was back to office temp jobs that were nine to five and let me attend UCLA Extension nightly. I studied, I wrote, I won awards, my screenplays were optioned, but none produced yet. And then came another turning point. My writing mentor from Women in Film suggested I write one idea as a novel. I was starting to feel like I should ask UCLA for a discount, but it was back to school for more classes on novel writing. It was fortunate there was a large amount of crossover between screenplays and books.
What followed was Land Sharks – A Swindle in Sumatra (a mystery/romantic suspense) and The Reluctant Farmer of Whimsey Hill (a family memoir about life on our farm). What also happened was that I found that writing books was the place I wanted to be. The authors I met were great people and truly supportive. I had found my creative happy place. This was where all my steps had brought me and this is where I’m staying.
And my very special family? My husband and oldest daughter have both become writers and our youngest daughter is our greatest supporter.
My advice for those reaching their Second Stages – Dare to think big!
Nancy’s Books
A fall from grace costs Lexi a position at a top New York financial institution. She ends up in a job at a small private bank in Beverly Hills. But that’s okay, she still gets to work in her favorite field – catching white collar crooks. At least that’s what she tells herself. But when Karista, the daughter of one of the bank’s principal investors, runs into danger while traveling in Indonesia, Lexi’s job comes to depend on her ability to save her. Even worse, Lexi will have to baby sit Steve, her boss’ well-meaning but spoiled son, while going undercover to reach the heiress. Lexi’s cushy tropical assignment soon spirals into chaos as she has to outrun fashion-forward Batak natives, outwit an arrogant FBI agent, help Steve find his stolen Air Yeezy sneakers, and figure out why her ardent former lover and debonair gentleman thief, Andre, is staying at the same resort. Lexi will have to be very good or very lucky to survive it all.
In The Reluctant Farmer of Whimsey Hill, opposites attract; for better or for worse. That is what troubles animal-phobic, robotics engineer Smith who just got married. He learns that his bride’s dream is to have a farm where there are lots of animals and she can rescue ex-race horses to retrain and find them new homes. But according to a Meyers-Briggs Personality Test that they took for fun, their marriage is doomed. There is only one problem: the newlyweds took the test after the wedding.
Whether Smith is chasing a cow named Pork Chop through the woods with a rope, getting locked in a tack room by the family pony, being snubbed by his wife’s dog, or unsuccessfully trying to modernize their barn using the latest technology, the odds are stacked against him. It seems like everything with four legs is out to get him. Will the animals win, forcing Smith to admit defeat, or will he fight to keep his family and the farm together?
Enjoy the true, warm, and frequently hilarious stories of Smith’s journey along the bumpy road from his urban robotics lab to a new life on a rural Virginia farm.
Where to find Nancy…
Joanne here!
Nancy, thanks for sharing your inspiring journey. How wonderful to live, study and work in L.A. Best of luck with all your future endeavors.
Joanne Guidoccio 