Do you Dare?
What does it mean to Dream?
This weekend always brings back so many memories and it's hard to believe that we've been here for 8 years now - after a year of working up to being able to qualify to go. I look back and it seems to me that there were some growing years and so many lost years where everything we worked for the first 4 years got eaten up by the following 4 years. I think we spent two year feeling sorry for ourselves and the following two years of those last four actually learning and growing from the experience.
Having a setback in business is not fun - having a setback in anything never is. But this year we feel able to look back and see what we've been learning from the experience and growing on the inside.
To recap - we've been too ashamed to even speak about our setback. We had what I would now call an extended honeymoon phase in business where excitement was up, we were growing left and right, our attitude and boldness tore everything down in our path and we were profitable and helping many people get closer to achieving their goals. That would be made up of 2 years getting our gears going and qualifying for leadership trips and 2 years of sailing helping others in their lives and finances. But things changed where within one of our leading partnerships there was an affair and the broken trust and unity was not only within their marriage but within the teams we had all built up together. Needless to say, productivity stopped and for about 2 years we were hovering and trying to keep the pieces in place - but we weren't prepared and eventually our team dissipated. This brings us now to the 2 years of Andy and I feeling sorry for ourselves and this setback taking a real toll on our self images. Not only did we feel betrayed we felt bitter which caused us to become incapable of thinking of anyone else but ourselves. This past year - our 9th year in business has been a year of reevaluating ourselves, our life - now as parents, and the opportunity we have in our hands to be able to bless others with. With becoming more involved in our church and serving people from that platform we've reawakened what was inside us when we first started in business. We've always been about helping people help people - and we've used this year to reset. We've used this year to refresh. and we've used this year to renew our minds in understanding that everyone goes through seasons and what they need the most in life are people to support them throughout those seasons.
I'm grateful to our mentors for never pushing us throughout this time and always being there to encourage us in our life endeavors even though we weren't producing any fruit in the business front. It truly shows how when they agreed to take us under their wing that they meant it not only for profit but for our wellbeing. It very rare in the business world and from our experience they are precious gems that never turned their back on us when everyone else did.
The number one thing I learned this past year is that with or without any titles or ties to each other - we are all people. We ALL have life hitting us one way or another. And I also know that I have been placed in this position in business to continue to spread the opportunity to enrich and bless other peoples lives now not only in their finances but as people because of what we went through.
Today I Dream of being able to be a person that stands when others feel like their falling - for them to be able to grab onto me and know that everything is going to be ok. That the seasons are shorter than they seem in the moment and growth is always a mindset. Growth in other areas can always happen in seasons of torrential downpour while cultivating what might be lost and turning it around to even more growth.
My goals aren't only materialistic in the sense of having certain things for my family - but they are tied in with becoming a person who is the same in public as I am at home - with confidence and transparency. A person who isn't afraid to express her love for God and his people and expresses gratitude for the blessings she's been given even though at time it feels too much for her. A person who can stand before people and let them know its ok to feel weak for a second - to only allow a circumstance that makes them feel that way actually in turn break them down to build them back up stronger and better than before. A person who is authentic - who feels with all her heart and acts with all her wisdom.
What about you? Do you Dare to Dream?
