Miracle Mornings.

Well , hard to know even where to start, I can’t believe it is already July 23rd, 2020 and I am now just taking a minute to write down my thoughts.

So much has happened and I really wish I would have wrote down more things, but I guess it is better to start now than later.

When Suzanne asked me to consider working outside of USA for building doTERRA I was so – amazed and thought wow, yes, I really want to do this. When I did Landmark Education, often people talked about traveling to other countries do to the Forum, and seeing the world. I had that on my dream board and thought that if I could become a seminar leader, I would really be in a place of where my passion is. I don’t know why, I guess I always wanted to help other people. I think that is enate in most human beings, but I felt like I can really take risks and do this. But I always stopped myself. To not be unreasonable, to not have the security of income that we worked so hard to have with our Printshop.. What would that look like? How could we survive in the big world of so many unknows?

Back in Feb, 2019, Teresa Harding (doTERRA USA Founder) had done a facebook live, that we just happened to catch on our way home from work one night. It was my attempt to keep learning and training myself in the “Traveling University” mindset… I figured it was better than being brain dead from a hard days work as we traveled 25 minutes up the freeway to our little town of Birch Bay. Teresa was talking about a book she had just read called “Miracle Mornings”, by Hal Elrod. And for some reason Larry just latched onto this and bought the book. This book is great, if you have not heard about it, get it. If you are looking to be the you that God intended, this book will help you find your place. It is based on personal development every morning, by making time that we never seem to make getting up an hour earlier than normal. Ok, so that sounds kinda hard.

It is developing habits everyday, from taking 10 minute slots of each task of; Reading, writing/journaling, prayer/meditations, dream boards/affirmations, yoga, and then planning your day. The book boasts many successes of people losing weight to gaining and reaching new heights with their internal clearity to reach their dreams. It was amazing and yes things started falling into place, it was like everything was working out for us. I started to read books – and I hated reading books, I started to gain a real appreciation for people in my life, for what we have and what we have accomplished. I started waking up at 5:00am and spending time praying and reconnecting to God, like never before and finding hope and inspiration.

And after a few months of this practice we where getting good and it and really looking forward to the mornings. I begun asking God if I have been doing and using my gifts that he intended for me. Was I living to my full potential? Was there more things that I should or could be doing with our printshop? I really had started to regain my stride again at work.

This was a miracle in itself after a long few years we had at work. I don’t know why employees go sideways sometimes. I am not sure if it is jealousy, or maybe something was taken out of context, or maybe too they start to grow into other directions. But our Key employee that we loved and adored, we had started giving her more responsibilities in hopes that she would want to purchase and take over the business. Not because we wanted to leave, but because we felt she deserved an opportunity to make it her own. As I was aging, my values of work and how to deal with employees, I could see the writing on the wall that it was going to only get more difficult with labor laws, such as family paid time off and most staff was wanting to work part time. When I was hiring new staff, that was born years after we opened the business, I started to realize that time was fleeting by with us sitting inside those 4 walls, being stressed out all of the time. When this employee suffered a great loss of her mom’s passing, it hurt. I could remember how upset and mad at the world I was when Dad suddenly passed. Interesting, her mom was just a year older than my dad when she died. It brought up many past emotions. We had hired her just when dad passed. I did not want to hire her because I hated the world and did not want to deal with a new employee, to train. But it was the best decision we had ever made. She was a star employee. Worked hard, worked fast, gave us everything she had. So when we offered her to consider the opportunity to purchase the business from us, we thought she deserved it. She worked long hours, through all of the ups and downs. But it was not meant to be.

One day in May, a week before Memorial Day, I was back talking to Larry in the pressroom about something. I was trying to get him to do something or he was complaining about something I don’t remember, it really did not matter. But It was so clear to as I was walking back up to the front of the shop to sit in my corner, the production managers post, that maybe now is the time. AND IT WAS LOUD AND CLEAR, God spoke to me. God said, yes now is the time, put the business up for sale and have it sold by the end of the year. He said you have put your time in here at the shop, and now I am ready for you to bring the oils to the world. You are now needed to help bring health and healing to people.

I thought. Wow, I have to talk to Larry about this on our way home. I was hoping that I would not forget, you know how the day takes your mind as a hostage, and every amazing thought you have goes out the window? Well our printshop had the way of doing that. But I remembered. And Larry of course was thrilled. I am sure he would say more about that – but I will leave that for him to say. I always have known that larry sacrificed a lot for me to have our printshop. I loved doing what we did. I loved helping businesses, grow and to know that we had a part in that was a thrill to me. And to see them walk in our shop again and again, was a huge reward to me as knowing and never being ungrateful for their trust in us.

So I had this magic folder, of letters of business sales agents over the years that where soliciting our business for selling. We had a handful over the years and I always hung onto them just incase one day something happened. We pulled out the letter from an old connection that we had from my Kinko’s Days in Bellevue. This gal used to work for West Coast Paper, as a manager or something. And she turned into a business consultant sales agent. And we met with them that weekend. And decided to put up the business for sale. It was a long summer of cleaning out crap at the shop that had collected over the years and getting our personal things home. Such as there was a part of the attic that had boxes still in it from when we moved from Ventura California. Wedding presents, oh gosh, if we have not seen them in 28 years why do we still have them? And as we moved into our busy season, we where doing amazing work, and put the sale of the business out of the top of our mind. And a week before the six month contract was up with agents, Larry was feeling discouraged. We had discussed if we should continue the contract or try something different. And behold he had an offer and wanted to meet with us.

The negotiation process was so stressful, we did not know what we where doing. I was so frustrated with our broker as I did not feel like he had our back. Often he seemed to be standing for the buyer. We had kept this sale so quite, I did not know who to turn to. I decided that I needed to contact mom and my sister. I just really needed to figure out how to navigate the waters and not lose our shirt on the negotiations. I wish I had brought them in sooner, but we got it done and closed by Jan 31.