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Do you ever stop and wonder how you got to where you are? Have you ever stopped to think about the forks in the road, all the left-turn, right-turn decisions you made?
I have come to learn over the years that everything happens for a reason. All of the people and circumstances we face in our life - both the good and the bad - are necessary to make us the people we are today. And I am ever so grateful for that.
After college I discovered a knack for selling. I connected instantly with clients and found it very easy to help them make the right decision. I also discovered that my life-long ability to read a person, their body language, their tone of voice, their intent and even their energy, was not something everyone else could do. This made my job of selling extremely easy.
I suspect having this skill had a lot to do with my upbringing. I have Dutch immigrant parents who scrimped and saved their pennies every year to take the family on a vacation. The love of travel has stayed with me through the years and I have been privileged to see many parts of the world. I learned about culture, differences and similarities.
Life is not without sorrow. The sudden passing of my brother. The far-to-early death of my great nephew. The unsuspecting SMA diagnosis of my precious niece. In all of the sadness and sorrow, there is always new life. Death and rebirth. The cycle of life. These experiences help mold us and move us forward on this amazing journey of life.
I remember shortly after my brother died, I had an opportunity to leave the corporate world, leave the security of knowing my place. A place I absolutely loved. By then I had given up selling and was focused on training and marketing. It was a world I flourished in, for I felt alive when I taught others new skills and abilities.
But leave it I did. A new route, a new left-turn. I found two paths where I could make a difference. Luckily they ran parallel and allowed me to jump back and forth, moving ahead on my journey with passion and excitement.
One path allowed me to raise awareness and research dollars for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). The other path allowed me to help people discover the secrets I had learned through my life. How to read people. How to change our voice, our gestures, our tone and our words so that we are always heard and understood. This path was a place where I could teach others how to speak with impact.
After a number of successful years with fundraising for SMA and working with people to improve their communication skills, another direction change was put in front of me. A summer of death (read more about it in Death … and the Lessons I Learned, available at the Book Store), and the 2008 crash in the economy forced me once again to reckon with the lessons that stood glaringly in front of me.
With a passion for writing and the never-ending desire to make a difference in the life of another, TheLessonsOfLife.com was launched with hopes that the wisdom offered may help people who have temporarily lost their way.
Enjoy the Lessons and please do me the honour of sharing the website page with others. You never know if that simple little gesture will help you make a difference in the life of another. With the greatest of respect,
Louise |
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