Take Every Chance, Drop Every Fear.

“Today I close the door to my past, open the door to my future, take a deep breath and step through to a new life”  – Unknown

You actually do this every single morning.  You may not realize it most mornings.  It is only special mornings that you truly see what is happening.  The first day to a new job.  Your wedding day.  The day a divorce is final.  The day you bury someone you loved.  They are all days when you truly see the door to the past shutting behind you.  And although you may only have a glimpse through this door to the future, you know that everything will be forever changed.

“Your teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself” – Chinese Proverb

If you are lucky you have teachers, mentors or coaches throughout your life.  You have them as children, and if you continue to all of secondary education you have them as adults.  But there comes a time when you leave school behind you.  I am mostly self taught.  I dropped out of high school to get married.  My parents never encouraged us to go to college.  They felt that it would take us away from God.  What I did have in my favor was I was smart and I loved learning.  Since I started reading I have read several books a week.  I would alternate between books that took me to a fantasy world where I could solve the murder; or have an adventure in space; or fight the barbarians in medieval times.  And then I would read a book that would teach me something I didn’t know.  I’ve been that way my whole life.

I knew my lack of an education was perceived as a liability (even to my subconscious), so I had to kick open doors to get them to let me show them what I could do.  I also equipped myself by taking a lot of classes online and job related adult education courses, that taught me what I needed to advance in my career.  I started out as a bookkeepers assistant.  I move up to accounting.  I switched over to mortgage financing.  My career has always a series of doors opening to advance up the ladder.  My original goal in school was to be an administrative assistant to someone important.  I went much further than that, I became someone important who had the administrative assistant.

I discovered I had a knack for knowing what to look for in loan applications.  I could see the missing pieces in the story it told.  I could see the incongruencies.  It was almost like a spot light shined on the issue.  I got to where I could almost tell when I picked up a file that there was fraud involved or not.  My gift in seeing where the patterns were broken, has served me well.

“Your life is a result of the choices you make . . .  If you don’t like your life it is time to start making better choices” – Michelle Pennel

When my mother died my whole world fell apart.  All of her lies came spilling out of the closet containing her skeletons.  I found myself in a broken world where I didn’t trust anyone, not even God.  It took me years to close all of those doors to the past.  Years to see that the doors to the future still contained wonderful things for my life.  Years of reading books to explore the possibilities.  Years of  getting certified in Herbal Medicine, as a Reiki Practitioner, and then as a Aroma therapist.  I was looking at a second career in these fields when my nephew was murdered.  Another couple of years went by.  This time I wasn’t mad at the whole world, and I wasn’t even mad at the killer.  I was saddened by our loss, saddened that this world had lost such a special young man, who only wanted to help others have a better life.

“Deep within your soul is a door that opens into a world of wonder.  Open the door and let the magic in” – Unknown

This time I was trying to figure out what was beyond the door that my nephew had opened to me.  I knew from experience that it would require facing fears of the unknown, because every door requires something new and different from you.  Expanding your comfort zone.  Learning that you have so much more potential than you have ever given yourself credit for.  I knew that I would self create obstacles that I would find along the way.  That is how fears work.  But this door was different.  It wasn’t a small round hobbit sized door.  No this door was like the door to the giants house in Jack and the Beanstalk.  When I looked through this door I could barely figure out the table and chairs let alone what else it might contain.  This door was truly scary.

“Follow your bliss . . . , and the universe will open doors where there were only walls”  – Connie Hanks

I knew that creating LemonadeMakers was part of going through this door.  I knew that everything in my life that I had learned, experienced, literally everything I have acquired would be necessary if I walked through this door.  I had a ragged life as a child, I have had some horrible experiences as an adult.  I knew that courage would be required to use and share all of it without exception.  So I wanted to make sure before I walked through, that I wasn’t going to turn tail and run away from this opportunity.  I know from the depths of my soul, that Carl’s death opened this door.  I wanted to make sure that I had the courage and conviction that would be necessary to give to LemonadeMakers.  That I wasn’t going to try, fail, and quit LemonadeMakers.  It felt like I would be dishonoring Carl’s memory in some way if I wasn’t able to be “all in”.

“Most people will go their whole lives and never understand this feeling” – Unknown

So I started writing.  Something that my inner saboteur had kept me from doing all of my life.  I was convinced I didn’t know enough.  That I would only embarrass myself.  I was a high school drop out – that is one of my saboteurs favorite weapons.  I would like to introduce my saboteur Kami to all of you.  She knows all of my weaknesses and pokes holes in the road I travel on.  She has blown up train tracks and bridges.  She has created massive road blocks.  Sometimes it seems like it takes forever to figure out that once again, I have my foot on the gas and brakes at the same time.

When I look back on the very first things I did, it was no more than sharing a quote and a couple of sentences.  But I kept expanding what I was doing.  Then I learned how to work a couple of software programs to create the quotes with the photos.  I created a Facebook page.  My writing kept improving.  I discovered a new gift in finding the perfect photos and quotes to go together.  People started liking things.  They started commenting, then sharing.  Some people told me that my grammar and punctuation wasn’t all that great.  But I kept preserving.  I proofread over and over, but some mistakes still come through.  I learned to believe that it was ok if everything wouldn’t pass an English teachers red pen.  It was my thoughts I was trying to share, and I think that is what is most important.

“Don’t just dream of success; create a plan and act upon it!  Your momentum creates the door upon which opportunity knocks”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Join some of your fellow LemonadeMakers as we go through the door of new opportunities.  We have been meeting up once a month with a live Zoom call. It is a huge door of possibility.  The kind of doorway that just keeps growing wider and wider so that all of you can step inside.  When you open doors, you will find all of your fears waiting for you – but you will also find the keys to the treasures of your heart and soul.  I can promise that it will lead you to somewhere you didn’t even know existed.  The real you!

It is a free call where we open doors to discuss whatever is top of mind.  If you have been encouraged by any of my posts – If you have been moved to make a change or transform something in your life, I hope that you will attend.  Everyone is contributing with some great groundbreaking thoughts and ideas.  When we have created a good foundation, we will look at new and deeper ways that you will be able to work with us directly in your own growth.

This will be a  door that no one can shut on you – only you can shut this door.  I hope you will walk through this door with us, because we have some transformations to get done!