Tag: dreams

Lessons to Be Learned From a Media Mogul—Russell Simmons

jcladyluv

I think Russell Simmons has always been right there at the top of my list of people to watch and learn from within the media industry.  What I think I admire most about him is the fact that he almost doesn’t want to be noticed and he is rather shy about his success and what he has managed to achieve in his life and in his career.  That kind of humble attitude is something that I think a lot of successful people could stand to learn because just as easily as the success has come, it can go away just as easily without the right attitude.

Russell Simmons is someone who has really built an empire to be admired.  He has created a company that spreads positive messages throughout the music and media industry.  He promotes empowerment within the younger generation and has produced many different types of creative programs that enriches the industry and the people within it.  Through all of his accomplishments he has remained humble and eager to share what he has learned throughout his life with the rest of the people who are just as eager to get to the level that he is at.  I wanted to share the lessons that I’ve learned from his journey to the top.

1.)    If You Don’t Believe in You, No One Else Will Believe in You— You have to be your best cheerleader.  You have to have the confidence in yourself that you want everyone else to have in you.  You have to trust in yourself and your abilities to do what you have set out to do.  You have to be your biggest fan.

2.)    You Can’t Be So Willing to Receive Without Being Willing to Give— In Russell Simmons book, Do You! He says “instead of waking up trying to figure out what you can get, you should be waking up trying to figure out what you can give.”  A lot of people gain their success doing something that can benefit others as well as themselves so we have to remember that it can’t just be about what we get out of accomplishing our goals and our dreams, but also about what we can give to the people in our communities, in our states, in this country, by fulfilling our purpose.  For instance, Russell Simmons has taken his success and funded so many foundations and projects that help to further the communities and places that he reaches out to.  Lady GaGa has used her success to build a foundation that helps people dealing with issues surrounding bullying and to help encourage people that it is okay to be who they are born to be.  What we do has to matter in more places then just our bank accounts and our own wallets.

3.)    You Have to Stay Open to Change— Everything is not going to stay the same.  It can’t stay the same in order for those on their journey to success to actually reach their goals.  You have to be willing to change with the situation at hand and adapt to what has become the reality of things and not reside in the circumstances of how things were.  I have learned that change is simply inevitable and trying to fight it and keep change from happening is only hindering your growth and your progress.  You can not succeed staying right where you are, unchanged.  When I think of it like that I say “bring on the change.”

4.)    Always Be Honest With Yourself— Yes of course you should try your best to be an honest person all around but when I say be honest with yourself, I mean be honest about who you are, faults and all.  Other people’s criticisms will always bother you but they won’t hurt nearly as much if you are already honest about who you are and you know yourself and the areas where you can improve and areas where are satisfied with the person you have become.

5.)    Don’t Give Up YOUR Vision Just to Grab a Chance at Success— Along your journey, there will be people who will get just as excited about your vision as you are, but then they will try and convince you to change it.  They’ll say “maybe it will be better if you do this,” or “maybe you’ll have a better chance at it if you do it like that.”  They will have you believing that their suggestions to your vision will propel it forward.  That is simply you, relinquishing your vision to someone else, to do with it what they will.  Your vision is yours and should never be shaped and molded to fit anyone else’s views.

Being open, not just to change within your circumstances, but the changes that take place within yourself, is an important part in succeeding.  You can’t take your life and your career, your dreams and goals, to the highest heights without changing some things up along the way.  More importantly, you can’t do that without staying true to yourself and true to your vision.

People will try to hold you back.  People will try and change what your vision is into what they think it should be.  It will sound convincing and it will sound like they know exactly what they are talking about and that maybe you should be listening to them.  But it is your vision and your dreams.  Don’t let anyone take your dreams and try and change them.  Hold onto them and make them a reality, but do so in your own time, and in your own way.  Believe in yourself and what your vision is and when you make it there, to the top, don’t forget to help someone else up along the way.

I have the Write 2 Be a Visionary…What is your Write 2 Be?

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com.  Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page.  Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Lessons to Be Learned From a Media Mogul—Steve Harvey

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I probably would never have put Steve Harvey on this list of people I admire as a Media Mogul about a year ago.  Mostly because I hadn’t really saw him that way until I started researching just how many things he had a role in within the media industry.  There was once a time where you would here the name Steve Harvey and the first word that came to mind was Comedian.  Now there are so many other things that would fit in a description of him.

He fought hard to be noticed for something other than just being a Comedian and to be respected as a true change within the media industry.  And he did so with some simple principles that he follows from lessons that he has learned while on his journey.  I wanted to share some of those simple principles and lessons with you and hopefully they will help you in your journey as they are beginning to help me in mine.

1.)    Taking Care of You Has to Take Precedence— If you don’t take care of yourself, then you won’t be around to take care of the family and people that you love. You won’t be able to accomplish the things you dream of doing.  Health is a priority that far too many people take for granted and keeping yourself healthy is going to allow you to build up your endurance and stamina to work hard to get the things that you want and to hold onto the things that you want.

2.)    Some Rules Are Meant to Be Broken for All the Right Reasons— Of course most rules should be adhered to in general.  However, there are times when it is okay to toss the rule book out the window.  Rules like “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket,” or “always have a plan B,” are rules that people will tell you to live by because it’s the practical thing to do.  It makes sense for some, but for those out of the ordinary people whose dreams go way beyond the scope of anyone’s imagination, those particular rules only set you up to fail.  Some rules truly were made to be broken.

3.)    Just Because Other People Place You in a Box Doesn’t Mean You Have to Remain There— Just because people label you as one thing, doesn’t mean that is the label you have to accept.  Everyone put Steve Harvey in the box as Comedian and that was it.  Just another one trick pony.  But that is not where he chose to stay.  He didn’t want to just be known as a comedian.  So he stepped out of that box and became an Actor who not only went and took on acting roles but who actually got his own television show, a Radio Host of a nationally syndicated radio program, an Author of a book that is now a major motion picture, and now a television game show and talk show host.  See what can happen when you think outside of the box.

4.)    If You Don’t Work Hard for Your Dream, No One Else is Going To— You can’t expect other people to work hard to help you get where you want to be if you aren’t willing to work ten times as hard.  The goals and dreams you are working towards are yours, no one else’s.  If it means you have to wake up early and go to bed late in order to make things happen, then that’s what you are going to have to do.  Yes it is wonderful if you manage to surround yourself with a team of people who are on your side and are working to help you further your dreams, but they’re not going to work any harder then they see you working.  You can’t really rely on anyone else to help you get to that place of success, just yourself.  Your work ethic is what is going to get you there and it’s what’s going to keep you there.

5.)    Everyone That is Around You is Not There to Help You— When you are younger you thrive on how big your social circle is.  When you get older you start to realize that your circle of “friends” may be too big.  What will hold you back from becoming successful like you are striving to be more than anything is having the wrong people around you.  Some people are just simply too toxic to have in your life.  They want to ride on your coat tales and if you don’t take them with you they will try effortlessly to drag you down right back to where you started.  These are the people who, while they say they want to see you succeed, what they are really hoping you do is fail.  These are the people that you don’t need around you, but you have to know that and realize that before it’s too late.

There are so many rules that you aren’t supposed to break.  There are practicalities that everyone is supposed to take with you through life.  But sometimes being practical is just another way of playing things safe.  There is nothing wrong with saying that you have a plan for your future, you know what you want to do, what you want to be, and where you want to go in life, and focusing on that goal and that dream, without a back-up plan.

I heard once that sometimes back up plans are for those who are not really sure what it is that they want.  Now I don’t mean people with multiple roles within life such as being a singer, an author, and an actress.  That is simply a person who had a broad vision for their future.  I mean those who go down one path and then prepare something to fall back on that is practical but not necessarily something that they are passionate about.

Why isn’t it okay to put all of your eggs in one basket if there is no other basket that you are interested in pursuing?  There are all kinds of rules that people will try to make you adhere to and labels that people will place on you.  Who says that you have to live by anyone else’s rules or labels but your own?

I have the Write 2 Be Different…What is your Write 2 Be?

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com.  Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page.  Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Lessons to Be Learned From a Media Mogul—Oprah Winfrey

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Who hasn’t ever admired all of the accomplishments that Oprah Winfrey has been able to achieve.  I sure have a lot of respect and admiration for the empire that she has created and built up, literally from nothing.  What I admire most I think is the humble beginnings that she came from and how, not only did she never let any of that get in her way, but she in fact let it drive her forward.

Her success came in small doses and she savored those lessons that she learned along the way.  She didn’t rush her success and she didn’t hold onto any of the negative criticism that she received from others who tried to make her be someone she wasn’t.  I wanted to share some of those lessons that I have learned from Oprah Winfrey and plan on implementing on my journey to where I want to go.

  1. There’s No Sin in Failing, the Sin is in Never Trying—  You always hear people use the excuse “What if I Fail” when it comes to trying something different but you rarely here anyone ask the question “What if I actually Succeed”.  Not trying is the greatest harm that people can do to their dreams.  It is always better to try and to fail than to have never tried at all.
  2. There’s Nothing Wrong with Setting the Bar High for Yourself and Your Life— I’ve always had people tell me that people shouldn’t have such high standards for what they are going to get out of life.  For a moment I’ll admit that it seemed that the higher I set my standards the more I ended up being disappointed by the outcome.  I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t the high standards that ended up disappointing me, it was the lack of belief that I had in accomplishing those high standards that left me disappointed.  Now I realize, the higher the standards the better, so long as you believe that you can attain them.
  3. Having the Ability to Forgive Can Allow Your Journey to Move Forward— Oprah particularly likes to drive home the fact that forgiveness is not for the other person, it is for you.  It made sense to me when she pointed out that if you don’t allow yourself to forgive the people that have hurt you in your past you will remain stuck in your past with all of that hurt and anger.  Forgiving others for their mistakes allows you to move forward and become a better version of yourself.
  4. Always Be the Best You— You can’t really get anywhere trying to be what everyone else wants you to be and trying to live up to other people’s expectations for you.  All you can ever really do is be the best you and fulfill the purpose and expectations that you have for yourself.
  5. Do Something that Scares You— If you never do anything that scares you, something that is different from your normal activities, then that means you’re never really taking any risks.  Taking risks is scary.  Starting a brand new company and working for yourself is      scary.  Putting yourself out there to market your business or the book you’ve written is scary.  Doing something that you’ve always      dreamed of doing but never took the chance to do (like sing in front of a room full of people) is scary.  But in the end all of those things bring you to an end result that could be amazing if you are not too scared to take the risks.

You know there are so many people out there (myself included) who were always told to be more like someone else and so that’s what we aimed for.  I can remember so many times saying that I want to be the next Oprah Winfrey, or that I want to write as beautifully as Maya Angelou.  I was always striving to be a version of someone else that I thought was so great and so talented when the reality is that I can never be anything other than myself.  Why spend so much time trying to emulate someone else’s talent, someone else’s goals, someone else’s dreams, when that will never get me what I want.

Truthfully, just as there is no one that is ever going to be like that one person you strive to be like or that person whose talent you wished you had, there is also never going to be anyone like you either.  You have a talent and a uniqueness that is all your own and that no one else could master but you.

I am just going to take what I admire about the people who are where I want to be and the lessons that I have gained from them and fuel my journey with that knowledge.  While I may never be as successful as Oprah and I may never change the world in the ways that she has, who knows, I may be more successful and I may change the world in a whole different and remarkable way.

I have the Write 2 Be Unique…What is your Write 2 Be?

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com.  Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page.  Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Nothing Like a Good Kick When You’re Down to Get You Going Again

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I have always known I wanted to be a writer (well obviously not as a baby but from the age of 6 so fairly young) and once I knew that writing was my dream I slowly began guiding myself towards that.  Now at 6 I wasn’t crafting novels or anything (although that is not unheard of today) but I began reading all kinds of different stories and discovering what types of stories interested me.  By the time I turned 10 I began taking the bad experiences that were going on at home and using those emotions that I felt to begin crafting poetry.

I started to envision all of the roads and paths that writing was going to take me down.  I admit I was always a bit of a dreamer and that my dreams of where I was going to go within my writing career were probably a bit exaggerated but I could have sworn that I was going to be somewhere so different by the time I reached my thirties and I always imagined the best of circumstances.

Here I am now, in my early thirties, and I am not even in the vicinity of where I thought I would be at this point in my life.  I feel as if life keeps kicking me when I’m already down and while I know that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, I don’t feel like I am getting any stronger with every struggle that comes my way.  I sit and wonder at times where did things get off track and wonder if I could only go back to that point where the course changed then maybe I could finally get to the point that I want to be at.

The problem with that is that going back and trying to reroute the course changes a lot of the good things that have happened, one of them being my daughter, and I can’t say that I would trade a lot of the experiences that I have had for anything else.  If I dwell on what could’ve been in some dreamed about future from when I was too young to know any better then I will begin to take for granted all of the good things that I do have.  Not only that but I will take for granted all of the lessons that my mistakes have taught me.

I suppose there’s a reason for everything that happens.  Even when you veer off the path that you were meant to travel on, the detours always provide something that you wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.  It’s hard when you feel like you are continually being kicked when you are already down.  However, the other side of that coin is that sometimes it takes a good kick to get you headed back in the right direction again.  It’s never too late to change the circumstances that are keeping you down as long as you’re willing to keep getting right back up for the next round.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Everything Is Not Always a Good Fit

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Last week my best friend Ms. L. wrote a blog post about people not thinking that they are too good to do something in order for them to get further ahead.  She was speaking of people who make comments such as “I don’t do windows, or I will not work at a fast food restaurant, or I won’t scrub and clean people’s floors” but still find themselves scrambling to get ahead.  She spoke about the people who turn their noses up at those particular types of jobs because they believe that they are supposed to be somewhere better but yet they have not paid their dues.

Now while I agree with some of what she says in her post, I have to say, unashamedly, that I am one of those people who will not take a job at a fast food restaurant or cleaning rooms at a hotel.  However, it is most certainly not me looking down on people that work in the fast food or restaurant industry or people who are maids, or are in the retail industry.  In fact I worked in the retail industry for years and yes as a part of that work I did clean some bathrooms, and I cleaned up other people’s mess, and I did grunt work that I absolutely hated.

When I decided to work on making writing my full time and only job (or passion with benefits of income as I would rather refer to it) it wasn’t because I felt I was too good to work in those industries (because believe me, I know that is not the case), but rather because I no longer wanted to work to further someone else’s dreams (being the owners of those companies) while my dreams took a seat somewhere in the far back corner.  It wasn’t that I felt I was above those positions, it was more that I felt I would be doing a disservice to those who worked in those industries and loved what they do and who do it well.

It’s kind of like when you go into a restaurant and have the worst waitress you could possibly have and you leave the restaurant saying to yourself “if she doesn’t want to be there, she just shouldn’t be working there”.  I don’t want to be one of those people who is doing a job because I am desperate and have no choice because then I will never do the job the way that it is supposed to be done.  I feel that I am destined to do a specific job on this earth and I just don’t want to waste my time, or anyone else’s for that matter, doing a horrible job at something that I wasn’t meant to do in the first place.

I agree that you should never look down on jobs that don’t appear to be glamorous, especially if you don’t know what it is that you want to do and you are trying to find your footing.  However, I also feel that if you know that you have a dream and a goal, and you know what direction you are headed in, you should never settle for something that you can’t give 100 percent to.  It’s not turning your nose up at a particular job, or even those that do that particular job, to realize that you just wouldn’t do that job justice and that it just isn’t a good fit for you.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Even When the Bad Days Outweigh the Good

jcladyluv

So it’s not starting off being a good week and I am feeling almost completely defeated.  But notice I said that I almost.  The bad days that I’m having are really starting to overshadow any of the good one’s I manage to have.  But I can not throw in the towel because that would be too easy.  To let everything that I’ve been working towards and struggling to achieve fall by the waist-side all because I can’t see the finished product ahead of time would be quite possibly the biggest mistake that I could ever make.  

I have a deadline for a goal I set at the beginning of this year and I haven’t spoken about it much lately because several times I have almost placed it on the back burner and wanted to just give up on the idea altogether but it is not in me to just give up.  I said that I was going to launch the Write 2 Be Online Magazine in January of 2013 and that is what I am going to do.  

I’ve been working on this magazine and putting it together little by little (both in my mind and on paper) and I have taken my time with it so that when I launch it I can be proud of it.  This, for me, could be the start of things heading in the right direction (or at least a better direction then I’ve been heading) and I really want to honor what my heart and my gut is telling me to do.  I just have to work really hard at not letting those bad days get the better of me.  

I am still looking for contributors if anyone who reads this is interested and you can check back on this site under the Write 2 Be Magazine tab for periodic updated information.          

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Quitters Will Never Win

jcladyluv

As I was sitting here thinking about what to write today I was thinking about just throwing in the towel.  You know you can only keep trying at something for so long that doesn’t appear to be working before you start to really wonder if it’s just not going to work, or maybe it’s just not meant to be.  Lately I’ve been feeling as if every time I take one step forward, I end up getting knocked two steps backward.  I was beginning to feel like all of this was pointless and that all this dreaming that I’ve been doing had been for nothing.  

Just as I was getting ready to give up and just say to hell with it I looked in my email inbox today and received one of my Tyler Perry mailing list pep talks (it was actually sent a couple of days ago but I hadn’t checked my email in a couple of days).  His message was short, sweet, and to the point.  Simply put it read “IF YOU QUIT OR GIVE UP THEN YOU DON’T DESERVE IT!  Process that and get back in the fight, DREAMER! You can do it.”  As I said before, time and time again, Tyler Perry always has a way of sending out his inspirational messages just as I need to hear it.  

I love writing and most importantly I am meant to do this.  I know it deep down inside my gut.  Even when I doubt myself, I never doubt my ability to write.  Even though I keep getting knocked down repeatedly, I have just been reminded that I can’t throw in the towel because if I do I never deserved it in the first place.  I have never been one to quit anything that I really wanted and that I knew was for me.  I’m not going to start now!  

If any of you are out there feeling like it’s just never going to come together, don’t stop now, don’t give up the fight.  Just when you think it’s time to quit is the precise moment that you need to keep holding on.         

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Are You Living Your Life Or The Life Someone Else Thinks You Should Be Living?

jcladyluv

I love my emails that I get from the Tyler Perry mailing list.  I swear it’s as if he knows when I need to hear a specific message and writes them just for me.  Like he was somehow the vessel that God chose (one of the many vessels) to send me a very bold and clear message.  He sent a message that didn’t mince words and didn’t beat around the bush by sugar coating things.  The subject title in this particular email was simple: Don’t let anybody define you!    

His email talked about how when he was a young boy he had so many people tell him that he would never make it, that he would never become a millionaire because he was black or because he was poor.  Among those many people there was actually a teacher and even some of his family.  I understood exactly what he was talking about because I have always been told that I would never amount to anything by the one person who is supposed to think the world of me, my mother.  

Now there are plenty of others who have said things like I dream too big, and I am never going to become successful, and I’m always going to be in a state of struggle, and basically that all of my efforts to become successful and to build my own company doing what I love to do and what I know is meant for me to do are for nothing.  I would like to say that I haven’t listened to those words of discouragement and that I responded to those negative voices in a way that Tyler Perry did, by ignoring them and doing it anyway.  But I can’t say that because I have spent the better part of my life trying to defy what I was told I couldn’t do all the while, deep down, believing in what those voices were saying.  

I have since learned to tune out those voices (for the most part anyway) but every once and a while, mostly when I have a new idea or a new way to develop and produce the ideas I already have, those voices do get deep inside my head and sometimes they even manage to convince me that they are right, but only for a little while.  When I read this message from Tyler Perry, it came after I had just finished brainstorming an idea with Ms. L. on how to bring one of my dreams on my list of accomplishments to fruition and those doubts began to creep in on whether or not I could really do this.  

I shared some brief ideas with another person that I thought could possibly help me in one area of making my idea a reality but they essentially told me every possible thing that could go wrong and that could keep me from being able to do it.  Not what I needed to hear.  I know everything that can go wrong.  I know that I am operating on little to no money most times and that my credit might not be so hot to a bank or possible investors.  So What?  

I am finally starting to realize that if I am constantly waiting for the money fairy to rain some money on my dream then I might never make it happen.  I have to have faith that it will happen, not just because it is a really good idea, but because it was what was meant for me to do.  God didn’t give me this gift for nothing and he sure doesn’t expect me to waste it.  So I’m not going to waste it.  

It’s hard to think that you have to tune out the people who are supposed to be close to you but if they can’t support me in living the life that I want to live then I don’t need to listen to words that aren’t driving me forward.  I’m done living the way everyone else thinks I should.  I can’t live the life other people would rather me live because that wasn’t the life that was meant for me.  Whose life are you living, yours or someone else’s? 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

What’s Your Motivation When the Odds Are Stacked Against You?

jcladyluv

I read a blog post the other day that asked the question ‘Is having something to prove a good enough reason to do something?’  When I read the post the blogger discussed how perhaps we should not use someone telling us that we can’t achieve something or someone’s negativity altogether to influence or motivate whether or not we in fact decide to go after what it is that we want.  She stated that people pleasing was something not to get caught up in.  Initially I felt that she might have a point to that statement and that people’s sheer passion for doing something should be enough to ‘just do it’ and that it shouldn’t take someone else telling us no or rejecting our passion for us to go at it full force.  

But then I realized something.  Isn’t that the nature of how dreams are realized, and how businesses are built, and how people are made to be successful?  I mean of course you dream something and naturally you want to achieve that dream no matter what and when you start a business you hopefully are starting that business because it is something that you’ve always wanted to do.  But if you listen to a lot of successful people talk about how they got there and how they accomplished their dreams and started their businesses, a lot of it had something to do with what someone told them they would never be able to do.  

Think of how many singers and film stars were told no, and how many times they were told no, and how many people even told them that they were crazy to think they would ever really make it.  Now think about how that just fired them up to going after that dream with even more force and more drive.  Think about Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates and how many people told them they would never make it and that they would never see their dreams become a reality and how those words must have fueled the fire that was already lit underneath them.  

I remember hearing an interview once about an entrepreneur going after their dream and starting their own company (can’t quite remember who at this exact moment) and when they were asked what made them go after their goal when all of the odds were stacked against them, their response was simply ‘someone told me I couldn’t have it’.  It’s amazing what someone telling you NO will do for your drive and ambition to prove them wrong and get what you want in spite of all the odds stacked against you.  I hate to be told NO but if I really think about it, when I do get to where I want to be in life, those No’s will be what made me so fiercely determined to prove everyone who said I couldn’t do it wrong.  

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

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Redefining What Is Possible

jcladyluv

It seems as if this week God is sending me all sorts of signs to lead me in the direction that I need to go.  It’s as if every doubt that I have is getting answered and addressed each day of the week and leaving me with absolutely NO excuses.  The other day I was going over just how many things were holding me back from just diving right in and then Ms. L. tells me about her 11 year old son starting his business with probably more limitations than I have, and yet here I am holding myself back.  

This morning I was thinking of all of the big dreaming that I keep doing and wondering just how much of what I want to accomplish is attainable.  I mean just what are my possibilities of making all of this stuff actually happen.  I was honestly going over the list of life goals that I made a long, long time ago in my head and wondering just what it was that I should cross off because it just wouldn’t be possible.  Then I heard a remarkable story on the news this morning about a man who had just climbed the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Kilimanjaro.  Now I know what you’re thinking.  What’s so special about that, surely he’s not the first person to do that?  That would be a true statement, but I believe that he is the fist person to do it with no legs.  

Spencer West was born with a genetic disorder in which his lower spine was poorly developed and left his legs permanently crossed and essentially useless.  By the time he was 5 years old he had to have his legs amputated to just below the pelvis area.  The doctors told him and his parents that he would never be able to sit up let alone walk and that he would never be a functioning member of society.  

Not only did he defy what the doctors limited him to but he has gone on to do public speaking, candidly telling his story in hopes of inspiring others that anything is possible.  He works with a charity called Free The Children and the climb up the mountain was a campaign that he called Redefine Possible and helped to raise almost $750,000 for the charity.  

Now as I am watching and listening to him speak and being so inspired by his story, I am wondering how can anything on my list of goals be considered impossible when this man, who has every reason to think that his options are limited, doesn’t see that there is anything that is not possible.  It is completely ironic how the stories that you need to hear the most, the one’s that truly will inspire you, always come right at the exact moment that you need to hear them.    

I suppose that it’s not really about my big dreams and goals being impossible, it’s more so about what my definition of possible really is.  Everything is not possible for every individual, but once again, this is not about what someone else deems as being possible when it comes to my ambitions.  It’s only about my own interpretation of just how far I can go and what I know is not impossible.  It’s kind of hard to think that there is anything that you can’t do once you see a man with no legs climb the tallest mountain in the world. 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress