Julia Preston
In this impressive book rich in metaphor, the author wends her way through decades of her on-again, off-again love affair with writing, and does battle with the fear and self-doubt that have prevented her from writing and publishing a book. In this inspired work she emerges victorious, and her triumph over her inner demons will serve as a beacon of light to others whose dreams have been obscured by lost hope.
With humor, insight, intelligence and integrity, the author turns her keen eye to find meaning in the mundane. Here are the lessons of life gleaned from her observations of everything from pondering life in the hereafter to gum stuck on her shoe. Like using a jeweler’s loupe to examine the minutiae, she unearths poignant gems of insight that life offers each of us, brilliant as diamonds, rich as rubies. Like a delicious box of chocolates, her stories may be savored in small or large bites. Dig in and enjoy. It will leave you wanting more.
Julia Preston considers life as a classroom. Her varied learning opportunities have allowed her to weave the fabric of her life together with threads of experience from many walks of life including sales, management, administration, human resources and entrepreneurial endeavors. The underlying theme of her life, personal growth and self awareness, has been served by each and every life encounter, particularly those provided by marriage and family. She lives in Maryland, a mere one top sign away from her three grandchildren, Katarina, Annelise and Brigitta and their parents, Kristin and Roland. For this sweet blessing, she considers herself fortunate indeed.
In one of my mid-life incarnations I worked as an outside sales representative for a small business. It was not unusual for the owner of the business to appear in the morning with an announcement that would knock our socks off. One day the word was that the expectations for sales calls had increased from the usual 30 per day to 100. Just a wee bit unrealistic, we thought, and probably not very effective. Once my sales manager and I had recovered from our mutual attack of hysteria, we launched ourselves into “We’ll show her!” mode. We made a pact and set about the business of running around town darting in and out of doors all day, hurling business cards at whoever was sitting there to catch them. Given the circumstances we felt that it was about the best we could do.
We worked ourselves into frenzy. We nearly killed ourselves trying to prove the boss wrong and it worked. After three weeks of intensive card hurling neither of us had opened one new account. The harder we worked, the more the business owner harangued us about what we were doing all day and why there were no new accounts. It was vicious.
We cracked under the stress and couldn’t take it any more. We were exhausted, burned out and the pressure was still on. We finally rebelled and gave into the temptation to indulge ourselves in a little dose of mutual rest and relaxation. We planned a surreptitious meeting at a local bagel shop where we sat for an entire morning enjoying our bagels and coffee, laughing, shedding our mutual woes and feeling just slightly guilty about our delicious dalliance. We felt like a couple of gleeful kids giddy at the notion of being let out after three solid weeks of detention. The only damper to our temporary euphoria was that we had to return to the office and face the perpetual grilling about why there were still no new accounts.
Well, the piper had to be paid, and so shored up with our bagels, coffee and our own good company we went in separate directions and returned to the office to face the music. When we returned we found the band marching to a different drummer. We were amazed to discover that we were greeted with new respect, big smiles and congratulations. It seems that while we were gone nine new accounts had called in orders. Go figure.
We took it as a sign. When things aren’t working out well, go find a place to sit down, relax, enjoy yourself and eat something round. You might be surprised at the results.
