Got stage fright? Forget the stage. Take it straight to the streets.

Thanks, Ken, for pointing us to this.

Susan Boyle, Unexpected Champion Of Dreams

For all of us who feel frowsy and frumpy…

For all of us who think people are rooting against us because we’re not cool, or fashionable, or beautiful…

For all of us with dreams that will not die…

Susan Boyle dreamed a dream.

She appeared on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent as the epitome of the middle aged, quirky housewife neighbor lampooned so often on the BBC. By the end of the opening line of her song, she had Simon Cowell swept away.

Yes, that Simon Cowell. Mr. Testy from American Idol.

He is transported by the angelic voice of this stunning hero; and all the audience is transported, too, as their cynical chuckling is squelched by their awe.

Listening to her sent a shiver up my spine and gave me goose bumps.

Enjoy your elation.

The witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth were referring to their potion when they said Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Their heavy, solid metal cauldron could withstand the heat. But throw it into a glassblowers’ furnace, where glass is kept molten at 2100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the cauldron really would bubble.

Watching glassblowers work in their industrial studio invokes more than a passing thought of magic. They create pieces that are translucent and colorful, majestic yet fragile. They balance the classical elements, combining earth, air, and fire, while keeping water at bay. It’s modern-day alchemy.

The Alchemists’ Beginnings

Clifton Crofford, Kevin McGehee, and Mark Alexander wrangle the elements at CMA Glassblowing Studio. They’ve had their own studio for about four years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They trained together for many years at the glassblowing hot shop at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).

None of them entered college planning to study glassblowing. Two of them were studying graphic art and the other was studying architecture. Each of their degree plans called for an art elective. Glassblowing was interesting. Working with fire sounded very cool. Turns out they were right.

Playing With The Elements

In a hot shop, molten glass is kept in a furnace that is always heated to around 2100 degrees. Since most things melt at that temperature, the basin for holding the glass is made of a special ceramic. Glassblowers reach into the furnace with long poles that have holes through the middle for blowing. They swirl the amount of molten glass they need onto the pole and start working it.

Working it includes spinning it, blowing air into the center for expanding the shape, and expanding it while the glass is in a mold to give it a certain shape like fluting. As the glass being worked starts to cool, the glass artist puts it back into the middle of a smaller furnace called a glory hole for a few seconds to heat it back up and then continues working it. Glory holes are kept close to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. In front of each glory hole, support frames are mounted on metal tables with wheels on tracks that are attached to the floor. The pole with the glass is laid across the support frame so the glassblower can move the pole deeper into the furnace and pull it out by rolling the table on the track.

Cool Tools

Glassblowers use metal tools on the molten glass to help give it shape while they spin it. They use heavy shears for cutting the ends of strands of the fluid glass and other tools for twisting and shaping the strands. They have small sheets of glass that look paper-thin which they can heat and add to a project when they need handles, rings, rims, or color. These steps are done as quickly as possible because it’s important to keep the glass from cooling. If it cools too quickly it cracks, but if it heats too much it loses the shape it has taken.

And they get to a use a blowtorch. It’s a large diameter, high intensity gas torch that blasts like a flamethrower. It’s used for heating up a piece being worked when it’s not feasible to return it to the glory hole.

Dramatic To The End

Obviously a hot shop stays very hot, even with great ventilation. Near the furnaces, where the glassblowers work, it gets well over 100 degrees and often over 120. The heat causes the glass artists to sweat, introducing another dangerous element to the mix. A single drop of water on a tiny portion of a piece being formed will cause a small crack. A crack makes the whole piece unstable so a single drop can ruin it.

Pieces that make it successfully through the twisting, blowing, shaping, forming, and clipping are put in a special cool-down box. It starts around 910 degrees and goes through a ten-hour cycle to drop to room temperature. Only after the end of the cool-down cycle will the glassblower be able to tell if a piece is stable and whole. Even the colors may change slightly during cool-down. This means after the blasting flames and the sweating and the tiring physical work, there is still mystery and uncertainty. The artist doesn’t get to find out until the next day exactly how each piece turned out.

Hooked

The glass hot shop at UTA worked its alchemy on Cliff, Kevin, and Mark during their introductory classes. Their elemental interests and talents were refined and clarified and their distractions started to burn away. Each returned to the hot shop for more classes and eventually shifted his focus in school to glasswork. Through years of training at the university they got to know each other well. When it was time for them to set up their own operation, they went into business together.

UTA had just upgraded its hot shop when Cliff, Kevin, and Mark were ready to set up their own studio. Since they helped with the renovation at UTA they knew how to put together a hot shop. They were able to build their own equipment, including a cool-down box made out of a converted cooler from a convenience store. They started with an empty shell, built it out to install the furnaces, and made everything they could by themselves. That saved them a lot of money.

The Artists’ Model For Business

Early on they focused on creating some pieces that were functional but artistic and others that were sculptural and artistic with no specific function. Their business model was to sell their work through high-end galleries. They were seeing steady progress for a while, until the economy stalled. High-end sales were down about twenty-five percent this past Christmas.

This disrupted their long-term plans in a big way. The guys work at the hot shop in the morning and have other jobs in the afternoon and evening to help pay their bills. The shop doesn’t generate enough profit to provide a full-time salary for each of them but they had been moving closer to that point. The collapse of high-end artistic sales got them to reconsider their business model.

The Entrepreneurs’ Model For Art

They started focusing more on custom work. For example, they have created pieces used by exclusive retailer Neiman-Marcus in their jewelry departments. They partner with large-scale designers who want sculptural glass for buildings. This allows them to create enormous and elaborate structural pieces without incurring the cost of installing or insuring the pieces. They meet with the designer, get the basic guidelines, agree on a price, and then get to create.

They are partnering with another designer by creating long organic pieces that will hang from a gigantic chandelier. They are making some smaller artistic pieces for a colleague to use in her booth at an exhibit. The blown pieces will add balance to her cut glass work. They are also creating sconces and fixture covers for a lighting company. They were chosen to do that because they are able to replicate shapes that are brought to them, including other glass pieces.

Elements of Success

This model has been effective in two significant ways. First, focusing on custom work has brought in more immediate revenue. Second, they’re able to spend their time doing what they love doing and are best at: blowing glass. The reputation they are building is based on their exquisite work with glass. They won’t have to venture into high-end art sales or architectural installation or starting a lighting fixture company to be successful.

Finding a way to keep their focus on the glasswork has energized Cliff, Kevin, and Mark. They’re able to see how they will grow their success through this model until the studio provides a comfortable living for all of them. They’ve discovered the power of partnering with people who are good at sales, marketing, and project management, which would be distractions if they had to do them. They are free to work from their gifts, talents, and passions, which are the elements of real success.

This month we pause in the series of profiles to present an article adapted from an upcoming e-book for people considering creative career choices and entrepreneurship.

Throughout most of human history, the work people did was determined by survival. Hunters and gatherers hunted and gathered. As people learned to cultivate crops and raise animals some gave up the nomadic lifestyle and settled down to establish villages and eventually cities. Although there were a few artisans and craftsmen, most of the work was focused on providing food for survival.

Before the founding of the United States the colonies were developed mostly by people who wanted land of their own to have a farm. This meant that early in the history of the nation, most people were self-employed or small business owners. Even the merchant traders and the specialty craftsmen like woodworkers and smiths worked for themselves. Few people had a job where someone else employed them. The farmhand worked with a goal in mind of having his own farm some day. The apprentice looked forward to becoming a master and having his own clients. What changed?

The Beginning Of The Job

Jobs as we know them were developed during the industrial revolution. Mass production in factories started to replace individual craftsmen. Factory owners paid a survival wage and were able to find plenty of people living in poverty willing to trade their freedom and put up with oftentimes terrible conditions for the promise of steady income. Factories created a demand for workers centralized in cities. People left rural areas and even moved from poorer countries to industrializing countries for the chance to have a job.

As more factories opened, the idea of large corporations running businesses in multiple sites evolved. Local small business owners were replaced by store managers and regional managers. Small-town doctors were replaced by satellite clinics of a hospital or larger medical group. Blacksmiths were replaced by local hardware stores, and those were replaced by Home Depot.

Comfortable In the Job-Box Rut

Improvements in technology and decades of fighting for workers’ rights have improved the situation for workers drastically. Today the conditions in the workplace are not so much terrible as annoying, and the level of compensation and additional “benefits” makes the notion of sacrificing freedom for a job almost benign. Just a few decades into this new paradigm, many people can’t imagine earning a living in any way other than having a job working for someone else.

Today, less than one hundred and fifty years since a time of high self-employment in the U.S., most people work for someone else and are terrified of starting their own business or trying self-employment. The ideas of self-determination and possibility that defined the entrepreneurial spirit of the past have waned. Only a few people value and pursue them, and they are considered unrealistic dreamers while they chase their dreams and the lucky privileged few when they achieve their dreams.

The expectation that a person can create his or her own destiny has been replaced with the expectation that each person should look for a good job and try to keep it. Growing up we were told, “Get a good job with a good company and keep working your way up.” This message told us a good company would provide great benefits, regular pay raises and promotions, job security, and a comfortable pension or other retirement program. Even though reality has taught us for over twenty years that the pattern isn’t reliable and is no longer realistic, lots of people still cling to the message and find their comfort and security in working for someone else. It’s a recurring theme in human civilization: we give up freedom for security, especially false security.

The End Of An Era

A couple of important trends are helping change things. First, people are living and working longer. Instead of dedicating twenty-five to thirty years to one company, retiring, and then passing on, people are sticking around! A worker can spend twenty or twenty-five years in a field and become bored with it. With plenty of productive years left, a lot of people see that as a mid-career point. They wonder if they can make big changes and do something more enjoyable or rewarding, or if they’re stuck working in the same field until they can afford to retire.

A related trend that amplifies the problems of a longer work life is the collapse of job security. Companies cut employees quickly to try to keep a profit margin. Acquisitions and mergers save companies money by reducing duplicated tasks and centralizing operations, which means “redundant” positions are cut. Entire industries are changing rapidly or disappearing as technology streamlines some positions and creates others. We are living longer, working longer, and having to find a series of jobs in a series of industries in order to support ourselves.

Another big event changing work habits and options is the technology revolution. With worldwide communication, computers, and the internet, people can provide a service for a company from their homes or a location near their homes but far from the company. Providing valuable work to a company doesn’t always mean being an employee. This frees people up to provide a similar service to multiple companies as a contractor or consultant.

More important, it counters the centralizing trend of industrialization and corporate growth. One individual can develop a product and have it produced and shipped out by partnering with one or two other small businesses. With internet-based marketing, they don’t need the huge distribution outlets or corporate retail locations to begin selling their items. Control is being returned to individuals little by little. A dramatic change in work is happening.

The Return Of Freedom

People can develop a small specialty business in a narrow niche and reach enough people to stay in business by reaching out to the world through a virtual store on the internet. They can produce useful information products, including printed books or workbooks, e-books, and audio recordings, and sell them along with partners on the internet. People who advise, guide, and train others, such as corporate consultants, executive coaches, and life coaches, can live in a smaller town or travel frequently but still “be at work” through teleconferencing and video conferencing.

More than any other time in history, an individual person is in a strong position to find a type of work, or even a few different types of work, that feel like a comfortable and natural fit to their gifts and way of seeing the world. They can choose things that speak to their passions and bring them excitement, happiness, and even joy. Developing an entrepreneurial spirit is one of the highest expressions of personal growth and development. Contrariwise, it is often an unexpected result for those who commit themselves to personal growth and development but aren’t thinking about work or careers in the beginning.

Leaving The Rut

Since so many people start out on a career path with the message of choosing something safe, something secure, and something where a corporation provides the paycheck and the benefits, it’s no wonder lots of them are getting restless after a few years. Most made a general career choice in high school or early in college, before they even knew their own gifts, talents, and passions well. Even then a lot of them were sidetracked by circumstances and wound up in a career that’s not even connected to the choices they made. It’s no wonder so many feel like they “settled” and missed out on choosing a career they would really enjoy.

When people start to open the boxes where they locked away their dreams, they often hear dire warnings of failure and bankruptcy and homelessness for those who try to start their own business or simply be self-employed. Even though those warnings come from people who never followed their dreams and don’t have personal experience with self-employment, it’s scary enough to persuade a lot of people to cram their dreams back in the box and lock it tight. Over time, most of us can hardly remember those dreams or hear the connection between our dreams and our souls.

People who are frustrated in their current work and ready for a new challenge or a big change or a fresh beginning are usually estranged from their dreams. They usually know what they don’t want, but a lot of them don’t really know what they do want. Those who have a better connection to their dreams usually don’t have a clear plan or support from their friends and family, and they can’t see how to make it happen. But most of us just have a distant, long-ago memory of getting excited by the idea of having fun doing work we would love.

Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness

That’s not a bad place to start. In fact, people who have a notion they could do work they enjoy and find meaningful are probably way ahead of people researching business opportunities or work-from-home options just to earn more money or get away from a frustrating job. The latter are often reacting in the moment and may trade one frustrating circumstance for another, or worse, wind up losing a lot of money following a questionable path due to desperation or greed. In the face of that frustration they give up and resign themselves to the rut. Some give up their plans for change for much smaller reasons, often because their immediate circumstances change just enough for them to accept the golden handcuffs of servitude.

Those who start with a desire to enjoy their work and make it part of a more meaningful and more authentic life have a sustaining motivation to take the steps towards long-term change. They value their lives and have a long-term vision of how they will be. They exercise their liberty to take charge of their circumstances and get control of their destinies. They seek the ultimate expression of a human life on earth, discovering and developing and sharing their gifts talents, and passions – that is, pursuing happiness.

As a young married woman with a degree in English Literature, Kevyn Malloy first chose the obvious path. She became a teacher, one of the few careers considered acceptable for women at the time. She could have stayed on that path and taught for decades. She could have risked just a little more ambition, taken her studies to a higher level, and become a college professor.

But the obvious path just isn’t Kevyn’s way. She doesn’t like to let other people limit her choices. She looks at what life brings her way, listens to her heart, and then chooses a plan. With her heart engaged and her mind set, she makes things happen.

That is how, with absolutely no experience or even the first idea about what she was doing, Kevyn left teaching and opened a restaurant. That became the second of four successful careers she has had so far.

The Second Career

Kevyn didn’t start out knowing what she was doing in the restaurant business, but she knew that she wanted to do it. The adventure and the challenge were exciting and new, so she opened and managed a seafood restaurant on the Jersey shore.

Kevyn is a resourceful woman, so she hired some of the staff who had worked at a prior restaurant in that location. She encouraged them to let her know when her way of doing things was different from the “old way.” At first she would default to the old way. With her staff as unwitting consultants, she learned all about running a successful restaurant so she could do it her way.

This adventure lasted for nearly twelve years. The completely unknown and exciting became more comfortable and manageable as she mastered all the necessary skills. Then it became a little too known, and less exciting. The restaurant business is hard work and demands long hours. With the adventure fading, she decided to move on.

The Third Career

As a lifelong lover of learning, Kevyn decided to go back to college. The first semester she signed up, she was open to new opportunities so she chose classes based on what was available. By serendipity, one of the available classes was Research Methods in Psychology. Although this was not a class known for drawing large crowds, Kevyn decided to try it out.

She surprised herself and did very well in the class, understanding statistics well enough to tutor other students. She took more psychology courses and eventually earned her second bachelor’s degree in psychology. She entered graduate school, earned her master’s degree, and received her professional license.

Four years later she was asked to come speak to psychology graduates at the school about working in the field of psychology. The head of the school urged her to pursue her doctorate. She hadn’t planned to do that before, but she was persuaded.

The doctoral program was challenging in some ways for Kevyn. She fought herself to keep going, especially working on her dissertation. The work was isolated and lonely, which is contrary to her nature. During this time her first marriage was ending, which made it even more difficult.

She finished her dissertation and received her doctorate. After two years of agency work she entered private practice as a clinical psychologist. She worked out of her home and was able to set her schedule. In the beginning, it was a very good life.

Time for Respite

But in time Kevyn started disobeying the rules she intended to live by. She got very busy with work and wound up out of balance. She wasn’t giving enough time to other parts of her life and wasn’t spending enough time with her new husband. She decided to take a six-month sabbatical to rest, explore new ideas, and clarify her direction. She prepared for months so her therapy clients would be able to complete treatment or transition to another therapist.

The second week into her sabbatical, Kevyn’s life was intersected by serendipity again. She ran into a friend and colleague who told her about a book she had been reading that thoroughly reminded her of Kevyn. It was Co-Active Coaching, by Whitworth and Kimsey-House. This is the introductory text for professional coaching in most training programs. With her interest sparked and her heart being drawn, Kevyn started looking for information on training to be a coach.

Kevyn heard about a presentation for therapists interested in learning to be coaches, given by Ben Dean, Ph.D. Ben is the founder of MentorCoach, an International Coach Federation Accredited training organization. Ben was a clinical psychologist who transitioned to coaching so the training program he described was tailor made for Kevyn and others with her background. She decided to enroll in the training program.

The Fourth Career

When her sabbatical ended, Kevyn returned to her private practice. She limited it so she could have time to build a part-time coaching practice. But being a therapist had lost its luster for her. Coaching was energizing. In time she realized she wanted to coach full-time and let go of her therapy practice.

Two years after she began coaching, Kevyn closed her therapy practice, tiptoed up to the edge, held her breath, and jumped in to the “coaching pool” full-time. The next month she was teaching her first coaching class for MentorCoach. Today she teaches new coaching students on a regular basis while maintaining a full and varied coaching business. Since she works from home, she and her husband are able to live half of each year in Pennsylvania and half in Vermont.

Kevyn says that she would never have guessed she would enjoy the areas of specialty she now works in. But she found them by being willing to try new things. She works with restaurant owners, a link to her distant past that brings her more energy and enthusiasm than running a restaurant ever did. She works with medical executives occasionally. She is one of a hand-chosen group of coaches working with MBA students at Smeal College of Business at Penn State.

Kevyn recently became the Director of Learning at MentorCoach. She helps mentor and lead the other trainers, and she helps revise and improve the curriculum for new coaching students. She is admired, respected, and loved in the MentorCoach community.

Dancing in the Moment

In the field of coaching, “dancing in the moment” refers to the coach follow the client wherever he or she decides to go at any given moment in a session. If the client has an ongoing goal of getting a project completed, but in the session she starts talking about spending more time with her daughter, the coach goes where she leads.

Coaches listen on many levels and must be flexible to respond to what is most important to the client. They must listen with knowledge, but they must especially listen with wisdom and intuition. They must hear the language of the heart, and they must see serendipity.

Kevyn has chosen to listen to her heart at key turning points in her life. She has been willing to follow the lead of serendipity, even when she was not sure where it would take her. By being open and willing to risk, Kevyn continues to have a life of adventure, happiness, and freedom.

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For More Information About Coaching

Kevyn Malloy, Ph.D., is a Certified Mentor Coach (CMC) and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC). More information on coaching and on her coaching business can be found at her website. Kevyn maintains a full practice but can occasionally accept new clients. She has a vast network of experienced coaching colleagues to recommend when she is not able to start working with a client right away.

Information about coach training is available throughMentorCoach.
MentorCoach specializes in “Training Accomplished Helping Professionals to Become Extraordinary Coaches.” MentorCoach was started specifically to help therapists and other mental health workers build on their significant strengths and skills while learning important distinctions between therapy and coaching. The organization’s reach has grown to include students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Striving and Thriving

In 1994 Hilda Pacheco-Taylor visited Door of Faith (Puerta de Fe) Orphanage in Baja California, México. There were around thirty children in care at the home in La Misión, in the countryside near Tijuana. The buildings were in disrepair and overall conditions were shocking.

Things had deteriorated so much since she had last seen the home. That was when she left at age sixteen to find her mother, after spending eight happy and memorable years at the orphanage.

Hilda, the oldest at age seven, was placed at the orphanage by her mother along with her two brothers and sister. Their mother had to work long hours after their father abandoned the family, and the children’s safety was at risk with no one to care for them. At the time, Door of Faith housed between 90 and 100 children in very good conditions for poor, rural Mexico.

Curtis and Sylvia Freeze founded the orphanage in 1959, and they ran the home along with their son Val and his wife Agnes for decades. The Freezes had retired and left Mexico before Hilda’s return visit. The connection between churches and donors in the U.S. and the home was lost after the Freezes retired.

New Beginnings

Hilda met DJ and Lynette Schuetze during her first return visit. DJ and Lynette had moved from Orange County to live full time at Door of Faith in April of 1993. Lynette was trained in child development and was a pre-school teacher. DJ had a background in business as a director of marketing. After volunteering for many years at various orphanages they felt led to move full time to Baja to serve the children at Door of Faith.

DJ and Lynette were looking for ways to bring in support from U.S. sponsors. They asked Hilda to help find donors and participants for the orphanage’s new sponsorship program.

What Can One Person Do?

Hilda had been a U.S. citizen for many years by then and had a typical American life with a good job in southern California. She wondered how she could persuade people to help. Since the cause was so personal to her, she knew her appeal had to be personal. That meant telling the story of her early life, which was so different from her current life.

She started telling people about her mother working long hours to support her and her brothers and sister, and then about her years living at Door of Faith. The owners of the company where she worked not only offered to help, but they assisted Hilda in establishing a foundation to support the orphans.

A Slow Recovery

While Hilda began learning about setting up and running a foundation and finding donors and sponsors, DJ and Lynette were busy finding ways to move the home beyond daily survival. One step at a time, day by day, they helped stretch whatever resources were available to provide for the children’s needs.

They worked hard and got help on a project every now and then. Repairs were made and facilities were improved. Door of Faith was slowly being restored.

The Power of One Person At a Time

The Door of Faith Foundation started a program of arranging trips to the home. People in the communities around San Diego and up to Orange County (and even a couple of times from Texas) would travel together to visit the children and bring supplies. The personal connection helped people see the difference that Door of Faith was making in the lives of the children. It helped them see firsthand the needs of the home. And it allowed them to invest their time getting to know some of the children and to be a part of their lives.

As more people started to contribute, the Foundation was able to help Door of Faith build back up to the point where it could again house close to 100 children. In recent years, the number of children at the home has grown to nearly 120 at times. It is one of the few orphanages in the region that can provide good care for infants so they are regularly asked to accept more children. Currently Door of Faith has a construction project to build a new nursery. Information is updated here on their website to track the progress of the building.

What Can One Orphanage Do?

Door of Faith, desperately in need of supplies and assistance a few years ago, now gives back regularly to the community around the home. It’s not because they are overflowing with bounty. Far from it! They have ongoing needs that any family of 150 or so (children plus staff) would have.

They also have big needs that show up without a warning, like pump motors for wells, appliances for the kitchen, maintenance on vehicles, and newer vehicles to replace the dilapidated ones. They rely daily on God’s grace expressed through the donations of supplies, equipment, money, time, and talent of all the people who support the home.

But ongoing need doesn’t stop them. DJ says they take service to others very seriously at Door of Faith. Their top three core values are rooted in faith and flow from honoring God. They are family, education, and community service.

“An outcome of teaching our many kids to give back is they are much healthier emotionally,” DJ explains. “We believe people are designed to give and to serve others. Only through serving others is true joy found in this life.”

Door of Faith has developed programs to provide assistance to families in the area. They coordinate efforts to help repair or build homes. They collect school supplies for children who can’t afford them after collecting them for the dozens of children at the home who need them. The children of Door of Faith help wherever they can. In addition, DJ and Lynette are consultants to other orphanages in Baja and show them ways to organize their limited resources and provide the best care possible.

Where Can One Vision Lead?

As the Foundation gained support and helped re-establish Door of Faith, it became clear that the need in Baja was much, much greater. In 2001 Hilda and the board expanded the Foundation’s mission to assist more orphans in Baja by providing support to a growing number of orphanages. They renamed the Foundation Corazón de Vida, which means Heart of Life.

Right now they provide assistance to 14 homes, which care for more than 750 children. Through their child sponsorship program they have connected 140 children with sponsors. The sponsors provide monthly financial support and can send letters or visit the children they sponsor.

In order to expand their reach to more orphanages, Corazón de Vida has created the SOCAL50 Challenge. The goal of this program is to connect 50 businesses or other organizations with 50 orphanages as sponsors. Their long-term goal is to provide guidance and support to all the orphanages in Baja while teaching them how to become more self-sufficient by getting outside support.

Called To Serve In Different Ways

DJ and Lynette were called to spend a long season of their lives living and volunteering in Baja to make sure Door of Faith, and now other orphanages, are able to care for children in need. Hilda was called to spend her time guiding a foundation and taking the message of the orphans of Baja to her community. Business owners and community members she met were called to give financial donations and supplies. Some were also called to give their time volunteering at CDV’s offices, gathering and sorting donated supplies and goods, coordinating trips to orphanages, and traveling to the orphanages to do service projects and spend time with the children.

The level of commitment DJ and Lynette have made to this calling on their lives is stunning. Hilda puts so much time and energy into building up and maintaining support for an increasing number of orphans while she keeps a full-time job t’s exhausting just to imagine. Their dedication is so great it seems it would overshadow the smaller contributions of people who can’t give nearly so much. But that’s now what happens. Their work amplifies other people’s efforts and focuses on them.

In fact, what DJ and Lynette most often say they need is the ongoing support those smaller efforts provide. That can be contributions of food, donating to get uniforms or school supplies for one child, a group spending a week helping with a construction project, or someone donating a vehicle. These contributions are essential to the ongoing welfare of the children.

When Hilda spends her time letting more people know about the orphans, she shows them ways to contribute their time, their talent, or their treasure. Her effort becomes productive only as other people respond and give the portion they can.

Each person who helps improve the lives of the orphans of Baja makes an important choice. When they see the need, they don’t think, Somebody should do something. They ask, “How can I help?”

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For More Information

A synopsis of Hilda’s story is available on the web site for Corazón de Vida Foundation. The site has information about all the homes CDV currently supports, with lots of photos and even some audio greetings from the children.

You can read about DJ and Lynette on the web site for Door of Faith. You will find a little of their story plus contact information. While you’re they’re look at some of the photos of special events at the home.

“What was that you were doing?” Jean Good asked her husband Scott. He was in the garage, actually trying to have some privacy. He was practicing his newfound sport Tae Kwon Do and didn’t really want her to see him.

Scott was practicing basic form one, the first collection of steps new students learn in the martial art form. “From the moment I set eyes on basic form one, I knew I wanted to do it,” Jeanie said. “I’ve never had something affect me like that.”

Eighteen years later, Jean Good is known as Master Jeanie and is a sixth degree black belt. She’s the first woman to achieve that high rank in the World Youn Wha Ryu Association. Her husband Scott is also a Tae Kwon Do Master, having earned the rank of fifth degree black belt.

Circumstances: Random Chance or Destiny?

Scott and Jeanie and their children were living in Tucson when Scott’s company notified him they were going to transfer him to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The family only had to wonder how they would manage such a big change for about a month. That’s when Jeanie’s company said they were relocating and taking six managers with them. She was selected to go with them—to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Scott had always been interested in martial arts so when an instructor started offering classes at his health club he signed up. That’s how he happened to be practicing basic form one in the garage when Jeanie walked in.

Jeanie and her daughters started taking classes shortly after. Scott and the instructor struck up a friendship that turned into a business partnership. With Scott’s intensity and business acumen, the two men opened satellites in every location they could find. Within a few months they found a site to open a permanent school in Grapevine, a suburban community near DFW Airport. With Scott and Jeanie just beginning to advance up the belt levels, they were co-owners of a Tae Kwon Do training studio.

Finding Her Mission

Scott and Jeanie kept their jobs and worked at the school in the evenings. Jeanie was teaching classes from the time she had her yellow belt, the first step up from beginner. As she and Scott were around other students and other training styles, they realized the partnership with their original instructor would not work out long term. His style was too abrupt.

Jeanie has always seen how Tae Kwon Do can develop the whole person, and that’s how she wanted it taught. She’s a strict instructor, and students leave her classes sweating and panting. But they know beyond any doubt that she cares about them and sees them as individuals.

They dissolved the partnership and Scott and Jeanie took charge of the school. With his business skills and her focus on training, it started booming, and just in time. Scott and Jeanie were both laid off from their jobs one day apart. They decided to focus on building the business since it was already growing so well. For many years they had great success.

They helped set up satellite schools in other parts of Texas and developed on-site satellite programs for beginner classes that eventually brought more students to the main school. They planned a second school in an affluent neighborhood near the Dallas Cowboys headquarters. It was set to open October 2, 2001. September 11 got in the way.

Plans Derailed And New Challenges

Many industries were affected by September 11, some in obvious ways, like the airlines. The Tae Kwon Do schools felt the affects in a big way. The new location never reached enough students to be feasible so it closed quickly. The Grapevine location saw a substantial drop in students, too. It was a long-term change, so Scott eventually found a full-time job while he continued to teach some evenings and helped oversee the business. Jeanie found herself with more of the responsibility for the school, especially the business decisions that had never been her strong suit.

She also felt the need to support the association, since other schools in the region were struggling, too. Grandmaster Han, a highly accomplished ninth degree black belt respected worldwide in martial arts, established The World Youn Wha Ryu association. Jeanie realized the strength of her school is due in large part to the strength of the association and Grandmaster Han’s philosophy. It was important to her to be an active leader in the association. She put a lot of her time and effort into helping grow the association and keeping it active while she was also keeping her school going and slowly building up student levels.

With Scott working full-time Jeanie had to make more of the decisions about things like marketing and where to set up on-site classes to build up the number of students. She is now implementing a written business plan (a first for her) that includes starting training for assistant instructors at a lower belt level so they can participate early on and be encouraged to become full instructors at the higher belt levels. She is finding locations for satellite schools and looking for places to offer demonstrations by students. She is even learning about advertising, at least enough to make effective choices. The student levels are not back to where they were before, but they are slowly rising.

The Hardest Thing She Ever Did

Jeanie became Master Jeanie in January of 2002 when she received the rank of fifth degree black belt. It was a culmination of years of training and focused hard work preparing to test. She joined the small group of Masters in the World Youn Wha Ryou Association who guide the organization and uphold its standards and ethics. It was an inspiring accomplishment, and surely she thought she was done testing.

Grandmaster Han saw there was even more in Jeanie. This past summer he invited her to test for her sixth degree black belt. She knew it would take months of training and be a drain on her both mentally and physically, but she trusted in her Grandmaster’s vision and accepted his invitation.

In December 2007 Jeanie honored the Grandmaster in a belt test that will be remembered for ages. She engaged in two-on-one sparring, being challenged by a fifth degree black belt and a third degree black belt at the same time. She was kind and only took them down a couple of times. Then, in a stunning display of top defensive forms, she had a group of Masters line up and attack her, one after the other, getting back in line for further attacks, as she demonstrated dozens of takedown moves. It was breathtaking.

That night, at a surprise party thrown by her students, Jeanie told the crowd that preparing for the test and meeting that challenge was the hardest thing she had ever done. Her daughters, both black belts, told her how much of an inspiration she is for them and other women because of her strength and courage and dedication.

A Natural Teacher

Jeanie’s strength is teaching. It’s her calling. She’s a natural at it because she loves the movements of Tae Kwon Do and she enjoys people. She is warm and sincere and sees her students as family. “I can’t imagine not teaching them,” she says. “I do this not just to teach them to kick and punch. I do this to help them change their lives. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times.”

The thing is, Jeanie thinks it’s the Tae Kwon Do that’s changing their lives. Certainly the system, based in honor and discipline and respect and self-control, helps students build character and confidence. But that’s only part of it. What Jeanie doesn’t realize is that lives are changing because her attention and dedication and love are transforming her students.

Things at the school are done “Ms. Pat’s Way,” but not by coercion or command. Ms. Pat is petite—one of her teachers is four-foot-nine and towers over her—but people listen to her. She carries the power of a guiding vision, and she inspires other people to share her vision. When you hear the clarity of her vision and see how she has brought people together to make it real, it’s difficult to believe she had no idea where things were headed when she stumbled onto Montessori education.

Vision Starts With An Unmet Need

Things were set in motion when Pat’s husband at the time wanted to move to a rural community near Dallas-Fort Worth so he could keep horses on their property. The local school district had a weak reputation and the schools were far away, so she asked about private schools. She was told there were a couple of Montessori schools in a nearby town.

The closer school didn’t have any children the age of her older son so she drove to the larger school to check it out. The man who would teach her third-grader was wearing shorts, sandals, and a flowered shirt. Pat was relatively comfortable with rural Texas. She wasn’t very comfortable with flowered shirts and sandals.

With parent recommendations and a lot of faith she enrolled both her sons. The open concept and self-directed activities left her wondering for quite a while. Until she pulled up to the school one day and saw her older son on the roof.

He and another student were up there—on the flat roof—working on a math problem. They were exploring and discovering things to help explain the math concept. They were safe; the teacher knew where they were and they had borrowed a ladder. From that day on, her son loved math, and Pat loved Montessori.

Turning Necessity Into Opportunity

A few short years later Pat was going through a divorce and the school offered her a position as secretary at their small satellite in a developing community. She worked in exchange for tuition so her sons could stay enrolled in the main school. She started learning more about Montessori and started discovering her talents for leadership, organization, and motivation.

Supporters of the school found a property in a rural town on the edge of the suburbs and helped the school buy it. At the time there was a single home on it. Over the Christmas break of 1987 Ms. Pat, her two sons, a couple of volunteer dads, and a teacher who is still at the school, Ms. Marisa, packed up the school’s belongings in a horse trailer and moved everything to the little house.

The first day school was supposed to start back, there was a winter storm. This was fortunate for Pat, because it meant she had more time to put together the classrooms. They made shelves by painting cinder blocks and boards. She rolled up her sleeves and organized and arranged until the chaos settled into a manageable mess.

The school had about twenty-five students when it opened at the new location. Many parents volunteered to help with the tasks, like making classroom materials and continuing to transform the house into a school. A music teacher showed up, having just moved from Santa Fe, and was able to teach music and offer piano lessons. The universe was pitching in.

Sometimes Someone Else Sees Your Wings Before You Do

Soon after the teacher who had acted as director was no longer interested in the dual role. The school’s board asked Pat to consider the position. She was passionate about the Montessori philosophy and was invested in the school by then. It had become like a family to her and her sons through their upheavals. But she was scared by the responsibility of the position. She decided to trust the judgment of the directors and accepted the position, now earning a tiny bit of salary on top of free tuition.

Early days were very difficult because the school was still a small satellite. Pat would drive half an hour or more to get to the main school to pick up classroom and office supplies on a regular basis. People at the main school focused more and more on keeping the main location viable and gave little thought to the satellite. Pat focused more and more on a long-term plan of growth for her school.

A Big Vision And A Patient Plan

With a group of dedicated parents she was able to negotiate a separation from the original school. In 1990 they founded a separated non-profit corporation and signed a contract to purchase the building and some of the land. Pat got very busy. During the day she ran the school and met with people and slowly filled it to capacity based on referrals, word of mouth, and her personal presence in the community. At night she was taking classes to get certified in Montessori education.

With the classes full, she went to the board to share her long-term vision. She could see what the campus would be like in the future, with additional buildings for additional classrooms and activities. She encouraged them to start the first stage. They agreed to get a small loan and build an additional building on the property with two more classrooms. The classes filled within two years. They added a class for older children (9 through 12) and hired a former teacher from the original school to help direct that class three days per week.

The Second Stage Follows Quickly

By 1994 the original expansion was paid off and Pat had a vision for Stage 2. This would require a higher level of financing. Large national corporations were buying up local banks so her father suggested she find a small-town bank nearby. Driving to one location, she got lost and pulled into Justin, which was mostly a farming and ranching town at the time. She found a local bank, put together her information and got up her courage, and finally drove back out. She pitched her idea to a bank vice-president who agreed to consider. Two days later he showed up at the school with the bank president. She laid out her full dream to them, they listened, and a week later told her “yes.”

The second addition was a larger building with two large classrooms for the elementary classes. With the classrooms completed, a main part of Pat’s vision was realized. The school could have children from eighteen months through twelve years. And the classes filled up.

Striving—It’s Always Part Of The Process

There were bumps and bruises along the way. People with a different vision tried to influence the board to go in a different direction. They wanted to take control of the school and tried to get other parents and teachers to go along.

But Pat laid out her vision for the school and shared her heart with all the parents and staff. She let them know how much she values the fact the school as a second home to many students and a place of connection and community for many parents. She explained why she wanted a smaller school and how believed the children deserved comfortable relationships with their teachers and staff over several years. They overwhelmingly supported her and committed to continuing her vision.

Oh, It Gets Better!

Pat had a high school sweetheart named Cecil. He went into the Navy and she went her own way after high school. He was also a friend of her brother so he attended her father’s funeral. They started talking again. He was recently divorced and had just retired from the Navy. She had stayed single for years. He was finally able to live wherever he wanted, so pretty soon he decided to move near her.

They got married nearly ten years ago. He’s part of the school family now, showing up to help out at all the school activities. He’s also the handyman—he’s a retired Seabee who’s constructed embassies so building maintenance is a breeze for him!

The Vision Realized

With the first expansion paid off and the second expansion paid down, the board agreed it was time for the final stage of the campus expansion. In the spring of 2006 graduation was held in a brand new gym at the school. The building has a stage for the school’s programs and parent events. It has a room for music and a room for other enrichment activities. It even has a serving kitchen for school-wide family events. It’s the building Pat has been planning for nearly twenty years.

Pat says people have told her, “If you owned that school you’d be set now.” She doesn’t see it that way. She doesn’t think it could have happened as a for-profit business. The non-profit corporation is the vehicle that carries the vision forward. It has taken many parents volunteering in lots of different ways over all the years the school has been open to help bring the vision to fruition. It has been possible, and it has survived through some lean and uncertain times, because other people committed their time, energy, and money to a long-term dream.

Trusting In Wings
Sometimes you’ve got to jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down.
~Ray Bradbury

The directors from the original school who asked Pat to take the job of administrator were right. She was the perfect person for the job. I doubt they realized at the time how much she would accomplish, but they knew she would protect the dream and move it forward.

Pat didn’t know, when she first started looking for a school for her sons, where it would lead her. She didn’t know what was ahead when she started working as a secretary in exchange for tuition. When she accepted the position of administrator, I know she was afraid, but I think she glimpsed the vision. She had ideas about what needed to be done. She just doubted if she was the one to pull it off.

She took the leap anyway, and now she is soaring.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

~ Margaret Young

I get a Daily Inspirational Nudge from Valerie Young at Changing Course. She’s a creative career change wizard. I use the word wizard because all the feminine magical terms seem to have very negative connotations.

I can’t even use the word “genie” because Valerie will point out that has the same root as “genius.” Instead of talking about her own accomplishments she’ll focus on the unique abilities and gifts of each individual, our own “genius,” or inner “genie.”

The quote above jumped out at me when I saw it in my in-box. It helps me realize there’s a lot of backwards thinking bouncing around.

We want to have plenty of money and time and freedom before we’re willing to find our passions and live fully in alignment with our values. Isn’t it possible that our passions and values will lead us to more freedom, liberate our time (as we delete things that aren’t in sync with them), and lead to greater success as we work from our greatest gifts? In fact, is it really possible to do it any other way?

We want to have fame and acceptance so we can be pleased with ourselves—so we can like ourselves. Regardless of fame, regardless of acclaim, we won’t like ourselves until we take time to know ourselves and see what unique qualities we bring to the world. And other people are more likely to like us and accept us when we start by liking ourselves.

We think we have to have a perfect plan all worked out before changing careers, starting a business, or starting a new chapter in our lives. But we’re not going to see most of the steps until we get going. We have to head out into the fog of not-knowing before we can start to find our way. Trailblazers don’t blaze highways!

We want adventure and excitement in our lives, but we want to plan it and make sure we’ve saved up for it and won’t get bumped “off-course” from our careful plans. But as we build our dependence on institutions and organizations, we lose our independence, which is the core of our ability to have an adventure.

I heard another great quote in a Coaching seminar: “Just get moving; you can always change lanes later.” The energy of action is powerful, and more important than being totally prepared and exactly on target when you set out. Michael Masterson tells us, “Ready, Fire, Aim,” explaining that often it’s getting started and making effort that matters most. The details get worked out along the way.

The excitement, the adventure, the joy, the passion, and the deep happiness follow our action. We must take risks—calculated risks, not wild and crazy risks—and give ourselves a chance to create and express and discover. We have to get out and do. We have to strive towards expressing our authentic selves as fully as possible. Then we will thrive.

The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

What more needs to be said?

In this Age of The Secret and The Law of Attraction—much.

Age-old wisdom has been mainstreamed and popularized. As with most concepts, mainstreaming and popularizing means losing some important components.

I am much more comfortable with the term “Law of Intention” than “Law of Attraction.” I believe effort is required. Intention focuses the mind so your efforts are more productive. When you focus on your goal, your mind at many levels starts listening, gathering information, and solving problems. You see patterns you didn’t recognize before. You become aware of resources you hadn’t thought of.

You see paths to your goal that seem like they pop into your mind. I think there’s a part of the brain that’s working hard putting pieces together, and when your unconscious mind delivers the “finished report” to your awareness it seems like it comes from outside your own thoughts. But I believe it’s processed in your own mind.

Intention is the difference between wanting to be a famous actress and meditating on it each day, and planning to be a famous actress and finding every opportunity to improve your craft and be seen by other people. Intention looks for opportunities to earn money instead of visualizing checks arriving in the mailbox. Intention seeks the path to the goal.

It reminds me of the classic joke about the man who prays diligently each week to win the lottery. After months without winning, he’s beseeching and yearning and pleading with God. Suddenly he hears a voice from above. “Help me out a little. Buy a ticket.”

I think that visualizing the end goal helps make it more real and more believable. I think our minds pursue what we believe is possible and avoid what we believe is impossible. So meditating and visualizing the goal are useful. But even more important is what occurs when you focus your thoughts on <em>the next steps.</em>

It can be helpful to meditate I will be successfully self-employed in five years, or even Money comes to me easily and regularly.

But it’s much more powerful to meditate I will see my next step to discovering and starting my own business, or to think Every day I see more ways to create income from ideas.

It is focused attention that brings information, awareness, and opportunities to you. It is effort and intention that turns thoughts into reality. That happens when you set your mind to discovering your path, finding the next step, and taking it.

With intention, The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.