New Week Jump Start

Hello! Its me again. I think we are officially in Fall Season – Yay!  I love the fall – I like layered clothing and I love wearing boots. I love the fact that its cold but not freezing and I love the excuse of having a latte in a warm Starbucks coffee shop or a Korean pastry café. I do wish I can enjoy this fall though.. A few months back I got a bigger job and my entire summer was taken up by this new responsibilities, coupled with moving houses ( still empty, I need some home style design tips), and my mom’s 70th birthday “turn-up”…. I had a busy summer. I don’t want my fall season to pass me by because I am too “busy” – I must enjoy every bit of it.

The point of today’s blog really came from a lovely mentee of mine who listed a couple of topics she’ll like me to talk about.  These topics are real! Like you don’t want to miss them. I will make sure to address one of them this week unfailingly. Since I’m mentally fatigued today and can’t write much, I’m going to post some quotes to get you (and me) going this week.  Ok, here we go:

The first ingredient you need this week is Faith.

Now that you have Faith.. these other quotes will come alive to you.

 

 

Ok you are bound to face distractions /obstacles but lets keep things in perspective:

It makes absolutely no sense to give distraction a second of your attention.. focus!

Yes… there are going to be somethings beyond your power.. please don’t try to be a superhero.  Take all your issues to God in prayer and be rest assured that he’s got you. Once you’ve prayed, believe He has taken care of the issue ( you may ask how? – You don’t worry about that, we serve a God of how). Go about your business like everything is fine and truly it is.

I leave you with this quote from Matthew 11:28-30 – Have a great week ahead!

Focus – The Rare Habit

Quite often I’m asked how I have been able to stay on Wall Street for this long and be successful as a African American woman. I usually respond first with a chuckle – and while I am chuckling on the outside, I am asking myself  ” Am I successful? ” …. And I am not trying to be modest. I sincerely do ask myself that question over and over again.  I guess its because for every time I accomplish what I set my mind to do, I look for a bigger challenge. For that alone, I am entirely grateful to God.  Ok back to the question at heart – First and foremost If I did not have Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and abide in Him and welcome the Holy Spirit to direct my life, I wont have lasted more than max 5 years.  With that said I am going to start a series that highlights some key habits that have kept me going. Please bear in mind that I am still growing and still have a lot to learn.

Habit #1 – FOCUS – I cannot over emphasize the importance of focus. The webster dictionary defines focus as “A point of concentration” or “A center of activity, attraction or attention”. I define focus as keeping your ultimate goal/dream/vision in sight as you go about your daily activities, ensuring that all you do will get you one step closer to your goal/dream/vision.

When you are focused on your dream, you won’t have time to dwell on anyone’s ignorant comments towards you.  I always go back to the presidential election debate between Obama and McCain (in his blessed memory); Even when unrelated topic jabs were thrown at Barack, he remained calm and debated every topic raised professionally. Talk about focus… Barack had one thing on his mind – Becoming President – because he knew the unprecedented impact it would make on so many minority American lives.

It has been my dream to become a successful banker and rise through the hierarchical ranks. At the age of 9, I followed my dad ( who was then a senior bank manager) to his office and I noticed that all the corner offices were held by men and their secretaries were women. I wondered why there was no woman in an office and decided that if I were to go into banking, I wanted to be in an office like my dad’s and not a secretary. Fast forward.. many years later, I am in banking and in senior management ( still not a lot of women but definitely a lot more than a few years back).

Being focused – has kept me out of trouble especially as an African American woman. There are times when I feel the urge to respond harshly to unfair treatments, condescending statements and the continuous scrutiny of my intelligence but then I remember God’s words in Romans 8:31 and remain calm. #JesusNeededAlways

Focus re-energizes you when you feel like you can’t continue. It reminds you of that goal/dream. It dims the noise and distractions around you – like ear plugs for foul comments; or sunglasses for unwanted scenery.

I started calling Focus a rare habit because its becoming very difficult to stay focused especially with “Social Media”.. OMG I have first hand observed how 2 hours of one’s life can be wasted just by browsing Facebook / Instagram.. and yet it adds nothing to accomplishing your goals. It requires a lot more strength than ever today to be focused. One of the ways, I’ve been able to combat this new phenomenon is by following positive minded and inspiring people.. the ones that will post something powerful enough to get you out of IG and motivate you to do something useful with your time. So there you have it – Focus!   I will stop here and leave you with a Winston Churchill quote:

 

 

Wax Cold

I’ve been fascinated by a lovely lady’s album lately. Her name is Simisola – Nigerian artist – unique voice – singer songwriter. Quite authentic in my opinion. First Track on her album titled “Remind Me” struck a very deep chord in me.

Lyrics of the song goes ……..

[Verse 1]

I forgot how to be the kind of person that you asked me to be

I forgot how to see love in everything

I forgot totally

My brother say he love me, I love am too

My man call me honey I call am boo

But my neighbor no like me I hate am too

A man call me stupid I call am fool

Cause I forgot how to love the way you asked me too

[Chorus]

Remind me, Remind Me how…To lololo lolo lolove

To lololololololove

The first time I listened to it, i questioned if I was doing enough for God. No – I didn’t forget how to love or show kindness but am I doing enough of it? When I think of daily struggles and all the multiple demands from me everyday – do I look to see if anyone needs help or attention? Do I sting back when someone offends me? Am I so caught up with what man expects from me than what God expects of me?

If anything the song reminded that life is a gift and it should be spent on the things that truly gives it meaning – LOVE. Afterall our Father is all about Love. He is LOVE.

So as I encourage myself today, I challenge you to do the same. Share at least one act of love to more than just your loved ones each day. Put a smile on someone’s face. Give that beggar some change. Share your umbrella with someone who has none on a rainy day. Call that uncle/aunt/cousin you haven’t spoken to in ages. Just do it. LOVE

Enjoy the song –

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDWEP4u8J8

Sunday Musings

It was so difficult for me to get out of bed and when I finally did, I barely had 10 minutes to myself before I saw my daughter awake and staring at me with a big smile on her face. How can I possibly say no that smile? She kept smiling as she stretched out her hands for me to pick her up from bed….. needless to say it quickly became about the children and less about me.   Kisses, good morning – bathtime and breakfast. Thankfully I had little bit of assistance which allowed me to sneak away for my own quick shower and dress-up for church..

Speaking of Church.. I need to get back to being at service from the start of service. I don’t want my toddlers to be the excuse for why I’m always late. Needless to say I was late again today.  I made it into half way of the sermon. The title was:  What do you believe and who do you believe? These questions cannot be answered today for it requires a quiet time of reflection and I’ll be happy to share the post with you when I’m done reflecting.  I did enjoy service even though I missed half of it. I was just so happy being around my church family and I’m thankful for them. Some of these folks are going through some tough trials and yet they show up and play their part in church. They truly inspire me and remind me of what Jesus said.

Jesus never said we won’t face persecutions.. actually, he assured we would (it comes with the package of being a Christian) but Jesus didn’t leave us hanging… He said, ” don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

Putting it all in perspective, there is absolutely nothing on earth that I should be concerned about. – Why? Jesus has it covered.

The last few days have been tough, I was on the west coast for work, took the red eye back to NY, got in Saturday morning. Slept for 4 hours and had to dash off to work and didn’t get back home until 9pm. I was exhausted.. Lets not add the mommy guilt of not spending enough time with the kids. So yes I was ready to just come up with an excuse and not make it to church….. but I did make it to church and it became the revitalizing dose of motivation I needed to carry on.  I think if I stayed home, I probably would have felt worse and lack inspiration to write.

Here I am blogging – does it mean work is going to be easy tomorrow? No! Does it mean my children will suddenly jump out of toddler stage tomorrow? No! Does it mean everyone I meet tomorrow will be nice to me? No! …. All it means is I am at peace with it all, I don’t have to have the answers. Jesus said…

 

 

 

 

It all starts with One

One seed

One step

One time

One word

One act

……, and in God’s will, He multiplies your one.