A few years ago my husband and I began investing (on a really small scale) in real estate. We were able to experience average level success at this. We entered this arena before the housing boom started. As the market got hotter we were eager to invest more. We also encouraged friends to partner with us. It seemed almost immediately after our friends got involved our bubble and their bubble burst. In 2007 we watched slowly but steadily all the due diligence, time and money that we all had invested dwindle away. This was probably one of the most discouraging times of my life.  That season of discouragement lasted for about 2 years.  It seemed as if no amount of prayer or hard work on our part could change the situation. We prayed that our friendships and our investments would not deteriorate – fortunately the friendships that mattered most didn’t, but unfortunately the investments did.

During this time I would continually question God and ask why He would allow this to happen. Why didn’t He stop us from going through with these deals? Why couldn’t He at least change the outcomes for our friends, even if He wouldn’t change them for us? When was He going to change our situation and bring us out of this mess?

Everyday I expected that today would be the day we would wake up from this mess and it would all be over. I just knew that by the end of each month our situation would be different. It wasn’t. Nothing around me seemed to change. In fact it seemed to get worse. I was looking for God in our situation and I couldn’t seem to find him.

One day I was reading Ephesians 2:10 from an amplified version of the Bible and it came alive to me.  God has actually planned a good life for you and I. That scripture meant so much to me, because I didn’t feel like I was living a good life.  I purposed at that moment that if God had actually planned a good life for me, then I better start living it.  I made a decision that I was going to have joy in my life no matter what my circumstances looked like.

During this time,  (July 2008) I attended the She Speaks Women’s Conference hosted by Proverbs 31 ministries.   This is an annual conference that equips and encourages women called by God to take God’s peace, His perspective and His purpose back to your home and your community.   You leave with a greater sense of your unique purpose and talents.   There is a tract for writers and/or bloggers, speakers and women’s ministry leaders.    There is even a tract for teenage girls (ages 14-17) who feel called to lead through speaking, writing or by setting an example.

That weekend in 2008…

1. God confirmed in my heart and mind over and over again, though the vision tarry, wait for it.  At the appointed time it will come to pass. This is what my heart needed (and still) needs to hear so desperately.

2. On the closing night of the conference we were each told to take a card with a scripture on it.  My scriptures was 1 Peter 2:9 (But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light). This scripture was significant for me, because I was a member of a Christian sorority in college.  1 Peter 2:9 was one of our foundational scriptures.

3.  I prayed to make a connection of significance with someone. Unfortunately,  I didn’t.  I have a close knit circle of friends that I’ve had for years and years.  I’m ready to allow God to enlarge my circle of influence.

Here I sit today in March 2010 about 3 years after this low point in my life.  I don’t share part of my story with you as someone who has received victory in my bank account, but I have received victory in the place that matters most – in my mind.  I’m determined to live my life with NO regrets, so here I go again chasing after my ultimate dream.  A dream that’s as much apart of me as the color of my eyes.  I’m called to be a writer.  I AM a writer.  My dream is to write HIS answer and to have it ignite life change in the lives of millions.

When I attended this conference in 2008, I played the safe route.  I chose the speaking tract, because that’s where I felt comfortable.  This year, I would like to receive the conference scholarship, because I’m going after the dream of writing my first book.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous (wo)men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible ~ T.E. Lawrence

Where are my other dangerous dreamers?  Has an obstacle come up in your life that’s tried to suffocate the dream inside of you? Share your dreams in the comments.  Let’s keep each other encouraged.

I really knew very little about how to lose weight.  I purchased a few magazines on the subject and attempted to follow their advice.  I did have a little success with losing the weight (still didn’t know anything about how to maintain).   As a reward, one of us (me or my husband) decided it would be a good idea if I bought a few new outfits.   I always enjoyed clothes shopping before, so why not?

We got to the clothing store.   I found quite a few outfits that I liked.   I knew I had gained weight, but I had also lost some of it.   I picked out the size I thought I could fit.    I was happy with the new clothes and was ready to leave the store. 

My husband’s response:  Aren’t you going to try those on?

My response: No, I never try on clothes in the store.  I try them on at home.

His response: You don’t want to buy clothes and then get them home and they don’t fit.  You would have to make an extra trip back up here to return them.

My response: Might not fit?  They will fit.  It takes too much time to try clothes on. … (few minutes of this)  Ok. Ok. I’ll try them on.

I grabbed the clothes and head to the dressing room.  You know what happened next, don’t you?

First reason I hate dressing rooms:   the lighting exposes every single flaw in your skin and the mirrors magnify every lump, bump and bulge on your body.

Second reason I hate dressings rooms:   As I began trying on the clothes, I finally came face to face with just how much weight I had gained.   The reality was staring right back at me.  I could not fit into ANY of the outfits I had chosen. I tugged.  I pulled.  I sucked in and then, finally,  I admitted defeat.  I surrendered.   I realized I would need a bigger size.  This is when the tears began to flow.  There was no more denial.  It wasn’t the lighting.   It wasn’t the mirror.  It wasn’t the clothes.  It was the really bad eating habits I started as a kid and they had finally caught up with me.

I wish I could say that incident happened in the last few years.  It didn’t.   It happened about 10 or 11 years ago.   I wish I could say I had some *AHA* moment that inspired me to change.  Nope.  If I had, I wouldn’t be blogging about this right now.

At the beginning of this year,  I had to ask myself, “how long are you going to keep thinking it’s the dressing room mirror?”  The curious thing about mirrors? They simply reflect whatever you put in front of them.     I’ve had some moments in the mirrors of my life this year in various areas.

You want to see change in 2010?  Tomorrow’s post is about making the commitment to take action and stop living the definition of insanity.

If you held up a mirror in front of your life today, what realities would be reflected back at you?   Leave me a comment.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for they are sticking to their diet. – my refrigerator magnet

I remember the day I became aware of my weight.   (I know for some of you it’s been a lifelong struggle.)   I think I was in my third year of college.  I had just returned back to school after having spent the summer doing an internship.   I was standing in line in the cafeteria.  A friend of mine, who I hadn’t seen in a while, walked up gave me a hug and proceeded to tell me that I looked like I had put on some weight.   I can tell you in all honesty, I never thought I looked any different.  Despite her “observation”,  I don’t remember feeling self conscious or sad after our conversation.

It’s strange to me that I don’t really remember what I felt about my own weight after that.  I do remember I started paying more attention to other women’s body types (ie. comparing myself to other women more than I already had).   And about 9 months before I got married, I decided that I needed help losing the weight  and I went to one of those centers that gives you a full weight loss plan.  When they weighed me, they determined for my height,  my weight was in an acceptable range.   I left the center and decided in preparation for our wedding I would lose a few pounds on my own.   I worked out (a lot), walked everywhere (didn’t have a car) and cut back on my eating.    By my wedding day I had lost enough weight to feel confident.  My dress fit perfectly and I thought my weight loss journey had ended.

My first year of marriage I gained 25 lbs!  25lbs! That’s the amount of weight some women (not me – I gain more like 35 – 45 lbs) gain during their pregnancies.  Guess what? Again, I honestly didn’t even notice.   I remember trying on some shorts or pants and thinking, “hmm, I must have shrunk these in the dryer.”   Each time I tried on something that used to fit, but didn’t, I would think, “I need to do a better job with laundry. I’m shrinking all my clothes.”  The thing I should have observed was that my husband’s clothes weren’t shrinking.  Stop laughing.  I did not.

I finally snapped out of my denial when I was forced to move up sizes in my clothes.  This began my weight loss journey that has had it’s highs and lows for the last 12 years.

I thought about not even writing a post about weight loss, because quite frankly, it’s a topic that’s been done to death.   Are there any original insights that I can offer on this subject?  Maybe.

When did you became body conscious? Is this a good memory or a sad one?

Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you why a women’s dressing room can be one of the most depressing places on Earth.

Gender is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything in it.  It’s more powerful than age, income, race or geography. – excerpt from Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World’s Most Powerful Consumers by Bridget Brennan

When I was in college studying to be a secondary education teacher, I took a class called “Culture and Schooling.”  This was one of the most interesting courses I took in college.  It’s a class that I took over 9 years ago and I still remember it.   It’s my opinion it should have been required for every student at that University.

The purpose of the course was to teach us how culture affects every student in our classrooms.   One of the requirements of the class was to right an autobiography.  In the autobiography we were to explore how our race, our gender, our religious beliefs, our family environment, our neighborhoods, and anything else we could think of influenced our school experience.

I don’t remember what I wrote.  But what I do remember are the great discussions we had in class.  The teacher who made the assignment shared a great deal with us about how her culture and her schooling sometimes collided.  In that class I learned the real meaning of words like assimilation, conditioning and culture.   In that class I also learned we are assimilated into our group through the culture of that group.  The culture of a group teaches you what is acceptable and what is not.

Until about the age of 22, I would say the strongest determinant of how I viewed the world was race not gender.  Race was always on my mind.  In elementary, junior high and high school I attended schools where black kids were the minority.   As a result,  for college I decided to attend an HBCU (historically black college/university).    After 3 years at that school,  I got married and moved to Arizona.   (My husband and I had both done college internships together in Arizona.  When he was offered a position after graduation, it was natural for us to move there.)  Well,  I don’t know how much you know about Arizona, but there are no HBCUs here, which didn’t bother me, but it was a very different experience.

I went from a school where black culture was the norm, where I was apart of the majority, to a school where I was the only black student in ALL my classes.   Being a southern girl didn’t help either, because that’s a completely different culture (and a completely different post).  I spent a lot of time trying to compensate for my southern accent (which is not as distinct as it used to be).    I tried to look past the cultural differences, but it was a challenge, I must admit.  Over the years, I’ve grown to the point where I am not nearly as sensitive about this as I used to be.

Now back to Bridget’s statement.  I’ve come back to it over and over again.  Is it really true?  Is gender really the most powerful determinant of how people view the world?  I don’t know if I agree with it or not.   I feel my viewpoint now, as a Christian, has a greater impact on how I view the world than the fact that I’m a woman.   Maybe I’m wrong, I just know that  I’m not convinced, yet.    I’m interested to know what you think.  Has your gender influenced you more than your race, your income status, your religious beliefs, or your geography?  What examples do you have from your own life or someone else’s life to support your belief?

We will continue talking about this book  this week.  Please, check back tomorrow, as we discuss more points from the book and how it can be used to brainstorm business ideas or to help you grow your business.

My family is in a season of life right now when not much seems to be changing.  We’ve been in the same home for over 9 years.  We’ve been at the same church for 13 years.   We’ve been driving the same car for about 8 years.   The majority of our friends are the same ones we’ve had for years.   I’m still trying to lose all of the 25 pounds I gained my first year of marriage almost 13 years ago.  I’m sure it’s normal and expected when you reach a certain age your life should be, well…  stable, predictable and boring drama-free.  It’s called maturity, people!

This year I’ve decided to live with no regrets.   At the end of the year I will NOT look back and think about all the things I wish I had done differently in 2010.   One of the goals I have for 2010 is to finally lose all of that 25 pounds I gained back in 1997 and maintain my goal weight for life.   My plan was that after I lost the weight I would do something I’ve never done before.  I would get myself a real haircut.  I’m talking about the hair cut that moves me out of the safety of the long hair I’ve had all my life.   Well, I thought about it and decided I did not want to put my life on hold any longer. I decided to get my hair cut before I lost any of the weight I wanted to lose.  My new look would be the inspiration I needed to take this thing all the way.  Here it is the newer version of me:

I’m ready for change.  Ready for all that God has in store for me in 2010.  Change is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as to undergo transformation, to shift, to move from one phase to another.    In 2010 I intend to be transformed more into the woman I was created to be, to make a shift in my attitudes and actions towards my God-given purpose and to move from the phase of being a procrastinator to a woman of action.

I’ll be sharing more of my goals and changes I’m going through this year.  It’s your turn.  (This is a conversation, after all.)  I want to know about the changes you are making, the goals you’re setting in 2010.

Fast forward to December 31st of this year.   What is one thing you’ve resolved to do year after year and you haven’t done it yet?  What changes are you making this year to make it a reality?

Tomorrow, I’ll be finishing up this series.  See you then, Good Life Divas!

Back in the early 90s when I was a college intern there were not a lot of hair salon choices for African-American women in Phoenix.   I was quite capable of doing my own hair, but I had a special occasion coming up and I wanted a more polished look.    I think I found my salon, as most women do when they move to a new city, through a referral.    I called the salon and booked my appointment.  I remember how the salon looked inside, but I don’t remember the name of it or the stylist who did my hair.   I probably blocked it out of my memory.

My appointment was early Saturday morning for a shampoo and a style.  A shampoo and a style for black women means your hair is washed, blow dryed and curled with a flat iron.   When the stylist took my hair down and saw how thick it was, I think she panicked.    She told me she wanted to do a relaxer instead.    I told her that she couldn’t because I had just washed my hair that Thursday evening.   It wasn’t that my hair couldn’t be styled without giving me a fresh relaxer treatment.  She had come to the realize my hair was not going to be as “easy” as she had expected and she needed a shortcut solution.

Again I told her, as far as I knew you could not have a relaxer within at least 72 hours of washing your hair.   She told me she would put the relaxer on really quickly and that she would only leave it on for a few minutes.  I know.  I know.  I can hear you shouting at the computer like it was a horror movie.  Don’t do it!  Don’t do it!  Against my better judgment, because I didn’t want to be seen as difficult, I let her.   As a result, I had one of the worst chemical burns I’ve ever had in my life.   Needless to say that was my first and last time going to that salon.

I allowed this woman to put a relaxer on my hair even when I knew what the outcome would be.   Only now – looking back – have I realized I should have insisted she NOT give me the relaxer.  As Doctor Phil would say, “we teach people how to treat us.”

My hair was gorgeous, but it wasn’t worth the burns.

What lessons have you learned that you thought were about your hair (or other external things) but were really about adjustments you needed to make?   Please, share in the comments below.

In case you were wondering, here’s the result of the torture hair treatment:

Hair is a very big deal in American culture.  It is very BIG business in the African-American culture, especially.   It is estimated that black hair care is currently a $9 billion industry.  WHOA!!!    One of the rites of passage for many young girls in the African-American community is getting a relaxer. This product is used to straighten kinky or course textured hair.

(Relaxers are a very controversial subject in the world of hair care.  This post is not to debate the issue of to relax or not to relax.    It is simply to share some of my (mis)adventures in the wonderful world of relaxed hair.)

I believe I was in junior high when I received my first relaxer. To be honest it was not my first choice. I begged my mother for a jheri curl…   Before you laugh, let me remind you I grew up during the 80s and 90s, so this would not be unusual.     Anyway, back to my story….   I begged my mother for a jheri curl.    What did she do?   She went to the store and bought a jheri curl kit and a relaxer kit.    I don’t remember how, but my younger sister got the jheri curl and I got the relaxer.   It seemed like the day after my mom put that jheri curl kit on my sister’s hair, curls went out of style.    I’m not kidding you.

I remember over twenty something years ago getting that first relaxer.    It felt like my mother had taken a match and set my hair on fire! My mother and many other mothers weren’t educated to the proper application of a relaxer. This resulted in many chemical burns for me over the years.

One of the worst encounters I can remember was when my mom had one of her best friends relax my hair.    She had a brilliant idea of how to keep me from having a chemical burn.   Her solution: Sea Breeze.    Pour an alcohol based product over a scalp that is basically one big open sore -  NOT one of her best ideas.   Needless, to say, I know what it’s like to have a scab crusted scalp.

One of my other top 5 worst hair days was when I was in college. One of the beautification rituals in my dorm involved doing your hair on the weekends to get ready for whatever event was happening on campus.  This particular weekend I was not able to go home for the weekend to my stylist. Therefore, like the naive (and dumb) 19 or 20 year old that I was at the time, I let my dormmate give me the relaxer.

Here’s where we went wrong.

We violated the basic rules of Relaxer 101.

Relaxer 101

• NEVER use a SUPER relaxer on your hair.   This strength relaxer should have skull and crossbones on it.
• Always use a protective coating on your scalp AND around your hairline.
• NEVER allow another naive (and dumb) 19 or 20 year old to apply your relaxer.

CAUTION, DUMMY: If you do NOT heed Relaxer 101, you will end up like me – with a huge chemical burn right on your forehead as evidence of your stupidity to the world.

I have just one more horror hair story for you tomorrow.   This story is probably one of the most revealing to me about my own personality.

These stories I’m sharing are leading up to a post I have planned about some lessons I’ve learned about my hair and my identity and I want to share them with you.   Leave me a comment about one of your horror hair stories.   If you have any pictures, we would love to see them.   We promise not to laugh (too loudly).

I’ve been doing my own hair since I was about 12 years old.  Those early days were pitiful attempts I must admit. My mother did not relinquish full control of my hair to me, but she would allow me to experiment with certain styles.  Through the years, I have gained so many hair stories.  They are funny now, but trust me they were definitely not funny at the time.  When you are a self-conscious, awkward, sensitive teen the simplest things can turn your world upside down and inside out.  I want to share a few of my stories with you before I tell you what I did.

I can still recall one of my hair stories from junior high like it was yesterday.   My mom has always done a really great job with my hair (and my two sisters).  If I’m not mistaken this story happened when I got my very first roller set.  I wanted a curly hair style.  Unfortunately, (for both of us) we had not experimented with roller sets before.  I don’t remember everything about what happened.  What I do remember is my mom taking the rollers out of my hair on the morning of school.  Instead of loose flowing curls I had very tight curls all over my head.  We thought combing through the curls would loosen them up, but it didn’t.  Consequently, I essentially ended up with a very tight curly afro.  Now don’t get me wrong, if this had been a decade earlier I would have been fine.  But, this hair fiasco happened in the 80s when big hair was the norm.  To top it off, I lived in the South where Aquanet hairspray was apart of every girl’s hair arsenal.  So, hairwise (is that a word?), this was the worst possible scenario.

I think I spent an hour in the bathroom that morning (in tears, of course) trying to free myself from one of my top 5 worst hair days.  I was in junior high at the time AND I walked to school.  I remember that day being the longest 5-7 minute walk of my life.  Needless to say, I was late for class, because I had fussed with my ‘fro for so long.  My first class of the day was band – a class where you don’t get to sit in a row and just mind your own business.  I walked into class late with the meanest face any tween can give.  It’s the don’t-mess-with-me-I’m-having-a-bad-hair-day face. (Every woman has one.)  Well, all the other students in the class understand “the face”.  The best way to describe their faces when I walked into that classroom was P-I-T-Y.  No one really gave me any eye contact – out of fear, I think.  However, my wonderfully sensitive teacher (who I couldn’t remember his name or face right now if I tried) did the dumbest thing a teacher could do in a situation like this – he put all the attention on me.  He looked at me and said, “Oh, Kendra.  I see you have a new hairstyle.”  I don’t really remember anything after that because I think I may have blacked out.  The only thing I remember happening is all the tears I had been holding in came pouring out of me.

Here’s what I envisioned:

Before you feel sorry for me, I survived.  I was actually able to laugh at some point during the day (not about my hair, of course).

Here is a pic that I found that I think would best illustrate my hairstyle: (Here’s what I got)

I have another story for you tomorrow about the reason I will never look at a bottle of Sea Breeze the same way again.

I’m sharing a few hair stories this week as I lead up to my post “I did something I’ve never done before. Change – it’s the new me.”  I would love to hear your hair stories, recent or old.  If you have a blog and a pic of a bad hair day, could we see it?

I am passionate about people taking the time to discover what they were created to do and then lining their lives up with that vision.  We waste so much time pursuing relationships, careers, businesses, good ideas… that take us away from what they were created to do.

Do you know the answer to the question, what makes you come alive? How long ago did you turn that part of yourself off?  When did you lose hope?  When did you stop dreaming, stop believing that you could do your life’s work and be financially successful?

What would it take?  Here are a few important questions for you to consider on this Good Life journey:

What is preventing you from moving forward? This question is not about WHO, but WHAT.  We give other people to much power over us when we act as victims in our current situations.  Other people can’t hold you back, if you don’t allow them to.  There comes a point when you must make the decision that your life is not going to change unless YOU do something about it. Remember, if nothing changed around you, everything would be different if you changed.

Do you have the right people around you? If you can’t share your dreams with the people in your life, then maybe you’re surrounded by the wrong people.  I’m not talking about about your spouse,  your children or your relatives.   You don’t throw these relationships away.  You may have to be selective or limited in what you share with these people.  The people I’m referring to are the people you chose to be in your life aka your friends.

Do you remember the quote, misery loves company?  You might have MiSeRaBlE friends, if your friends… always have drama, always have a bad day, always have to gossip about someone else, think everyone else has the problem, have the same issues wherever they go  and always want you to wallow in their in self pity…    As a result, you are probably miserable.  Choose your friends, wisely.

How have your attitude and your choices brought you to where you are right now? You must take full responsibility for your life.  At some point in our lives for reasons we do not  (and probably can not) understand we have all been hurt, lied on, lied to, cheated on, discouraged, abandoned, gossiped about, mislead, misunderstood and/or mistreated.  If you haven’t had all or at 1 or 2 of these experiences, as my parents would say, just keep livin’, baby.

A wise person once said, It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.     Another wise person followed up with that and said, “what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to stay stuck in those moments and allow them to define the rest of your life?  Or are you going to allow them to propel to live your life with purpose?”

What’s wrong with baby steps? Completing small meaningful goals gets you that much closer to your dream and helps you feel as if you are making progress.

Who are you going to ask for help? You do realize TEAMWORK makes the DREAM work.

Please,  leave a comment below with the answer to these questions: What makes you come alive?  What other questions have you had to ask yourself to keep you moving forward?

Reading this dialogue from the Oprah website really got me to thinking, “how many wives do I know that feel this way?”.  How many women feel like they’ve lost who they are in marriage, relationships, motherhood, ministry, business, etc?    Do you have to give up who you are to have what you would consider to be “perfect” marriage or successful relationships?

I can relate to wondering, “How did I get here?”.   When my husband I first got married, I was still finishing up my degree.   At that time I pretty much had 4 life dreams: to be a college graduate, a highly respected, wealthy businesswoman, a wife and a mother (in that order).  Well… they didn’t happen in that order.  I was a wife first, a college graduate second, a mother third and I’m still working on the businesswoman part.

Even though I had always dreamed of being a mom the day-to-day mundane-ness (is that word?) of it set in.   I started to resent the fact that my husband was at work all day, while I was home all day with two kids under the age of 2.  I felt like I was losing myself.  I didn’t look my best.  I didn’t feel my best and I was mad at him, because he got a break from laundry, diapers, runny noses, dishes, potty training, grocery shopping, cooking, whining and crying.  This was my life 24 hours a day 7 days a week and I was not happy about the realities of it.    I wondered how come no one shared this side of motherhood with me?    I like how one quote puts it, any idiot can face a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out.    Would it have mattered if they did?

One of the questions  I would want to ask Kristin is if someone had told you the truth as they know about marriage, what would your response have been.  We’ve all said (myself included), “If someone had taken the time to tell me the truth, I may have done things differently.”  I really wonder if we are really honest with ourselves, if this is a true statement at all.

What did I do about my situation?  I started doing the things that make me come alive.  I did the things that helped me define who I was outside of motherhood.  I would go hiking every Saturday morning with my sister.  I founded a book club that still meets almost 7 or 8 years later (there was a hiatus last year).  I would go to the grocery store ALONE at night or in the morning while my family was in bed.  I invested more time in developing my friendships and I made dating my husband a priority.  I started my first business.  I don’t have that business anymore, but it helped me prove to myself that I could be successful in business (which helped me in starting GoodLifeDiva.com).

My marriage and my children didn’t represent the end of ME.   They required me to dig a little deeper – to seek God more for the answer to the question, “Why am I here?”.   My family has enhanced not hindered my discovery process on this Good Life journey.

What do you enjoy?   How could I tell you apart from your best friend, your mother or your sister?  What were you uniquely placed on this Earth to do?   We have to answer these questions for ourselves.  God longs to help us answer who we are.  He says that we were fearfully and wonderfully made.   Wow!

Have you answered the above questions for yourself?  If you’ve lost yourself along the way, what is 1 thing you can do this week to change that?   Please, leave a comment below with your response to these questions.