How to Set Goals on Your Career Path

Goal setting is one of those activities in life that most people know works but still few people actually do. From a career standpoint, most people are going through life doing the equivalent of eating nothing but junk food when they know better to eat right and exercise. Sometimes doing the things that will lead to results and success are harder, but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile.

Something that personally helped me was treating goal setting like a game. I have a destination, no matter how big or small, and the object of the game is to get to that destination. Once I reach one goal, I know I need to have a new and bigger one in the works so that I'm always moving forward. I also surround myself with friends who have big dreams and goals as well. Negative people believe goal setting is pointless, which is why it's hard to find a negative person with long-term success. They get things backwards, believing success leads to a good attitude when it's a good attitude that leads to success.

The other side of setting goals is knowing what you really want. This is difficult for people to figure out sometimes. A lot of us have gone through life experiences where we're used to other people defining what we "should" want, and when we get out on our own as adults there's this uneasy feeling of "what should I do?" What people don't understand is the paradox of indecision is that it still a decision (one of inaction). The end result of doing that long-term is you wake up one day with a lot of regret.

It's never too late to change, but at the same time don't let that be your excuse to procrastinate. Most likely no one around you is going to give you permission to follow your dream. You have to take action and get out of your comfort zone.

If any type of fear is holding you back, read about successful people who have what you want out of life. You'll be surprised at the frustrations, struggles, and tragedies they had to overcome to get to their point in life. Success in anything is not about breezing through life but about developing the character to be able to handle what comes at you.

Seriously give this some thought. Sit down with a notebook and brainstorm ideas of what you want your life to look like 5 years from now. Make the resolve that you don't want to be average. Taking the time to do this just makes sense compared to randomly working toward something you may or may not really want.

I hope you've found these ideas helpful, and I wish you the best!

Exploring Career Choices

Exploring career choices can sometimes feel like a balancing act. On one hand, it's very unreasonable to think you're supposed to have it all figured out in your teens and early 20s, when most people are under the most pressure to make a career decision. At the same time, you can let yourself get trapped in a cycle of indecision, fear of change, and procrastination to where you put off what you'd love to do in favor of something that does really fit.

Many times people don't know where to start. A good place to begin is to set aside some time to focus only on career ideas. Grab a notebook, get a soda or a cup of coffee at a relatively quiet restaurant (or any place where you can get away and think), and begin brainstorming and writing ideas of what you want your life to look like within the next 5-10 years.

You also want to write down what you love to do and how those activities can be turned into either a job or self-employed business. See how you can combine different interests into a niche career that would be special and important to you. Once you have a direction, you can begin finding ways of moving toward what you want and away from the things that won't help you.

I did all of these steps at 19 years old, and it is amazing what you can do in life when you learn how to focus and develop your dream. Your plans may change over time, but you can always repeat the process above any time you're at a crossroads and want to change something that isn't working for you.

Finding a mentor or mentors is important as well. Having successful people in your life pulls you to wanting to do more in life, regardless if the mentor is in your career field or not. A lot of success principles carry over to life in general, and it's helpful to have role models and examples in your life.

The final tip I have is to never stop being willing to learn something new and pursue where new ideas take you. If you're interested in a particular job or business, try to absorb as much information as you could be well prepared if you wanted to transition into the field.

This process does work. I was a psychology and broadcasting major in college, which did help me. I kept learning outside of formal education however about subjects like business, writing, and online marketing. I'm now making a significantly higher income than most people my age and am on the verge of being able to "retire" to write full-time in my mid-20s without needing a day job.

It still takes work, and there's no secret formula to replace that. It's just knowing how to focus your efforts in ways that will help you the most and get you in the position to do what you love. Good luck and best wishes to you!

How to "Diversify" Your Career

With the way jobs and work have changed over the past few decades, creating a career out of multiple part-time jobs (and part-time businesses for that matter) can give a person more financial stability and often a higher income.

My own life is a great example of this in that I have 6 or 7 different income sources at any given time. Alone, these incomes would be unstable and would not make sense for a person to do. Combined however, they provide flexibility and a safety net if for some reason something happens with one or two of them. I love what I do and am never bored. Plus I get to spend more time with my husband and can still make money while traveling.

To do something like this without hurting yourself financially, expect for it to at least take you three to five years. If you're working a full-time job right now, start developing one of your part-time jobs, a side-business, or other self-employment ideas during the time you'd normally be doing things like watching TV. You'll be tired for a short period of time, but it makes the transition a lot easier. Starting from scratch is also not a bad option if you don't have a job, but keep in mind it's going to take longer and you'll need to focus quickly on finding good opportunities.

As your income goes up, take that extra money you're making and get yourself out of any debt you have. Over time you'll be able to free up more of your time because you won't be working just to pay payments. This will free you up to drop the full-time job and search for another part-time position or two. Even traditional benefits are not a problem if you plan it right because the increase in income will cover them if you're patient and willing to stick with it.

A major "secret" in all of this is it's not all about working more hours. It's more about flexibility and long-term freeing up more of your time and creating a career that works around your life instead of the other way around. Business books can teach you how to do this as far as creating repeat income.

Online businesses are also great sources for income and can fit a wide variety of interests. You just have to take the time to find ideas that you would enjoy working on. A group of part-time jobs can also accomplish something similar, but you have to keep in mind the income is temporary and still based on your time.

I also work a part-time job because my husband and I have some student loans to pay off. After the debt is completely gone, I can literally do any career that I want without worrying about the money aspect. I think what trips a lot of people up is they think to make money they have to be at a miserable job, and if they want to do what they love they'll have to struggle financially. That just isn't true. You just have to be patient and steady when you decide to change things around for yourself.

One last piece of advice is to read everything you can about business and self-employment before you get started and continue to keep learning as you go. This will help you with a lot of the technical details and help you make fewer mistakes. Every self-employed person makes mistakes and has obstacles, but having the ability to create your own career is worth it.

Life is precious, so we should all make the best of it. I wish you the best and hope you pursue your dream!

Looking at Self Employment vs. Traditional Employment

Lifestyle should be your consideration when deciding whether to work a traditional job verses starting your own business. Both options have their lifestyle advantages and disadvantages, and the good news is there's also nothing preventing you from doing both when you're first starting out. In fact, that's how most successful business owners have done it.

The main advantages of working a job are generally predictability, steady income, and sometimes steady work hours. Your income is active, meaning you work a certain number of hours a week, and you get paid a certain amount of money. Gratification is faster, and you see the results of your effort quicker than a business owner usually does.

The trade off with a job is your income is usually capped. You can only work so many hours a week on a steady basis without becoming physically and mentally exhausted by the process. You're also putting your income in the hands of someone else, who obviously can't completely pay you what you're worth to them and achieve a profit at the same time. Sales and commission-type jobs pay better long-term, but you lose a little of the predictability factor in the process.

Home-based and web-based businesses are a rapidly growing trend in our culture, mainly because they require little (if any) upfront capital to fund them and often allow you to work a job at the same time. The Internet has granted people the ability to have storefronts that run themselves, a virtual employee who works for them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. These are a great transition point for people with an entrepreneurial spirit but want to do something with a low risk factor.

This has also stemmed growth for franchise-styled business teams, some of which can provide excellent practical training for people of various experience levels. Like any traditional business training however, just be sure to do your homework. There are legitimate opportunities out there as well as scams, so it can pay to be opened-minded but tempered with common sense. Never enter into anything financially before you understand the basics of how and why it works. Most legitimate opportunities will have an education focus to them and will give you time to think, whereas scams tend to get people to enter on impulse.

There are a lot of advantages to owning your own business. The American tax structure can have a lot of incentives available to small business owners that are not available to employees. You'll need to check with an accountant for details on that issue. Having a business can also grant you flexibility and more time, especially with business types that do not always require your physical presence to work. There is also the potential, though not a guarantee, to make more money over the long-term as these businesses grow and become stable. What appealed to me was the ability to get my time back after a time of initial hard work, which in my life holds a lot of value.

The hardest thing for many employees transitioning into business is the lack of almost instant gratification. The work you do does make an impact on your business, but you may not see it until weeks, months, or even years later. There is an passive element to businesses however that allows you to get paid over and over again for previous work, something that employees rarely see in their jobs. The important thing is to not give up too soon, just before your results would have started to appear.

The ability to "call your own shots" is what draws many people to wanting their own business. In the corporate world, job security is an illusion. Virtually no employee is immune from the impact of mergers, downsizing, and layoffs. Through a stable business, or even multiple businesses, a person can develop a safety net of residual income (a term for repetitive income developed from a single effort) that can continue to come in even when the unexpected occurs.

This is also how people can "earn" their time back by developing a steady income that matches or exceeds their living expenses. This takes time and is very rarely an overnight event. It's also not something employees traditionally have the ability to do however.

In deciding whether to go into business for yourself or not, remember the old saying about "putting all of your eggs in one basket." In investing, it is usually a bad idea to stake everything you have on one thing. Yet in our society people do it every day by having only one form of income, usually a job. This does not have to be a decision between two opposites since most people have the ability to do both. It just you have to ask yourself if you're willing to put in the extra effort, lose a little time watching TV or other hobbies, and build yourself something that will help you and your family over the long-term.

It's a decision we all have to make as adults, and there's no right or wrong answer. You have to do what's right for your situation. Only you can decide if your current path can get you what you want out of life or not and what changes to make if it can't. Good luck and best wishes to you!

How to Escape the Rat Race

The main key to escaping the rat race is that your thought process determines how successful you become in life, including financially. This is why some lottery winners end up more in debt 5 years after they win than they were originally, and also why many millionaires could lose all the money they have and get it back within 5 years. If you want to change your financial circumstances long-term, it has to be from the inside-out.

Thinking like a wealthy person is not something that comes overnight. You have to work at it. If you want a great place to start, here are a few ideas that personally helped me:

1) Read Practical Financial and Business Books

These are not necessarily books you'll have suggested to you in high school or college, but they should be. A few authors to start with would be Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Dan Miller, John Maxwell, Napoleon Hill, and Og Mandino. In addition to this, it's helpful to know that millionaires read a lot more than the average adult-about 1 non-fiction book a month.

2) Develop a Plan

The majority of people out there who are living week-to-week and paycheck-to-paycheck are in that position because they don't have a long-term plan. Getting yourself out of debt (freeing up more of your money on a monthly basis) and building wealth does not just happen by accident. There are small changes and sacrifices you can make earlier in life that will pay off later, but you need to do it with focus and with purpose. Business books will not only show you how to make more money but to get more of your time back long-term, which is far more valuable.

3) Find Good Mentors

I can't stress the importance enough of having people in life that pull you forward instead of pull you down. You may find someone in your own career field that will help you learn, or it may be a group of people. What matters is that they challenge you in a good way and care about your future.

4) Do the Work

Success in life takes effort, and sometimes you end up getting pushed out of your comfort zone to really win in life. One of the biggest challenges I think is out there is this idea of the typical 40-hour work week and then people shut their mind down outside of that. Sometimes being successful just requires you to watch less TV and work on something outside your job that will help your future. Right now I work closer to 80 hours a week-40 for someone else and 40 for myself. The payoff to that is I'm doing what I love to do in both arenas and will have the ability to retiring younger compared to most people.

5) Do What You Enjoy

When you're doing something you don't like for the sake of money, it drains your energy and you're not as able to get as much done. When you find something in life that makes you look forward to getting up every day, in your mind it doesn't even seem like work. It may take you awhile to eventually get to that point, but it's worth pursuing.

I hope these tips have been helpful to you. Good luck and best wishes!

Life Lessons From Being an Entrepreneur

For me, I think it's the journey to becoming an entrepreneur--not just the end results--that has had a profound impact on my life.

I grew up in a hard-working blue-collar family. My dad taught me a great work ethic, but I never could see myself only working for someone else for the majority of my adult life. Personal freedom appealed to me, and unfortunately that's a hard thing to have when you're stuck in a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

One of the first lessons I learned about entrepreneurship actually happened by accident when I was a child. One day a friend of mine at school noticed a key chain I had gotten out of a 25 cent machine at a grocery store. She really liked it and asked if she could buy it off of me for a dollar. I agreed-making a 300% profit and still having a happy first customer! I reinvested the dollar into 4 more toys and repeated the process with several other kids. Before long I had a booming business-only thing was I didn't realize some kids were spending their lunch money. One trip to the principal's office later, and my first business had to close its doors.

I didn't let it discourage me, but it made me realize the importance of a win-win situation. You don't want to harm your customers for your benefit, especially when it comes so situations where the customer may not be well-informed. With children, this is obvious, but there can be some similar situations with adults as well. Never put yourself into a business situation where you may have to "turn a blind eye" to some aspect of your product or service. Not only is it an ethical issue, but it will hinder your ability to find true success.

Into my teen years, I honestly took the path of nearly everyone around me-worked hard at school, got good grades, and earned enough scholarship money to attend college. During my junior year, I met the man who later became my husband. We both attended a lot of the same broadcasting classes and managed a small movie theater together. It was my friendship with him that brought back thoughts of being an entrepreneur again. His dad was self-employed, so he grew up with the mindset of a business owner's son. I remember it was the first time in my life that I really got to know someone who thought a lot like me-even the things I thought about business that I rarely shared with people because they seemed to go against everything I was being taught in college.

Something I learned during my college years is that entrepreneurial people think differently from the majority on a lot of principles. I can't really say that all entrepreneurs are just born with that desire in them, but it is interesting to me that environment alone doesn't explain the thought process I've had my whole life--I didn't get it from my parents or school. I remember several points where I had "what in the world is wrong with me?" moments--especially when everyone around me seemed excited to be sending out their resumes to companies while I was somewhat dreading it.

The need to fit in can sometimes be conflicting with what you know in your heart is right for your life, and getting over that anxiety of being different--even the fear of being very successful--is something I've found other entrepreneurs have had to deal with as well.

At age 19, I started going to church on a regular basis after being invited by a friend. Some people may be surprised by this and others may not, but I was amazed at how relevent the Bible is to business matters-not just in history but things that are going on right now. Proverbs is a very practical business text, and people have made fortunes based on the advice the book contains.

I also learned not to live my life in compartments. Americans tend to sometimes separate their work, school, family, friends, religion, and hobbies into compartments and not let them mix together. This leads to a lot of inner conflict and division. Over time I've learned that I'm much more than just the sum of my roles in life, and that who I am needs to be the same no matter what I'm currently doing at any given time. That's been a very important lesson.

The best advice I can offer other young entrepreneurs is to read as many books as you can on the topic and get around other people who have a similar thought process. It's much easier to have more successful people pull you to do better than to set mediocre goals for yourself just because they're above those of much less ambitious people around you. Along your journey, help other people who are less fortunate. This keeps your heart right. Lastly, realize that every challenge and struggle you go through along the way will help you--it's in overcoming obstacles that you discover what you're really made of and what will help you succeed long-term.

Reducing Stress in Life

When it comes to business or a job, stress can sometimes motivate you to do better than if you weren't under pressure. Taken to the extremes however, it can paralyze your decision-making and be very unhealthy over long periods of time. In these cases, unhealthy stress definitely needs to be reduced.

Over the past couple of years, I've learned a lot about handling stress that I think could be helpful to a lot of people. Everyone is going to have personal things that help them, but these are just a few that stand out in my mind:

1) Develop a positive attitude about life in general.

This doesn't happen overnight but is something you have to put effort into on a daily basis until it becomes habit. Ways you can do this include reading books, hanging around other people who have good attitudes, and avoiding people and situations that drag your mood down. Doing this won't make you become exempt from having challenging situations coming into your life, but if you gain maturity in this you'll know how to handle things better.

2) Have a place you can go for at least 15 minutes quiet time during your day.

This could be at work or your home, depending on which is less hectic. Sometimes when a lot of things are going on, you just need a place to rest and clear your head for a moment. If you can, it helps to do this more than once, especially on busy days. Though it seems to take away time where you could be doing something, you'll find you're more efficient and organized when you get focused. Some days I just come home from work and take a short 15 minute nap so I can shift from what I was working on earlier in the day to something totally different.

3) Laugh on a daily basis.

There is some truth to the saying, "Laughter is the best medicine." Ever notice when you get done laughing with a group of friends or after a funny movie that you usually feel really good for a long time afterward? Your body physically reacts to laughter, and it's a great way to reduce stress.

4) If you have the money, splurge on a back massage or trip to the spa.

I honestly grew up near the poverty level, so my mom never got the opportunity to do stuff like this. About a year ago however I was invited to go to a spa with a group of friends. It's not something I can afford to do a whole lot right now, but I was surprised that the cost to go to one wasn't as much as I thought it would be. I don't think I've ever been so relaxed, and it was worth it.

An alternative that's little less draining on the budget is to take a warm bath with relaxing music playing. In either case, be prepared to likely fall asleep.

5) Exercise.

Exercise is really good for getting the tension from stress out of your system. I like to exercises in general, but as far as stress relief it seems to be the most helpful when you're frustrated about something.

6) Work toward doing things that you really like as far as your career.

I think jobs are the top stress producers for a lot of people, especially for people who are in a career for the wrong reasons. I've found over time that if I enjoy what I'm doing, any challenges are worth overcoming. Work doesn't have to be such a terrible thing, but people can let it take over their lives and overpower other parts of their lives.

We've had to be extremely careful about that in our situation, but for the past few years my husband and I have been working on businesses together in addition to our jobs. In that way, it's not been a whole lot different than spending time together in any other activity. We're just making money at the same time, and we have fun.

7) Keep your priorities in check.

I think this idea encompasses all of the previous ones. Life is very rarely free of any stress, so you have to set priorities on what matters to you most. In this way, you can get through a lot of obstacles that would have bothered you a lot more otherwise. I think this cuts down on the stress that a lot of us tend to generate from our own thinking that's not necessarily as bad as it appears to us.

I hope you've found these tips helpful. Good luck and best wishes to you!

How to Not Let Negative Influences Harm Your Life

For new entrepreneurs, realizing how outside influences (both positive and negative) impact a person's life and success is a very important lesson. One of the hardest things to deal with is when someone close to you does not share your excitement and enthusiasm about your business dreams and goals. Another is just keeping your mood up when daily life grinds at you. Here are some tips dealing with not letting outside influences hurt your chances for success:

1) With negative people, find out what their motivation is for their negativity.

This is extremely important. There are some people who are just concerned for your well-being. They don't want you to do something they believe is too risky, even though it is a controlled risk from your point-of-view. When it comes down to it, these people just care and need some reassurance and comfort that you're going to be fine. These can sometimes be good people to listen to because they may catch possible problems for you before they even occur, making you a better business owner.

There are other people who are uncomfortable with other people around them succeeding. I was told by one of my business mentors that this is sometimes called the "crabs in a bucket" concept-when crabs are captured, they're placed in a wide-open bucket because the ones on the bottom don't let the ones on top escape.

2) Read books that keep you going and give you hope.

There are thousands of them out there. Sometimes when you're the only entrepreneurial thinker in your family, you need this to keep from feeling like you're alone in what you're trying to accomplish. Books are also a type of mentorship-the author can't be with you one-on-one physically, but a lot of them put their heart into their work to the point you feel like they're right there with you.

3) Watch less TV.

This is funny coming from someone who went to school to go into broadcasting as a career. I'm not saying live in a cave and not know anything that's going on. I'm also not saying you can't watch television at all-I'd be a hypocrite because there several shows my husband and I enjoy watching. The thing is however is that the average person watches anywhere between 20-30 hours of television a week. If you're in that category, you need to realize that overall TV is still a negative influence. Some people may disagree with that, but from personal experience watching less TV has increase our success and our daily mood.

There are shows out there that help people as well as well-written fictional shows, but there are also shows that give you no benefit and people only watch them because it's something to do. If the average person cut their TV viewing by half and spent that 10-15 hours building something that would help them financially, within less than a decade they would probalby have enough money to do the fun things they were watching other people on TV do!

4) Realize that resistance to negative influences develops over time, not overnight.

You have to practice at it for it to work. Just like any other aspect of business, you may make some mistakes. The best thing to do is learn from them and move on. A great side-effect is that you become a positive influence in the lives of other people. Personally I think there's a great need for that in our culture, and it just feels good to be there for other people when you know how important it is to be that way.

I hope these tips have been helpful to you. Best wishes to you in business and in life.

For more how-to articles, check out my Ehow.com article library by clicking here.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Business

Transitioning from a job to a home-based business does not always have to be a sudden event. For me personally, it was more of a process. There are questions you need to ask yourself along the way, but I don't want to give you the impression that you have to know everything about business before you can even start.

Most people are never taught how to run a business in high school or college, so there's a lot of learning and experience gained along the way. If you're considering starting your own business, these the beginning questions I believe you should think on before making any major decisions:

1) Are you willing to learn a new way of thinking?

Sometimes the traits that make you a great employee will frustrate you as a business owner. If you're a hard worker and are used to getting immediate financial feedback for your work, it may be difficult at first to visualize how results work in a business. The time and money you initially invest in a business may not show up in the form of results for months or even years later. You have the potential to make more money over your lifetime however, so for me the trade-off was well worth it.

Thing that will help with this issue are reading practical business books and getting around at least a few other people who have owned traditional and home-based businesses. Any advice you can gather ahead of time will help you avoid common mistakes and know what to expect.

2) Are you willing to take a personal risk?

You're going to have people tell you you're making a mistake, no matter how great your idea seems to you. My husband and I both worked day jobs as we were getting our businesses off the ground so we wouldn't go into debt to do them. This meant 16-18 hour days sometimes with people making fun of us the entire time. Those same people will tell you how "lucky" you are when your work pays off. Be prepared to put up with that at least to a certain extent.

You're also going to have supportive people in your life as well. Also, not everyone who is negative at first is bad. They just may care about you and not want you to get hurt. It may take some time for all of those relationships to settle out.

3) Do you at least have a general plan on how you're going to make the business work?

From a financial standpoint, it's better to start a home-based business part-time and work your way into it as it becomes stable. This can take as little as a few months to sometimes several years, according to the nature of the business.

I'm all in favor of people following their dreams, but I don't suggest they do it on credit. Your greatest assets with a home-based business are your creativity and your effort. I can tell you from experience that it's possible to create a business with less than $100 start-up capital. My first real business cost me $61 to start: $1 for a box of yard sale books and $60 in shipping supplies and postage. I made a profit of $100 because I seen a good opportunity. I just kept reinvesting my profit over and over again until I had developed a nice used book business with no debt. It was learning how to recognize the right things to buy that developed my business, not money.

If you're comfortable with beginning a business, I want to encourage you to do it. I think it's wonderful to have something to call your own that you can develop for you and your family. If you're not quite comfortable yet, keep reading and researching. Usually it only takes one great idea to get you started. Either way, just don't let fear rule your decision-making. It's better to do something you love and fail your way to success than it is to be silently miserable your whole working life. Whether it's a job or a business, you need to do what matters to you.

Find more articles at my Ehow.com library by clicking here.

How I View the Business Side of Writing

Writing can be an art and a business, and I've been trying to improve my knowledge of both sides of it.

I was thinking the other day about highly-paid professions--take a doctor, for instance. They have to go to school for 8+ years past high school. Then after all of that effort, they get through their residency just to get swamped by huge student loans and malpractice insurance fees. It probably takes several more years to get that sorted out, not to mention the social pressures and built-up stress telling them they should have the big house and nice car immediately after they start practicing. Dave Ramsey calls it "Docitis."

The stereotypical vision most of us have of doctors playing golf all the time is probably far from the truth today. They have to keep working, or their income goes away. There's nothing wrong with sacrificing that much if that's a person's dream--eventually they do get out of debt and prosper by helping other people. I admire their determination.

I look at that in comparison to going into writing full-time professionally. I'm seriously thinking about it right now. I know it's still difficult, and I haven't been at this long enough to say, "See, I have this book deal and that published..." What I do know however is that the odds are in our favor today probably more than any other time in history.

Look at what the Internet has done and continues to do. People couldn't have imagined a site like this 20 or 30 years ago. We have nearly unlimited outlets and markets, and that is exciting to me. Just by the numbers alone, it's possible to find a niche. It's just a matter of just trying and gaining more knowledge about the industry.

Writing is one of those fun professions where if you do the work right once, you can get paid over and over again for that same work. Intellectual property is still property. You can't make a $100,000 yearly income magically appear from thin air, but you can use your imagination to earn it. People do it all the time, so we can't say it's impossible for us.

What some people don't understand is they don't have to be the smartest or the best writer out there. I keep noticing just from the shelves in bookstores that it's often the persistent writers that really are winning. A lot of writing is more about the heart and soul than just pure intellect. It was hard to get my mind around that at first, especially growing up in a school environment where IQ and SAT scores seem to determine your financial value in society if you're not a great athlete or auditioning for Hollywood.

People want knowledge, and they want to know that they're not alone in what they're facing in life. Most of us have something to offer in one area or the other.Don't let the fear of rejection keep you from trying. I get rejected hundreds of times a day and don't even know it--my husband and I own Internet businesses. We just don't get piled down with letters saying, "We like your products and services, but we do not have a need for them at this time..."

I'm just going to be flattered to have publishers at least spend 5 cents worth of paper and ink on me, lol! In the middle of a lot of rejection can come great sales. You never know that the next day will bring...

Plus look at our overhead as writers--a computer, printer, envelopes, postage--maybe a couple of hundred dollars worth of books to help improve the art side of things. Compare that to what it takes to be a doctor, starting a traditional business, or even just going to a 4-year college! I'm going a little longer than normal with this entry, but what I'm trying to say as a fellow writer is Don't Give Up! We're all unique, and we can all win in our own way.

Introduction

Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it's in having and getting. On the contrary, it consists of giving and serving."--Henry Drummond.

In life, people have a choice when it comes to their circumstances--either to succomb to them or overcome them. I'm a living example that a "poor" kid can make it and find happiness in America--with education (inside and outside a classroom), mentorship from successful people, and a lot of help from God.

I'm a Christian, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a business owner, a college graduate, a writer, a broadcast camera operator, and a video editor--and I'm just beginning to realize how awesome life can be when I quit getting so wrapped up in me and start looking at ways I can help other people.

I want to use my writing to make a positive difference in an environment where the focus is too often on the negative. I want to share what got me out of poverty-level thinking as well as help people younger than me from making some of the mistakes I made. In short, I want to share with other people and have fun in the process.

Thank you for stopping by, and there will be more soon.