My Travels on the Net

Tom Pick of Web Market Central tagged me to create a list of my biggest influencers. It was fun to write and made me cry. (Okay. That's not exactly hard to do. I'm kinda leaky.) This list is in order of how long I’ve known the person, not in order of importance.

Grandma Ruby
I had a pretty chaotic childhood but my sister and I could always rely on Grandma Ruby to be there. She and grandpa would show up at our house every other Friday at 5:00 and take us for the weekend. Those visits were the one stable thing we could count on growing up. Grandma Ruby was born on a farm in Kansas and was a young adult during the depression. She’s always lived simply and enjoyed what she had. She’s also embraced aging. Because of her example, I couldn’t imagine doing all those silly things women do to “fight the aging process.” I’m too busy enjoying life to waste the mental energy on that stuff.

Pop (aka my step dad)
I am the first person in my biological family to graduate college and oddly enough, that’s because of my step dad. He graduated high school and got a scholarship to MIT when he was 16. He also did ABD (all but dissertation) PhD work at UC Berkeley. Fortunately he married my mom when I was pretty young and set the expectation that I would graduate from college. I don’t think he ever said “You HAVE TO graduate from college!” it was just a forgone conclusion. I doubt I would have graduated college if he hadn’t come into our lives.

My Pop’s also the most successful entrepreneur I’ve ever known. He’s worked incredibly hard for over 30 years to be successful and watching him made me feel like it was possible for me to do what I love and be successful too. Last but not least, he’s the most generous person I know. He spends his money on quality time with his family. I’ve seen the joy it’s brought him to help out deserving people and if I ever get rich, that’s what I want to do with my money too.

Master Lloyd Francis
I didn’t realize it at the time but studying a martial art in my early twenties was about the best thing I could have done to build the self confidence I would need as an adult. Master Francis literally taught me how to take a hit and not cry. As a result, I am a much less fearful person than I would have been otherwise. Also, starting out as white belt, then going through the various levels to black belt taught me not to get complacent. It taught me that if you want to make progress in life you have to get used to feeling like a beginner and getting your ass kicked for a while.

Carol Proudfoot-Edgar
I’ve been a student of Native American Shamanism for about 20 years now and Carol has been my teacher for most of those years. Shamanism is not something I talk much about because I don’t want people to assume I’m a “woo-woo” person and to me, a spiritual practice is a very personal thing not to be discussed lightly. But I have to mention it here because I can’t even begin to enumerate the lessons I’ve learned in my work with Carol that have made me a better person. Two major lessons come to mind. First, I now know that the answers I seek are within me. I don’t need external things or a mediary to have a connection and dialogue with God/Spirit. Second, I KNOW Spirit has my best interest at heart and is looking out for me. That doesn’t mean life is easy and pain free. It means that if I chose to access it, I have the strength to survive and thrive.

Arati Prabhakar, PhD
Arati (pronounced “Arthee”) was my last boss in the corporate world. I was her Executive Assistant when she was the CEO of Interval Research. She was an amazing example of how a woman could be extremely smart (She was appointed as the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology by President Clinton.), tough, compassionate and feminine all at the same time. She showed me that it is possible to balance a demanding career and a family. Arati was CEO at a very stressful and chaotic time but she never let them see her sweat and she never lost her cool.

Kathie Nelson, Connectworks
I met Kathie in the closing minutes of a Robert Middleton seminar. In hindsight, it was one of those things that at the time seem minor but turn out to be a touchstone event in your life. It’s not an overstatement to say I would not be in business if it weren’t for Kathie. She’s helped me more than anyone else to build my business. Heck, she even came up with the name eMarketing Strategist! Kathie is the most focused person I know. She has built a successful business while overcoming events that would have wiped out a weaker person. Kathie is also adept at seeing the positive in a potentially negative situation. She’s taught me that by asking myself “How do I want to see this?” I can take a potentially negative situation and turn it into a positive situation. I often find myself asking “What would Kathie do?”

Labels: influencers