Today’s FEATURE FRIDAY highlights my new blog for my business, STAR Management Consulting.
Please check it out at http://www.SMCspeaksbusiness.com. My team and I are hopeful you will find information that help you reach for the STARs and achieve your business and/or career goals.
We are so excited for your visit!
At STAR Management Consulting we take pride in offering the best tools and resources to get you started on that path to your greatest successes and achievements.
Please feel free to make comments, ask questions, offer tips or even share some of your success stories.
We have a team of dynamic individuals that will be contributing their expertise, experience and tips on how to be the best at what you do and let the world know all about it. Thank you for reading and please do read again!!!!
As I listened to Kevin Durante’s MVP speech, I found myself, just like others caught up into the emotion of his gratitude for his mother. It was beyond moving to see the love and pride his mom shared with him on that special day as he declared her the REAL MVP. As I listened to him tell his truth about growing up poor, yet with love and admiration for his mother’s sacrifices, I began to reflect on my own mother.
This FEATURE FRIDAY is dedicated to my mother as an early HAPPYMOTHER’s DAY”.
I want you all to understand that as a kid growing up and as a teenager and even some moments as an adult, I did not like my mother. I even went through a dark period where I felt I hated her. Now that I am married with kids of my own, I often reflect on my childhood and made a discovery.
For every bad moment I had growing up, I have at least a dozen good memories of experiences with my mother. We were always broke, couldn’t keep a telephone most of my childhood, lights and water were constantly being disconnected, and we did not have the money to keep up with the latest trends. However, I can remember my mom taking us to the park and the lakefront to play, to A & G Buffet to eat. I can remember when in the 6th grade, my mom took me to the World’s Fair in New Orleans where I tried frog legs for the first time. I can remember her taking me to my speech contests at Xavier University. I can remember the kites she use to buy for us and the paper airplanes. I can remember the $15 bicycle she purchased for me at my school’s fair. I can remember her coming to my school at my request for my birthday to bring cake, ice cream and chips. I can remember the makeshift costumes because we didn’t have money to purchase the ones in the store. I can remember how when our lights were off she would constantly buy batteries for this little portable television. We had so many batteries until my sister and I created a game by turning an ottoman upside down and stacking the old batteries. We had half the neighborhood kids waiting to take a turn to play this elaborate, made up game. Why is this relevant? We took what most kids would be too embarrassed for anyone to see and turned it I to a fun experience for others to enjoy. I can remember her sitting in the audience so proud when I sang in talent shows in college. I can remember her driving up with my then fiancé’ to Maryland from New Orleans to watch me get married. I can remember my mom riding a Greyhound bus for 24 hours just to be there for the birth of my first child. As you can see, I have many awesome memories throughout my life that far outweigh the bad.
My mom taught us how to make the best out of adversity. Now she never told us to do that, but instead she demonstrated it by what she did for us. Did I mention it was nine of us with a single mother, just to put things in perspective. My siblings and I were too silly at times to know just how poor we were because we wer rich in so many other ways. My sister and I often joke about how we have loving and dedicated husbands to help us and with fewer kids than mom, and we still struggle to stay sane. How in the world did my mom manage taking care of us as a single parent?
We didn’t have a perfect mother growing up. In fact, she made many mistakes that I am sure she would do over if she had the opportunity. But one thing I do know is that she was the best mother she knew how to be. She taught us love through hard work and perseverance by working two and three jobs at a time. She taught us love by teaching my siblings and I to stick together. She taught us love by making sacrifices no mother should have to make to keep her children strong, healthy and safe.
All of this started with my mom. So take a bow Mama, you deserve to be featured everyday for all you have done and sacrificed so that I could be who I am today…a strong, beautiful, educated wife , mother, daughter and woman of God–JUST LIKE MY MAMA!!!
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO MY MAMA AND ALL THE MAMAS BOTH PAST AND PRESENT
WHO HAVE DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO THEIR CHILDREN!!
I remember watching the news right before the BOSTON MARATHON recently. CELESTE CORCORANwas being interview as having been one of the victims of the marathon’s bombing on last year. While the interview was intriguing within itself, it was something she said that struck me at my core. She made the statement that she was “STANDING ON NEW LEGS”.What I found so profound about that statement was that she did not seem to be referring to her artificial LEGS that she now wears due to losing both her LEGS in the bombing. It is more than obvious that this tragedy has forever changed her life in ways she probably would have never imagined. What was most striking to me was her RESILIENCY. I have no doubt that behind closed doors she has experienced both physical and mental anguish over this horrific event. However, she appeared more DETERMINED than ever not to give the enemy the satisfaction of keeping her down. STANDING ON NEW LEGS took on a whole new meaning.
We all have heard that there is always someone much worse off than our present troubles. This is indeed true! We worry over a pimple, a bad hair day or even being overweight. These are issues we can always OVERCOME. However, what do we do when we lose an appendage, an eye, or a loved one? We often take for granted waking up every morning and spending the day as we had mapped out in our mind or just nonchalantly winging it as if tomorrow will be here again. How many of us can recover from tragic life changing events just as people who are victims of such heinous crimes as the BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING?
When I heard those words from CELESTE, it immediately gave me NEW LIFE realizing that I too can stand on new LEGS. While my ephiphany is not to be compared to having literally lost any limbs, I realized that I do not have to be a product of circumstance but instead be a circumstance of great product. What that means is that no matter what tragedies LIFE deal to us, we have the option of wallowing in self pity and doubt or use the situation to our benefit by LEARNING A LESSON, CHANGING COURSE, removing some people from our life, or just simply changing a situationto a positive one.
So whenever you doubt yourself, your abilities and capabilities or self worth, remember CELESTE and the other victims of the BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING that refused to allow a situation to define their happiness but instead created a BRAND NEW LIFE and reality that can still be just as rewarding and fulfilling if not more than before. Are you with me? I dare you to STAND UP ON A NEW SET OF LEGS and CHANGE the negative prognosis of your present life and situation to a POSITIVE JOURNEY of RESILIENCY that will open up all POSSIBILITIES OF WONDER that you have yet to encounter…but in due time. It really is as simple as a choice. What’s yours?
Everyone has been hurt by at least one person in their lifetime. Some of those hurts run deeper than just one of life’s experiences. I recently had conversations with about four different people totally unrelated speaking about the topic of apologies. Haven’t you said or felt that if he/she would just apologize you could move on? I have also been there with thinking that I needed an apology from someone in order to have closure. After having those recent conversations, I remember saying to a couple of these people to not be a slave to an apology.
IS WHEN PEOPLE SHOW YOU WHO THEY ARE AND YOU BELIEVE THEM!!!! CASE CLOSED!! MOVE ON!!
We give people too much power over our happiness and our mental well being. While an apology does at times help to feel better about someone or a situation, we should not be dependent upon someone else doing the right thing in order to feel better. Why does anyone deserve that much power over you? I have learned in my life time that people are going to be people. At the very least, the gift you get in someone who does not apologize for hurting you is them showing you who they are. When you know what and who you are dealing with, count it as a gift of knowledge.
Therefore, when someone hurts you, don’t sit around waiting on them to apologize in order for your heart and mind to heal. Instead, take that energy and use it toward being a better you by putting your faith and trust in God and not man.
I am proud to introduce my very first “FEATURE FRIDAY” by posting a feature done on myself by THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH PR. I am honored, humbled and so grateful to The QUEEN’s ENGLISH PR for featuring me and my business on Working Woman Wednesday. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
This week we shine the Working Woman Wednesday Spotlight on Shannon Ayers of STAR Management Consulting. Just launched in January of this year, this Honolulu, HI based company provides support for Customer Service, Human Resources and Public Relations Consulting.
Shannon Ayers, STAR Management Consulting
Shannon is a military wife and mother of four that has had the opportunity to travel the world. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Psychology and is actively working towards Masters Degrees in Human Resource Management and Business Administration. Whew! That just sent my brain into overload 🙂 How does she do all of this? Shannon says “[It is] My faith and trust in God is the glue that holds my life together and keeps me on a path that is completely ordered by the Lord.” Amen!
Let’s learn more about Shannon and STAR Management Consulting
Your PURPOSE should never out live you. You should outlive your PURPOSE. If you do, when it is your time to depart this life you have completed your mission and finished your business. I believe that each day should be lived to our fullest potential. Anything short of that is cheating the world of what we can become and the contributions we can offer to our environment. Life is too short to waste it on living beneath our greatest potential and PURPOSE God has called on our lives. Be Blessed! Be Encouraged! Be Inspired!
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