Most of my marketing
tips have targeted groups of numberless people. The online world can do that
for you—readers can pass your message with a click of the button. Your blurb can be shared within seconds/minutes to countless people with a phone in their
pocket. Speaking engagements are a much more limited audience. They’re time
consuming, nerve wracking, and if you’re an introvert—simply not fun. And yet
there is something to be said for the personal connection, the eye to eye and
heart to heart contact.
Over spring break I went
to San Luis Obispo with my husband and daughters. I love San Luis Obispo!
Victorian houses, historical sites, farmers’ market with oatmeal cookies, as
well as fresh produce, of course, the beach, funky shops, small theaters…happy
sigh.
On our way home, they
dropped me off in Santa Barbara so that I could speak at the LDS Institute of
Religion. That morning was filled with nerves (me) and thunder, lightning and
torrential rain (the weather). I worried that no one would come. Five minutes
before I was to begin there were about ten guys and one physics major girl. And
although I was there to speak on discovering our lives’ missions, I also hoped
that maybe some of the audience would rush home and order my books. Guys and
physic major gals really aren’t my target audience. But in the end we had about
twenty students--more guys than gals—but even guys can appreciate a good ghost
story.
Here’s a much
abbreviated version of my talk:
Today I want to talk
about that discovering and pursuing the course of life that the God wants us to
live. Accepting that God is our father, that He loves us and because He loves
us he wants us to be happy—we need to ask ourselves if we’re living the lives
that will bring us the most happiness. I believe that before we came to this
earth, we were given a mission to fulfill. And for each of us, that mission is
unique and individualized. If you’re not fulfilling the mission you were sent here
to do—you won’t be happy. It doesn’t matter if your dayss are filled with goodness
and selflessness—if it’s not in keeping with the promises you made before you
came to earth—you won’t be happy. If you’re not fulfilling your personal
ministry, you’ll be frustrated and discontent.
Joseph Campbell called
our ministries “Your Bliss.” Oprah Winfrey called them “Sweet Spots.” Oprah
said, “They’re the moments when we’re immersed in the things we were put on
earth to do, the things that tap into our strongest strengths and deepest
loves, the things that let us be the most us we can possibly be—the things we
are called to do.”
Prayer, scripture study,
and spiritual promptings can help us find our bliss, our sweet spots, but even
then—sometimes it’s hard. So, please take this simple test with me.
Question 1. When
you think about your work, what emotions does it bring? When you’re
honoring your calling, there’s an undeniable sense of stimulation and
exhilaration. It will just feel right.
2. Are you
serving others? Anything that makes you feel strong, connected and
aligned with your calling will bless others. Every good work you do will impact
those around you.
3. Does it make
you excited to start your day? There’s a song by Billy Joel with the
line, “Hardly anyone can see just how
good I am—Rosalinda says she knows. Crazy Latin dancing solo down in Herald
Square, Oh Havana I've been searching for you everywhere. We need to search
for our own Havanas. Even if hardly anyone can see just how good we are.
Still, sometimes it’s
difficult. I have struggled with this. I’d like to share an experience I had
after finishing my novel Hailey’s Comments. I’d made a goal to query fifty
agents and after a few weeks the rejection letters were flying in, each
bringing a blow to my fragile ego. My friends own successful businesses, they
teach in schools, run preschools, take in foster children- I write stories no
one reads.
We were vacationing in the San Juan Islands with my husband’s family. I hadn’t written anything in weeks. When we visited Victoria, BC I knew I had to see Craigdarroch Castle. My novel, HAILEY’S COMMENTS takes place on a fictional island in the Pacific Northwest. The Dunsmuir home is a stone Victorian mansion, complete with turret and a widow’s walk that overlooks the ocean. In my novel the family matriarch, Helen, is murdered by her grandson, James Dunsmuir.
In Victoria, high on a
hill, stands Craigdarroch Castle, but it’s not a castle with ramparts and moat.
It’s a stone Victorian mansion complete with turret and a widow’s walk
overlooking the ocean. It looks exactly as I’d envisioned my fictional Dunsmuir
home. I stood outside on the grounds marveling. When I went upstairs, I read
that the home was built by Robert Dunsmuir and after his death became the
property of his widow, Joan. Joan and her son James, who shares my villain’s
name, had a stormy relationship and were estranged for many years.
Until that day, I’d
never visited Victoria, to my recollection I hadn’t any prior knowledge of the
city’s prominent families or of Craigdarroch Castle. I’d never heard of the
Dunsmuir family. As I stood on the Castle’s widow’s walk and watched the ships
moving along the water, I felt a hand resting on my shoulder, pressing me
forward, urging me to continue to write my dreams.
(My apologies to the
Dunsmuir family. In reality James was most likely a perfectly lovely person and
if he had reasons for being estranged from his mother, I'm absolutely sure it's
not because he murdered his grandmother. I have since changed the names in my
novel, which, by the way, is currently beneath my bed).
George Albert Smith
said, “We are living eternal lives. Eternity doesn’t begin after this life but
mortality is a crucial part of eternity. I sometimes have said to my friends
when they seemed to be at the crossroads, uncertain as to which way they wanted
to go, ‘Today is the beginning of eternal happiness or eternal disappointment
for you.’” Our comprehension of this life is that it is
eternal life—that we are living in eternity today as much as we ever will live
in eternity. The intelligence that God has placed within it, that which has
power to reason and to think, that which has power to sing and to speak, knows
no death; it simply passes from this sphere of eternal life, and awaits. This
life is not given to us as a pastime. There was a solemn purpose in our
creation, in the life that God has given to us.”
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