Here’s how most Americans (maybe human beings in general) approach life:  If I just had (have) a larger income, better house, more time, better job, etc…  I would be able to do better vacations, give more to charity, etc…  and then I would have more joy, peace, fun, etc…

So when is enough “enough”?  what if we switch from Have-Do-Be to Be-Do-Have then…

We would decide who we are… I am a confident, joyful woman.  What would that kind of woman do, maybe give more, spend more time with friends, apply for that dream job (being confident and all)… and what would she have?  peace, joy happiness, better job, etc…

Approaching from Be-Do-Have allows you to have more/better faster because it focuses you on the doing from a position of having.  The other way you spend a lot of precious time waiting…

This is an important event that helps women in need with the business clothing that they need to return to the workforce.  Please support the downtown Boise drive October 1-8.  For more information, you can call Anne-Marie Lodge at (208) 388-4226.

Happy Birthday to Employers Resource!  We’re 25 years young!

Why is that significant.  Well, other than the fact that we’ve been meeting new friends and helping small businesses out for a quarter century, we’ve actually beat the national survival rate for new firms!

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, seven out of ten new businesses survive at least 2-years, only five of ten for 5-years, three remain in business at the 10-year mark, and only about two stay in business 15 years or more.

The study shows that survival rates were similar across states and major industries.  So the fact that we’ve made it to 25-years is a huge accomplishment.  Perhaps even more incredible is the fact that so many of our employees and clients have been with us for the entire ride, and that’s what it’s really all about. 

My hat’s off to all of you that have helped Employers Resource become the company it has over the years.  Thank you!

I am a confident, loving, beautiful and self-respectin’ woman.  I was born this way and will do all I can to go out the same way.  My mission is to lift-up, encourage and inspire truth, self-worth and happiness in myself and others.  This mission came about as a result of all that has happened to me AND through a process called Focus.  I attended Focus training at one of the darkest times of my life.  I did not feel loved or worthy and happiness had been elusive.  The process gave me the opportunity to work through my “stuff” in a loving, safe environment.  Focus was a rock in the storm of life and I am grateful that someone loved me enough to continue to encourage me to attend.  I had put it off in part because my Christian faith told me I didn’t need anything but God.  I found God in deeper ways at Focus through the committed Christians who are a part of it than I had in church in a long time.  Do I still attend church?  Absolutely!  And always will to worship with my family of fellow believers.  Now I see that Focus is not in conflict with my faith, rather it is in concert with.  I tell people now that life had happened to me as it does to everyone and that every time life threw hurt my way I added to the Plexiglas shield I had built around me.  It continued to get thicker until love couldn’t get through anymore and my view of the world was very distorted.  Through hard work and determination to be healthy using the Focus process I allowed myself to tear down that shield and the results were incredible.  People were asking me if I was using new moisturizer because I looked so healthy.  It was then I realized that the shield had not only distorted how I viewed the world but also how the world viewed me.  I was more approachable and more trusted and was able to trust and love again in ways I thought were gone forever.  I am very proud to now be a part of Focus as a training assistant and by keeping in communication with my Focus community.

The Statler Brothers sang a song “Let Me Spend One More Summer in Virginia Before I Die”.  That’s how I felt as I drove through Augusta and Rockbridge Counties this past week.  The azaleas and dogwoods were in full splendor.  I have never seen the grass so green nor the sky so blue.  This is my home.  My roots run deep in this fertile beautiful soil.  Generations of my family have lived and died here.  One of my most vivid memories of this area is about spring water.  There is a pipe coming out of the hillside on Middlebrook Road going into Brownsburg from Staunton that pure spring water runs from year round.  My Daddy told me that in the old days people would stop there to get water for their horses and later to get water for the radiator’s in their cars.  For us, it was always a stop to get a drink of cool spring water.  We never went past without stopping.  When my Daddy died in 1969 the funeral was in Staunton and the burial at New Providence Presbyterian church in Brownsburg.  I was 16 and pretty idealistic.  I asked my grown brother who was in charge of arrangements to make sure the funeral procession stopped because Daddy never drove by without stopping.  The funeral director said the road was too narrow and it would be a hazard.  So on my Daddy’s very last trip home to Brownsburg for the first time ever he went on by and didn’t stop for water.  I cried for miles and thought it cruel that we couldn’t accommodate this little request from a 16 year girl who just lost her Daddy.  Here’s what I know now.  That stop was for me, not my Daddy.  He was already in the presence of his Daddy where there is no thirst.

It is snowing!!!  I am tucked away in McCall, Idaho and loving that I have nothing to do but prepare meals and read.  How did I get so lucky.  I even took a nap today.  Ok, I began a great nap.  Sarah (my youngest twin and the self proclaimed baby of the family) woke me up after about 20 minutes of bliss to ask if she could go visit a friend.  She thought that would be a good way to not bother me.  hmmm.

The whole family went skiing today except me.  I do not like anything about skiing.  I especially do not like being cold and racing down a hill with two sticks clamped to uncomfortable (and unstylish) boots does nothing for me.  So Rachel’s dog, Sir PeesAlot, and I stayed home.  His name started out as Peanut Butter (color thing) shortened to Peanut (size thing) then to Pee (yes, you got it) and then when we want to yell at him and he did not have a long enough name to make it sound serious (you know like James Thomas Johnson!) we had to add on.   So, Sir PeesAlot and me had the morning to ourselves.  We went for several walks so he would not do his name thing in the condo and then he curled on my lap just to make sure I didn’t leave him too.  It was wonderful to just “be” and not to be “doing”.  Try that sometime.

My hubby, let’s call him “typical” just woke up from his nap (Sarah knows better than wake him) and comes from the bedroom, where I usually keep my clothes, to ask me “do you know where my sweater is”.  Let’s see,  maybe the bedroom where he keeps his clothes also.  Bingo, surprisingly enough that is exactly where he found it.  So now all is well again in his world other than him glancing toward the kitchen which is man language for “I don’t smell dinner cooking”, so he must be getting hungry.  Napping always does that for me too.

Courage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Courage should feel more honorable and less wrung out.  I found myself needing to be courageous, being courageous and then being so tired from it.  It is like being in a fist fight I think.  Adrenalin was searing through my body, I had strength to make it through and then came exhaustion.  At the end I could say “yes, I was brave”.  I could also say” I won this battle, but what of the war”?  The war is a war on heroin addiction and to the victor goes my nephew.  He is 25, handsome in a ghetto, gangster kind of way and I love him.  I knew he would be born on February 29^th from the time I knew my sister was pregnant.  He was due the middle of March, and I insisted for months that he would be my Leap Year baby.  And so when the phone call came to come to the hospital on February 28^th at 11pm I knew I had been right.  And so the first Leap Year baby born in Richmond, Virginia in 1984 was “my Leap Year baby”.  He says his addiction began back when he was 17 and it was fun and he was trying so hard to be cool.  He is not having fun anymore.  He is wasting away, he is afraid he is HIV positive and he is looked upon with contempt and distain.  The family had one of those interventions this week that looked much more controlled on reality TV than in real life.  I was the one in the family doing the most “talking”, voted in because I’m the loudest.  The next day we talked a lot, well he talked a lot and I listened.  And at some point after all the questions and answers he looked me square in the face and said “Aunt Mary, this is just damn ridiculous, ain’t it”?  I couldn’t agree more.