Are YOU Determined?

"You cannot keep determined people from success. If you place stumbling blocks in their way, they will use them for stepping-stones and climb to new heights." -Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001)Saleswoman and entrepreneur

Dixie Brown personifies this quote. She is transforming those of us in her Mastermind group and who are determined to succeed. I can see all of us being determined enough to use the stumbling blocks to get to those new heights.

I would like to share with you what happened in the last half of April of 2008 with Sherry Watson.

When you are part of The Power of Grant Money program, as I am with many others, you get some really unique privileges. I will share one of those with you here.

I had reached the point in my grassroots nonprofit organization that it was time for Sherry to come to my state to show me what can make things really work. It is all about putting yourself out there and letting people know who you are and what your plans are, and asking them what you can do to help them, in other words, get yourself and your story in front of influential people and show them how you can also help them move forward.

Remember, we were dealing with "just a farmers wife." Sherry came on a Wednesday. She and her husband like to stay in the same town as their client. Not in Harvard, the hotel collapsed in the spring of 1973. They stayed in a nearby town called Hastings. On Thursday I met them at the motel for breakfast. We then proceeded to Lincoln, the State Capitol, to meet with different agencies. Our first stop was at the Agency on Aging for the State of Nebraska. That was very impressive. The gentleman that we met with was very informative and gave Sherry a lot of information. I, on the other hand, had no clue what questions to ask. I just sat there and let Sherry do the talking and the asking. This was a learning time for the student. She was teaching me by example the whole time.

Next we go over to the Capitol building. How long has it been since you have been to your State Capitol? I was probably in the 4th grade the last time I visited. I just didn't think that that was 'my thing'-aside from admiring the beautiful arthitecture. It was there we met with Senator Tom Carlson, who represents our district. I remembered meeting him while he was campaigning for office. I was sitting outside with my dad when he came to the Assisted Living, where my parents lived at the time. He introduced himself to us and told us what he was doing.

The day in April we visited our landmark Capitol building, happened to be one of the most historic days in Nebraska's history. We were informed when we got to Senator Carlson's office that his bill LB 609 had just past! We had no clue as to what that bill was about.

I'll tell you more about that later...

The the next thing we learned was that this was the day that "Term Limits" was started. That meant 3 of Nebraska's State Senators would be ousted because the public voted for the "Term Limits" bill. That didn't mean much at the time, but as our stay continued, I learned a lot about our government and how it runs. One of the senators who was affected by this passage was Senator Ernie Chambers from Omaha. Senator Chambers served our state for 38 years. He has been a very out spoken senator, to say the least. I was under the impression that no one liked him, especially the other senators. What I learned on that eventful day was that he had the respect of all the people in the state capital. I was in total shock. We went to see his office but it was locked.

By that time it was noon and we found a wonderful place to eat in the Haymarket. We rested and planned our afternoon.

After lunch we moved on to the League of Human Dignity. I learned that Sherry worked with the gentleman who started this nonprofit organization. Sherry and Mark Schultz worked on many of the handicap issues along with others that are in place today.

Since Mark wasn't in the office at the time that we were in Lincoln, Sherry accepted the invitation to visit with his assistant. I wanted to be a professional person by this time and found that that was getting more impossible as the assistant droned on... the heat in the little office was making us all sleepy. With 4 of us in there, combined with the fact that we had just came from lunch was not good. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the assistant volunteered to get some material for us to look at and then we all woke up, ran for the coffee and had a good laugh because we all had our own story of how we tried to stay awake. Tracy, I did see you almost fall off your chair though!

I was really learning from Sherry, she shared with me about the different structures of buildings and how you can get money to help with your offices and sometimes your office space just shows up out of the clear blue if people know and like what you are doing. She got her office space from the Railroad Company, for her first nonprofit, when they were merging with another and they were closing the office there. They gave it to her for $1! Everything was left as is. She had all the trimmings. So, you never know how it will come.

From there we started our trek home. This was where Sherry and I were able to read through the material that we had picked up along the way and start digesting it. Did I mention we were being chaperoned by Sherry's husband Tracy?

We started reading through the brochure of Senator Tom Carlson about LB 609. As I was reading, I couldn't believe my eyes. I said to Sherry, "this is everything that I want to do!" We started picking through it and found out that there is a grant connected to it! It as been working in other towns so we got more excited! Sherry shared with me how we need to work closely with Senator Carlson's office to get out there and help him to get the people informed.

The whole legislative bill was centered around Building Entrepreneurial Communities. This will support economically depressed rural areas of Nebraska. I had no idea there was anyone else out there thinking about the same thing.

From there we got back to Hastings and proceeded to the Hastings Chamber of Commerce 'After Hours' event. We met up with Mr. Jim Connors who is a Managing Partner of the Governance and Goals Gurus Consulting Team. At the social he introduced us to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor of Hastings, Matt Rossen. Jim arranged for us to meet the next morning with the Mayor Rossen to discuss possibilities of LB609.

All the stumbling blocks that I had to go across has been well worth it to this point.

Stay tune for the next post because we aren't finished yet we still have supper and the next day to start defining who That's It, I'm Going to Grandma's! will become.

That's It,

Renita Farrall

Are you planning your legacy?