Rising Up to Meet a Challenge - Response to Ecotrain QOTW...

This weeks @Ecotrain 's Question, which you can join in on the discussion here is:

Share a story about a life challenge...

I had previously written about overcoming a major challenge in my life - overcoming paralysis - read it here but for this weeks question I wanted to write about a totally different challenge I faced -

Pulling myself up to a different level without much support from family.

Here is my story...

A number of years ago I had befriended a very successful, intelligent, Internationally renown author, businessman, and educator who lived in Cambridge and who was in a different league than me. I was someone from the back woods who, yes, did have the start of a successful business under my belt (which I sold to my partners) but other than that my only claim to fame at the time, was as a go to person for gardening and a beloved swimming instructor who could no longer teach because of an accident. His name was Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Where our friendship had strengthened was when I went down to visit him and see his art collection - his home is like a museum with exquisite art, antiques and artifacts. He had extended an invitation to all monitors (in which I was one) who had worked with him in the online business center and who were also part of his writing team. As it turned out, I was to be the last monitor to visit his place.

Dr. Lant's Red Drawing Room.

Dr. Lant's Famous Blue Room Where He Did All His Writing

When I went down to visit Dr. Lant he was at a very low spot in his life. He had just gotten out of the hospital recovering from a fall where he had banged his head and his former business partners had bought his shares of the business being concerned for his declining health. This was a major change for him, for his involvement with the business was a constant, living most of his waking hours, on screen, in the online business center and this was to be no more. Also his father had just passed away. This was all unbeknown to me at the time of going down for the visit.

Dr. Lant and I had a previous connection, as I was a monitor in the online business center and I had also took on recording his "Anything Goes" program which put me in contact with him to set up the show and help decide on the content. Also Dr. Lant's last years in the business center, he took the time to write his memoir - "A Connoisseur's Journey. Being the Artful Memoir of a Man of Wit, Discernment, Pluck, and Joy." and he did so live on screen! I was part of his writing team (reading out loud his work and helping to do research) plus I also recorded some of his writing sessions and made a collection of video snippets in the creation of "A Connoisseur's Journey". I had bought down a DVD copy of those video snippets when I went down for the visit and left it with him.

Cover of Dr. Lant's Memoir "A Connoisseur's Journey"

Image of Dr. Jeffrey Lant from his About the Author page

Write up about Dr. Lant from his About Author page so you can get to know a little more about him

Dr. Jeffrey Lant is known worldwide. He started in the media business when he was 5 years old, a Kindergartner in Downers Grove, Illinois, publishing his first newspaper article. Since then Dr. Lant has earned four university degrees, including the PhD from Harvard. He has taught at over 40 colleges and universities and is quite possibly the first to offer satellite courses. He has written over 50 books, thousands of articles and been a welcome guest on hundreds of radio and television programs. He has founded several successful corporations and businesses including his latest at …writerssecrets.com

His memoirs “A Connoisseur’s Journey” has garnered nine literary prizes that ensure its classic status. Its subtitle is “Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy.” A good read by this man of so many letters. Such a man can offer you thousands of insights into the business of becoming a success. Connect with Dr. Lant at www.drjeffreylant.com

More can be found on Dr. Lant on his author page at: http://www.amazon.com/author/jeffreylant/

The visit with Dr. Lant was all sort of surreal, but we had deepened our friendship and I called one day to see if he wanted to promote the video snippets along with his book. His reply to me was, " What I really want is to have an online writing course."
You see he was a master in the art of writing, along with being a passionate educator.

My response -tepidly - "Okay!"

This was the beginning of our partnership!

Let me fill you in on why I had very little support from my family, in particular my husband...

My husband had only known Dr. Lant through his presence in the Online Business Center where Dr. Lant was a master in sales! He didn't like that side of Dr. Lant and told me he couldn't support me on this. I saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity and I was going to go for it even if I was doing it on my own.

Dr. Lant had spoke to my husband once and said -

I was way out of my league!

That didn't matter to me for I could learn!

I had long ago had battles with laziness, which I had over come and had learned not to make excuses!

I had also learned to meet challenges head on, to rise above them and go beyond!

Believe me there was a lot of challenges to overcome! You see I wasn't even tech savoy - I was not from the generation that grew up with computers and all this technology, but I didn't let that daunt me. I knew what my weaknesses were and I got help in those areas.

One thing about having worked previously with Dr. Lant, I knew he had a sincere desire to see all who connected with him in business or his students, to see them succeed, sometimes even wanting success for them more than they wanted it themselves! So I knew he wanted me to succeed (us succeed.) He also had a terrific work ethic and would not ask me to do anything he was not willing to do himself. He gave me complete access to him via phone, email, live sessions on Skype and also in the online, live center I had set up, where we would meet and also where I recorded the live lessons for the online writing course.

It was an amazing year and I realized I was far more capable than I had thought.

We got the online writing course off the ground ( I still have the recordings to the writing course and three volumes to the Writers Secrets books which I should make available once more at www.writerssecrets.com) and I helped Dr. Lant realize his dream.

I would encourage folks to take these opportunities that are presented to us, take them and go for it, put in the effort and you may be surprised at what you are capable of!

It is by stretching ourselves that we grow and we can live without regrets!

Photos of Dr. Lant's red drawing room and blue room are mine from my visit to his home. Images for memoir cover and portrait came from my copy of "A Connoisseur's Journey". The last photo was from Graphicstock.

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