Beginning Again… (Part 1)

 

We all have different phases or seasons of our lives. Some of these seasons are brought on by choices that we make and others are brought on by circumstances beyond our control. When our kids were little they were my thing. I didn’t enter into motherhood until I was 33. (Hence the high level of estrogen in my system and the subsequent bout with cancer, but I digress) I was so ready to be a mom and I jumped in with both feet. I had worked for our church for several years in the youth department and knew with all my heart that upon the arrival of our daughter that I wanted to stay home and be with her. So I did. Two years later our son came along and our family felt complete. Oh we had our issues, don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of life being lived in those years including a couple of miscarriages and the sudden passing of my brother in law, Tony. But overall I felt comfortable in my role as mommy and tender of our home.

When we moved to Coos Bay my world got a little bigger as we got involved in a new church and made new friends. This is when I met Aimee. We were just beginning to get to know each other when she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. I had never known anyone with cancer so I wasn’t real sure how to proceed but we just hit it off. In the end our families kind of adopted each other. For two and a half years we did everything together. Friday nite pizza nites, birthdays, holidays, fishing, boating … you name it, we did it. But again there was reality mixed in as there were surgeries, treatments, and a gazillion trips to Portland for various tests and checkups. In the end God chose to heal Aimee by bringing her home to him. That was a huge blow as my desire was for earthly healing and for us to raise our kids together and hit the road proclaiming God’s grace and mercy and provision to anyone and everyone that would listen. It also marked the end of another season for me.

At this point in our lives the kids were now in school and Mr. Wonderful needed more help in getting our business off the ground so I entered the world of business owner and set myself to the task of relieving some of the pressure from his shoulders as well as educating myself in ways to become a successful entrepreneur. This was also the season when we discovered Dave Ramsey and his principles on debt free living as well as a book he wrote called Entreleadership. Mr Wonderful describes our little world as a ship. Our ship had been sailing in the wrong direction and was in danger of running aground. In the proccess of learning how to more effectively run our business and to immediately cut off going into more debt, our ship began to get further away from the shoreline and in fact began the slow process of turning around and heading in the right direction.

With new vision there is hope of what can be. I had a role in our business but it was one that kept me behind a desk all day and working with forms and documents. Well, I am not much of a forms and documents kind of girl and I was so on fire with the improvements that we were making that I just wanted to share it with others and see if what we were learning could benefit them as much as it was benefiting us. It was about that time that I read a book by Jon Acuff called Start. It was all about stepping out and doing something, anything that gave you momentum. The idea is that once you are moving in a direction, the way you should go becomes more clear. I wanted to make a bigger impact. I wanted to affect change in peoples lives and the most obvious thing at the time was to join my husband at the helm and get certified to be a financial advisor. So I began with life and health insurance licensing and went on to study for and pass the series 7 exam. I was flying high at this point because the series 7  was the biggest challenge I had ever taken on and I won.

I began devouring everything that I could get my hands on as far as becoming a successful entrepreneur was concerned. Good To Great by Jim Collins, podcasts by Chris Locurto (which eventually led to a coaching session with him), Michael Hyatt , Andy Stanley and of course the Entreleadership podcast. I was a sponge and I wanted to be the best we could be so that we could effect the most change in peoples lives and help them to become the best they could be. We hired a business coach and created a strategic plan to move the business to the next level. We implemented the plan, remodeled the office and then got diagnosed with breast cancer.

 

To Be Continued….

 

 

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