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Turn Our Greif into Action Never forget 9/11. Never let the children forget. Whatever you think, if it was the enemy from within or the evil from outside, thousands died. But even as we remember the victims and honor the heroes of that terrible day, we should always remain constant with love and love defends those who need protection. Follow Your Heart Today, the world needs the protection that only comes from love. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemy and pray for him that he might turn from his evil ways but in all things fight. Fight for what you know in your heart is right. Fight for freedom. Fight to protect the children from the sickness and confusion that will cause their harm. Know What Your Are Fighting For Fight for your right to live free and protect your family. At the end of your life, don't have this regret, that you did nothing to stop the evils of Communism & Marxism, that's all there is to it. For the Love of God, Family & Country! Fight! Fight! Fight!

We Are God’s Children Children are born innocent and unconditionally lovable. No matter what choices or actions a child displays, we are to love them without harsh judgement. As we turn into adults, we become accountable for our actions and our behavior directly effects how others perceive us. This leads to contrast throughout mankind and we begin to develop friends versus enemies. However, deeming people unlovable and deciphering to have enemies has absolutely no benefit to your life. The best way to remember that hate has no place in our hearts, is to turn to God. All adults are forever God’s children. God has unconditional love for all and studying his word can greatly encourage forgiveness and acceptance of others into your daily life. Let’s reflect. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8 Although we sinned, Christ still died for us. This action alone should help us understand that enemies do not exist outside our own perception and judgement. All are worthy of love and all are lovable. Loving those who are difficult to love, is extending our love received from Christ. It Feels Good to Love Take a moment and reflect on a scenario when you said something terrible or acted in a way that you later regretted. Now think about how those around you offered forgiveness and how that forgiveness felt. It’s likely that you felt relieved and changed how you handled similar situations in the future. Forgiveness is a form of love. Forgiving someone can feel equally liberating as being forgiven. When you hold a grudge, it doesn’t feel good and invites anxiety and anger into your life. While you may think that this grudge is teaching the person at hand a lesson, it is not. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Holding anger for someone is giving them control over your feelings and, in some scenarios, your life. When you release the hate, you can begin to think and act with your heart instead of your ego. The picture may become clearer as you start to perceive situations with compassion and forgiveness becomes effortless. “ You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” – Matthew 5:38-4 2 By forgiving and welcoming in only words and actions of love, you gain back that control. If someone treats us badly, we are allowed to feel hurt, but it is never a reason to hurt them back. The cliché saying , “two wrongs don’t make a right” holds true in this case. When we love others unconditionally, we become proof of God’s word, as we become the vessel for the extension of this love. Love From a Distance “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” – Luke 6:27-28 Loving others does not always mean we need to be physically present in that person’s life. Even at a distance, we can still project love! Praying is a great way to love others who we may not be ready to physically be around. Many people act in harmful ways because they are hurt deep inside. Anger is a secondary emotion to sadness. Someone who treats others badly was likely treated badly themselves, hence where they learned such behavior. Pray for their healing, happiness, and forgiveness. We can also practice speaking positively about those we dislike. Gossip is the language of the ego, and doing so brings nothing but negativity into our lives. Gossip is passing judgment without allowing the other person to defend themselves. It only feeds our ego into believing our reaction to the situation was justified. This does not solve anything and can make us look untrustworthy to those we are gossiping to. We should speak kindly of our enemies and stay present. All Are Lovable In conclusion, all living creatures are lovable and a creation of God. The ability to love is the primary evidence of Christ living through us. We are all prone to making mistakes and likewise, we can all make changes. This is what growth looks like and we must be loved in order to have an inspiration and desire for such growth. Next time you are feeling like a person in your life is unlovable, turn to God. Pray for them as he does for us and wish abundance and happiness for all. By doing this, we can feel less angry and use our energy into creating good.

What is Compassion? Compassion is a term we often use but it’s meaning can get lost in translation, as there are several other similar terms. It’s important to understand the meaning of compassion so that we can fully grasp its significance and embrace it in our everyday lives. Meriam-Webster defines compassion as: “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Oxford Languages defines compassion as: “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortune of others.” Notice how the word sympathy is used in both definitions. Sympathy is our ability to feel someone else's pain and offer care or support. This is much different that empathy, which is simply understanding another person’s suffering. From a scientific standpoint, many people argue that empathy is a more beneficial way to help others because it does not bridge the feeling between two people but rather allows one to help the other. However, sympathy is a natural reaction that humans experience between each other. Empathy takes a sense of control over your own emotions and the ability to separate them from the person needing support. Sympathy is an automatic response that stems from your own experiences and perspectives. In a way, expressing sympathy forces you to sacrifice a bit of your own energy to deeply understand and relate to another person's suffrage versus simply recognizing that suffrage is existing within them. When Do We Experience Compassion? When do we see people expressing compassion? Compassion is often demonstrated at times of suffering or pain. These situations could be as small as witnessing an elderly lady tripping at the store while carrying groceries or as significant as attending a funeral for a friend’s passed loved one. Compassion is what sets us apart from other animals in nature. It’s an immediate sacrifice to feel temporary discomfort in order to relate to another human. You may feel compassion for the lady tripping with the groceries because you had an aunt who had a deadly fall in the past, so you drop what you are doing to help, even if it delays your route or schedule at the moment. Likewise, when we attend a funeral, we most likely plan on having empathy for the loved ones suffering by being present, however, we are likely to be overrun with compassion and sympathy as memories of our own lost loved ones begin to surface in those moments. When compassion arises, we see people hugging, hands on shoulders, and eye contact with strong emotional reactions. This is the significance of human nature. Our experiences and perspectives intertwine by way of compassion and understanding like one big web of stories and endings and beginnings. Lack of Compassion Creates Division When it comes to a compassionate society here in America, we have been falling short for three decades now. We’ve seen movements in support of abortions, selective racism, and violent solutions to conflict. In 2020, we saw much of this playout when the race wars began and groups such as BLM rioted through large cities. Cities were burned to the ground, businesses were destroyed beyond repair, and frantic, scared, citizens were taking cover from it all. At the same time, we experienced a COVID19 pandemic where we witnessed America dividing based on personal medical choices. The unvaccinated were alienated as deserving to die and being irresponsible, yet the vaccine was still experimental and many questions were still unanswered about its efficacy. The division was backed up by legalities in the form of mandates. People disconnected from jobs, hobbies, friends, and family. Medical freedom was at stake and people did not care so long as it was in support of their own medical beliefs. Then came the LGBT movement of 2021. In the past, America has become very accepting and open to the LGBT community, but in this particular year the support went from equal to manipulatively intentional. We saw children being invited to inappropriate pride parades with nude adults, sex education curriculum creeping down to our 5 and 6 year old kids, and laws attempting to legalize underage sex changes. Parents all across America became scared of losing their parental rights. Reflecting back on the race wars, pandemic, and LGBT push, many might ask how society became so violent, compassionless, and unforgiving about life. The answer to this question lies in the timeline of those involved and how America has transformed over that time span. The majority of the LGBT community, BLM rioters, and mandate advocates are in fact millennials. Millennials Age 24-35 Globalists such as Soros and other like-minded powerful people in both America and the CPC, have been following out their plan of dumbing down Americans since the early 90s. This is also a time period when millennials were attending public school. The public school system began slowly and progressively indoctrinating our children to believe in and admire socialism traits. They were taught to believe in climate change and embrace the large corporations fighting against it. They were also convinced that being educated was only tied to a college education, where the indoctrination only continued further. Perhaps the most significant trait they adopted was accepting mental illness as curable by pharmaceuticals, that our biological sex is changeable, and abortion does not include true life form. Flash forward to today, and millennials make up much of our administrative activists, educators, and healthcare workers. People in these professions were one of the leading factors in the wave of compassionless conflicts America experienced over the last few years. They supported and advocated for corrupt movements and socialist agendas. They marched, rioted, and infiltrated our schools and medical systems. The educators liberal and woke perspectives spilled out into the classrooms and some schools even adopted the liberal agenda all together. While this tie contributed to the spread of liberal and woke movements, it also allowed transparency to parents all over America. This is what caused a pushback and could arguably have saved our country from a full-blown socialism takeover. Since 2019, there have been nearly 4 million children leaving the public school system. Parents are resorting to homeschooling which is direct evidence of the lack of acceptance amongst parents when it comes to education. It’s one problem to have these agendas pushed on adults, but to push them onto free and innocent minds of our children stirred up the momentum we needed to keep it at bay. However, the fight is not over. Millennials in America continue to be compassionless to the heart of America which is freedom and liberty. Like robots, they have been brainwashed to go along with the mainstream media and to believe they are social justice warriors in doing so. Although we made it through these last few years of chaos, the deep state and other threatening organizations such as the CPC, will continue to attempt to cage America into their control as we go into the future. It’s important that we expose the millennials for their compassionless behavior and hold them accountable for what America had to endure. The hope has lied within the older boomer generations and the new generation of children. Boomers support for freedom in our country stems from their upbringing around war and propaganda. The new generation of children comes in with fresh and clear minds. We need to talk about the indoctrination and corrupt agendas to our children and work together to keep fighting for the future of this country. Politics All of these conflicts have also been heightened by politics. While politics are vital to a democracy and successful system among society, they can also take away from our human-to-human understandings. Just like we saw with wars, political beliefs often stem from one’s personal experiences in life and the morals they learned from birth on. This notion reminds me of two soldiers mirroring one another on a battlefield against each other. Each is defending what they believe is right. Politics can largely be an ongoing deciphering of what we believe to be right and wrong. Here in America, no matter which party you identify with, we should all agree on a country based around freedom and liberty. While we vote on laws, we should always preserve freedom over our speech, body, and religion promised in our constitution. Millennials seemed to have forgotten this promise as they divided themselves based on their personal beliefs and put our freedoms at risk of control. Most identify as Democrats or Liberals because the Democratic Party survives off of its followers into socialism, disguising agendas as justice and empowerment. Both factors are eye candy to the millennial looking for direction with a lack of discernment from decades of indoctrination to not think for themselves. Identify as Human What caused the division was not our skin color, gender, or vaccine status. The division was caused by lack of compassion for one another. Skin color decided how worthy our suffering was. Gender choices decided how worthy our suffering was. Vaccination status decided how worthy our suffering was. This mindset divided us as humans, as Americans. A dark skinned and fair skinned person can suffer equally and both deserve love and support, as do a gay or straight person or a vaccinated or unvaccinated person. Liberal millennials instead tried to push their divisive beliefs on the masses and if one did not comply, you were outed as a racist or right leaning bigot. However, the Republicans and right leaning Americans were simply fighting for freedom for all. This is the foundation of America and what should be preserved at all costs. These movements and pandemics were all attempts by the left to control the masses and put freedom in jeopardy, and the liberals lead the way. Community in America Compassion is what will hold a community together. When we live in a free and liberated country, compassion tends to thrive even more and becomes a necessity. We are free to live life with our own political and religious beliefs and rights over our bodies. America is a country developed off of differences. It is what makes us the land of the free, home of the brave. As we reflect on the last few years of chaos and havoc, remember that your neighbor is worthy of compassion just as you are, no matter their skin color, gender, religion or political beliefs. At the end of the day, we are all human and forgetting compassion turns us back into animals, dividing into groups and becoming territorial while ignoring the simple fact that we are one. Compassion will keep us unified as caring individuals striving for a connected and diverse community. Remember that our country keeps us free only as long as our hearts remain free too. Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Peter 3:8

My Multicultural Start to Life I was raised in Oakland, California in the late 60’s and early 70’s and it is safe to say I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Yes, I experienced significant challenges in my youth, but I also gained knowledge that later proved to guide me straight to success. I learned about multicultural dynamics and how important having an open mind really is. I was brought up around children from all different ethnic backgrounds and walks of life. We didn’t pay attention to racial differences like people do today. We were all one. I can remember this nighttime show on KSAN that featured guests, many of which were professors at UC Berkeley and Stanford University, who had Islam, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and many other, perspectives. The area I lived in and attended school at, literally 5 miles from UC Berkeley, was at the time the epicenter of enlightened thought and philosophy. Looking back now, I feel fortunate to have learned the Universal Truth from so many brilliant people. Most of the people my parents hung out with, and my teachers and coaches, were all significantly influenced by this cultural phenomenon. Today, I believe I have a uniquely authentic and truthful perspective on life compared to people in the generations that followed as well as others from other regions at that time. My generation was solidified with hard work, not hand-outs, and many of us carried this ethic with us into adulthood. We didn’t have a sense of entitlement like in today’s generation. The need for a servant minded society is more important today than the fake issues such as climate, racism, wars, etc., because without a servant’s heart we will fail to live in freedom and experience the blessings of wealth and good health. Finding Meaning Through God As a teenager, I was homeless at one point and on my own in the world, but I still had the mindset of success stemming from the economic courses I took in school. The expectation set on us kids in those times were if you work hard and try your best with a good heart and great intentions you could accomplish most anything. The courses I took in school back then and the ideologies that were once considered awe inspiring, unfortunately, aren’t part of curriculum in today’s education and definitely not part of the social and educational indoctrination that is going on today. Most 20 year old people draw a blank at the term laissez faire economics. At the time I was just getting started in my career, in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was more common for young adults to find early success and start building a life than it is today, and I did just that. However, it wasn’t until later that I came to a crossroads with the meaning of life. It was in 1987 as I was cruising down the 405 in my Vette, high on cocaine, when my life flashed before my eyes and I received my sign from God. From that day on, I became a servant to others, following God’s path in whatever I accomplished. I found meaning. My Christian faith went hand in hand with my experience in economics and I began to see true reward from God. I lived the American dream, owning multiple successful businesses and creating a beautiful home for my family. Today I am deeply grateful for the people and things that gave me many key lessons in life and I want to share my them along with my Christian values and beliefs with today's generation because our country has veered away from success and individual independence due to the constant backlash from socialist agendas infiltrating our government. It is my duty and my honor to help give to our youth the meaning and understanding of success and hard work to protect their future freedom. With the word of God, anything is made possible so long as your serve a purpose to life here on earth. In this piece I will review several Christian idioms that build a foundation under success and explain how the socialist agenda threatens to eliminate religion and independence. What Happened to Economics? In my 8th Grade Economics class, Laissez Faire Economics was a mandatory principle which sadly is not part of today’s public-school curriculum. Yet laissez faire economics still holds great significance for the success of our nation. Laissez Faire Economics was not an odd term that you would quickly Google for a definition. It was discussed at dinner, promoted in school, and inspirational quotes were seen regularly in the community. Most of us I suspect just assumed that our kids were being taught the same stuff as we were. Wrong! Success in business and trade with little to no government control nor intervention was encouraged. While at the same time it was instilled in us that welfare takes away basic human rights by encouraging people to be lazy and not take pride in working. Welfare was a condition that was not encouraged and people both agreed and understood that money could simply not be endlessly printed because inflation would take over the American dream. We wanted to work. We wanted success and independence. But alas, vast sums of China (CPC) money influenced the corrupt and propaganda peddling American Teachers Association (and all that ilk) were busy brainwashing our kids right under our noses. The sick part is the money comes from us buying China stuff on Amazon! So we are now almost hopelessly ruined as a country because many are so brainwashed that they actually hate this country when the actual data, just pure objective data, overwhelmingly makes the case that we, the United states of America, are the best country on earth today and the best country there ever has been in the history of man. Perfect, no. Best ever, yes. To be hated? Really? Dumb asses... I highly suggest reading Shelby Steele, a prominent black conservative who suggests that welfare is literally an extension of the slave plantation and is the worst form of racism because it strips away the dignity of work. See: White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era Paperback - May 29, 2007. Get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/White-Guilt-Together-Destroyed-Promise/dp/0060578637 We must all overcome the tendency, as compassionate human beings, to take our past mistakes so hard that we harm our selves. Let us learn from our mistakes, and vow to never repeat them, and make the best use of the lessons learned to sing the song of brotherhood, fidelity and freedom! We need each other more than ever now. Black, white, red, yellow and brown, (forgive if I left any out) we are all humans and we can thrive best by simply loving each other. Just love each other. There’s No Such Thing as Free Lunch The above American idiom is from the book, There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch by Milton Freidman. This book was a staple during my generation and teaches everything one needs to know about economics. The author was widely accepted as one of the best economists of all time. “Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will” (Freidman). So where can we find this book today? On Amazon there are limited copies and asking price is over $3k! However, you will see an abundance of books available with socialist titles such as There’s No Such Thing as a free Lunch, or is There . This isn't shocking coming from a multi-billion-dollar corporation that has been going along with the socialist agenda to gain control over the masses and keep a monopoly over them. The corporate globalists are working overtime to erase history and belief systems by controlling the books we read, the news we get, and the content we see online. What is even more disturbing is the content they push on us. It’s easier to find a book on Bestiality than Laissez Faire Economics which makes a significant statement about the current condition of our society. Another important work is another book authored by Freidman named Capitalism and Freedom. In this book, he explains the role of capitalism in liberal society. He sold over four hundred thousand hard copies and millions of paperback copies since its publication and the book was translated into eighteen different languages. Topics covered include the roles of government in a free society, education, trade arrangements, capitalism, and social responsibility. Freidman's political beliefs have contributed to the development of new parties such as the Libertarians. The younger generation has neglected the importance of individual freedom and books such as these are important to keep relevant as the left tries to manipulate the free mind into a controlled one. This is a must read to learn how a truly free society should do business. Get your copy here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51877.Capitalism_and_Freedom What Is Reward and Sacrifice? While economics and political understanding is vital to the success and freedom of our children, it will serve no significance without a strong belief system. It’s not only lack of understanding for individual freedom but also the lack of meaning in life and purpose that drains away the desire and quest for exploration, discovery, commerce, and success. This a a really bad, life threatening cancer that is eating away at our society today. The saying, reward comes with sacrifice, has been manipulated over time and unless it comes straight from the Bible, it’s likely blasphemy disguised as some form of socialist agenda. This notion is best exemplified from the way Christ was the ultimate servant, paying the ultimate sacrifice when He gave himself to us when He died on the cross even though He knew we were really bad sinners. As Christians, we should want to follow Jesus's example and serve others by sacrificing without seeking any reward or the reward will cease to come. Teens and young adults have essentially forgotten the importance of sacrifice and replaced it with entitlement, the ultimate self-serving ideology. This is rapidly becoming the new religion of today. If this continues, the current younger generation will see no reward and sadly become dependent on the ill intentions of the government. A self-serving government and a self-serving society will doom the common person to live in misery and slavery. However, if we sacrifice with pure intentions and faith in God, many rewards will inevitably come back to us. In Luke 18 we are reminded of the rewards we will receive for being faithful. • God Rewards the Elect with Justice (18:1-8) • God Rewards the Sinner with Mercy (18:9-14) • God Rewards the Humble with His Kingdom (18:15-17) • God Rewards the Self-Denying with Eternal Life (18:18-30) • God Rewards the Blind with Sight (18:31-43) From my youth and up to about ten years ago, most Christian churches in America would preach sermons at least 2 or 3 times a year centered around sacrifice and reward. We were taught that true blessings only come when we choose to put ourselves out into the world as servants. It is really true, God will always reward the faithful! Today, this notion has become distorted by evil agendas or eliminated altogether. Yet, as servants of God, it’s our duty to keep these key teachings alive and teach them to whoever we can. People who believe they are entitled often do not make any personal sacrifices and therefore any reward given will come from ill intentions and therefore not be genuine in its nature. Hardships and ruinous tribulations must surely follow them all ther days. Unless they repent and turn to Jesus! My advice is to give all you can, as often as you can, and do it so that nobody knows it was you who did it. Give With a Pure Heart After one understands the dynamic of reward and sacrifice, we must reflect on our intentions behind our sacrifice. We will receive exactly what we put out. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.” Colossians 3:23-25 We must give with a pure heart, and we must give without the expectation of receiving anything in return. Likewise, we must always treat others the way we would like to be treated, giving in the same way we want to receive. This was taught to me by my Grandmother Louise, and she called it “The Golden Rule”. For example, donating to someone solely to get the label as a good person will not reward us in the same way that donating in secrecy will. Jesus said that a person who gives quietly in their closet will receive the best reward that only God can give. These gifts include supernatural abilities such as things happening in your favor. This is what we Christians commonly call “Gods favor”. Sadly, millennials are abandoning this philosophy and trading it for only working if promised something in return. The socialist leaders disguise certain rewards as promises for virtue but really, they are for self-gain as well. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Colossians 3:23 This socialist ideology only results in more power grabs and a never-ending cycle of negative intentions which secretly strip us of individual freedom and beliefs. In a sense, our youth are making a deal with the devil instead of trusting faith in God and his abilities that reach beyond any materialistic values. Atheists are becoming ever so popular in the new generation, but we can correlate the religious shift with increased suicide and mental health problems and decline in physical health. These consequences align with the socialist agenda to destroy faith and use the government power to rule over all of society. They have the confidence and determination to succeed at this but with our faith in God and positive energy into being a service to others, we will always overcome this agenda. Right now, is a pivotal time for us to lead unto others and God has led unto us. We can’t continue to claim to be Christians while refusing to spread the word of God to those around us. We cannot lead society out of this dark hole and into the light unless we commit ourselves to show them the way. Our intentions as Christians are for the success of our country, really the entire world, not just for ourselves, and this is what will save America, and the world, before it’s too late. Millennials Have Abandoned Meaning and Purpose “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:1-34 In a society with growing pressure for acceptance and recognition, and an unsatiable need for validation, we find this demand negatively affecting our sense of purpose and meaning. Social platforms are an everyday part of most young people’s lives and they’ve targeted their focus on approval from others. This consequently leads our youth away from serving others and instead serving themselves. It’s also distorted the essence of giving and community service. People are only being a service to others to get the satisfaction of approval from others. Likewise, they are being influenced to live life without a healthy belief system and thus having difficulty finding meaning in purpose for their existence. The socialist agenda wipes them of their beliefs and disguises itself as virtuous as it pushes them for government dependence as temporary reparations and rewards. These handouts feel good in the moment, but true reward will never come, and this cycle will continue to repeat itself until the soul is washed of all meaning. The real pandemic is suicide, the ultimate consequence to loneliness. Karma, the Universal Notion So far, we have covered the works of the Bible and the lacking belief system among our youth, but what will the result be to these self-serving agendas on both an individual and national scale? Karma. Karma is a notion that is practically universal among all religions and philosophy. In today’s society, the word karma has been dumbed down to simple, “do bad things and bad things will happen to you”, but its meaning is more significant that this cliché saying, and many economists have based their theories off of it. Christianity: The bible preaches that the ill intentions we partake in are sin and the effect of sin will return to us. One verse that reflects this notion is Matthew 7:12, “ So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets ”. This of course also means that the good we do will be returned to us, a hundred fold! Matthew 13:8, 23 and Luke 8:8 is Jesus’ parable of the sower. It is about gospel workers who go forth and sow seeds of gospel truth (not money) in order to harvest souls (not money) for the kingdom of God. The context is NOT about money! In 13:10 the disciples asked Jesus why he taught in parables. Referring to knowledge of the “ mysteries of heaven ” in 13:11, Jesus says in 13:12 that those who are given knowledge from God will be given even “more abundance” --of knowledge, not money! Again this is referring to knowledge and not money. When I pray, I thank Jesus for the blessings He has bestowed upon us and I ask Him for supernatural power to be healthy, wealthy, and wise in His ways. Some might be critical of the wealthy part; all I know is that MY God is a God of plenty! Quran : In verse 7 of chapter 99 in the Holy Quran, it states, “S o whoever does a good deed equal to the weight of the minutest particle, will see it” . Chapter 8 states, “ And whoever does an evil deed equal to the weight of the minutest particle, will see it .” They believe that karma means all actions result in a reaction, whether positive or negative. The Quran is the ancient scripture of Islam. Greek Mythology: The name Nemesis is related to the Greek word “ nemein ” which means to give what is due. “Nem” means to distribute. The goddess Nemesis decides retribution for those who are arrogant to the Gods. Buddhism: Karma is a fundamental principle in Buddhist philosophy. It is centered around present and future life and rebirth. In simple terms, it states that evil actions in this life will result in a rebirth into a negative environment where as good actions, such as selflessness and giving, will result in rebirth into a positive environment. Understanding karma is important for obtaining greater happiness through good deeds. Karma was established back in what I like to call the beginning of the beginning and today’s youth should be researching its development from scholars and readings, not TikTok and Instagram graphics. Why is karma so important to understand in depth? Simply because an individual creates their own. Freedom Must Be Maintained Now that we’ve covered purpose, good intentions, karma, and being a service to others, I will discuss why these factors are significant to freedom. Freedom is necessary for us as a society to be able to have the right to practice religion and therefore be a service to each other thus making a strong community. Without the freedom to think for ourselves we lose our ability to reach independence and success. We will end up a society dependent on the government and it will start with the decline free trade and end with controlled minds and actions. Not only does this take from our personal purpose and meaning, it also sets our country up for negative consequences from the karma of bad intentions and evil agendas. America is the first and only country to reach freedom and create a government out of its own people, for the people, and by the people. Our great Constitution promises these rights and hundreds of thousands of people have died sacrificing their lives for us to have them today. In return, we must sacrifice to protect this privilege. The socialists will relentlessly and confidently try to pervert the Constitution with their desire for power and to control us, but the laws within it will forever be on the side of We The People. We defeated fascism in World War 2 and communism in the Cold War. We have defeated the socialist attempts to dictate by utilizing the laws promised in the Constitution. We need to continue to fight for our freedom because it must be maintained, and we the people have all the tools to do this. We need to teach our youth about their rights and the importance of capitalism and economics. We need to bring purpose back to average American by way of Christ and create good karma within our society and country. Ronald Reagan once said: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free”. Freedom is not free, and sacrifice is in high demand for the better of America. The Constitution gives us ALL the power, but we do not exercise this power, because we either don’t know we can or we don’t care enough. Whether by apathy or ignorance, we owe it to our forefathers, our descendants, and ourselves to stop being either and get in the game! National efforts are weak against entrenched Wokites. But the constitution has given us a way to peel back the power at the Federal level and bring it back to the states and counties where it belongs! Article V of the Constitution gives States the power to hold a convention to do just this! But of course Federal Senators are a waste of time, as moving them requires activity on a macro scale and taking away their fist hold over our freedoms and takes away their power and corrupted money flow. So what you must do are two very important things. ONE, you must learn your rights! Go to www.patriotacademy.com and sign up! TWO, you must join the Article V campaign at www.cosaction.com! Don’t just sit back and let these people steal it all away! It does not have to be that way! Get involved now! Do your part today!

If you live long enough you will inevitably be late to an important date, or even worse, miss it entirely. We often forget about appointments and meetings because we are already stressed out about other priorities. If we further go on to miss a date, the anxiety can become unbearable for some. The worst thing you can do is let one mistake take away your entire opportunity or job. Instead of saying “sorry” and nervously pretending as if it did not happen, take responsibility. Most importantly, do not walk away and never look back. Instead, find the root cause of your untimeliness and make goals to improve this characteristic about yourself. With the help of an example scenario, I will walk you through the dynamics of time management and help you figure out why your own has fallen short. SCENARIO: A well-established contractor is late to meet potential customers and completely missed his appointment with subcontractors waiting to start on another job. As a result, the potential customers decide to go with another bid and the subcontractors he neglected no show the next day. 1. Actions speak louder than words. Take accountability. The contractor needs to communicate his respect and gratitude for the customer and subcontractor’s time. He should also respond with a meaningful and vulnerable apology. Perhaps the most important factor in time management is respect for other people’s time. Being late or missing appointments can significantly impact how others view us because if you cannot keep your word, people stop depending on you. This is a tough issue to rehabilitate unless you are willing to be vulnerable and take accountability. If you fail to do this, people will begin to treat you as inferior and your future opportunities can be halted. When you accidentally forget about someone, they might respond by intentionally forgetting about you. We often don’t value others time until we need it and this selfish dynamic can put a wrench in interpersonal communications and prevent growth within a business or person. Whether you’re a boss or an employee, respecting each other’s time is crucial for both of your wheels to keep turning. If you miss a date or show up late, you’ve wasted someone else’s time and an adequate apology is in store. Be direct in taking accountability and assure that it will not happen again. Even if it was partly their fault, take it on the nose and move forward. Disrespect will take you to a dead end and time management is the foundation of respect between two people. If you want to establish your limits for time then be transparent about your schedule. Make your schedule available to others to help express how valuable your own time is and encourage them to share their own schedule with you in return. Being open about schedules can cut out the trial and error stage and set the ground for people to have mutual understandings of other’s lives. 2. Why are you lacking time management skills? What was the contractor preoccupied with? Was his schedule over packed or did he forget because he simply did not care? The contractor needs to reevaluate his mission and goals within his business and find out why motivation and self-discipline are lacking. If his schedule is overwhelming, then it’s time to re-prioritize commitments. We have to want to be on time and show up. We have a lot of expectations on us that we need to acknowledge but in the end, we will only do what feels good. This is human nature. If we are not aligned with the mission of our business or job, then we might lack time management simply because we are not determined to focus on it. In all the businesses I have managed, I found that people who were not determined in their position were the same ones failing to commit to time. In other words, they did not have the passion for what was expected of them. It’s important to dig deep and find the root cause of our lacking motivation. Even with all the best tools and coaching, if our heart isn’t in it then they are useless. We must be excited and have a vision of exactly what we want to accomplish. If you feel your schedule is overwhelming, think about whether it’s overbooking or your lack of excitement for the tasks at hand. Prioritize what needs to be done and accept that it won’t always be fun but might be necessary to reach your goal. Keeping your end goal in mind will give you the motivation to get over the hurdles that are not so enjoyable. If we do not have an end goal then where will the determination stem from? I highly suggest reading my blog “ Working For Your Life Purpose ” to help define what your mission is and make sure you are aligned with this mission in everything you do. Link: https://www.doughauptman.com/working-for-your-life-purpose 3. What resources are available to you? The contractor should reflect on how he manages time. Does he make mental notes or physically write appointments down? Does he lose his notes often? Is it time to make digital notes? Or is his own self-discipline to stay focused what’s lacking? He must determine if his time management skills are working and take initiative if they are not. As technology advances, we run out of reasons for not being punctual. In addition to phones and alarm clocks we now have apps, smart watches, and even AI products to help keep us on track. Business owners in particular should keep up with these tools and avoid becoming an outlier. Make it easy for people to understand and work with your schedule so mutual respect can develop. Apps are a great tool for time management because they cannot be lost and offer many different options for notifications such as emails, texts, and even phone calls. The most popular scheduling apps are Calendly, Appointlet, Zoho, Google, Trello, and Basecamp. Personally, I enjoy using Google Calendar and Basecamp because they are easy to use and readily available. You can also utilize a life coach, such as myself, for improving your punctuality. Time management is something every life coach is seasoned in and they can serve as a third party help you learn about scheduling and organizing commitments. They can also help you identify your flaws and improve your dependability with others. However, whether you have a life coach or every scheduling app available, your self-discipline will still be the most important factor. You must fully commit to your goals and no one can force you to do that but your own determination. The benefit of a life coach is that I can help you both identity your mission and manage your time accordingly. 4. How does this undependable behavior impact your business? The contractor needs to understand how these mishaps are harming his business. His reputation can be damaged if he does not make the situation right which will lead to less jobs and scarce contracts with subcontractors to complete them. Missing appointments and failing to show up will destroy our business or career before it ever begins. Businesses hire managers specifically to organize dates and times with the objective being leadership. Without them, a company would not run smoothly. This same dynamic can be applied to your own life and career. Without mutual respect for others and their time, we will not have positive relationships which are a staple of consumerism, business, and personal success. Additionally, if people lack respect for us then our growth is at a standstill. Take the initiative to get control over your time management and set your business or career up for optimum success with its mission. You’ll be glad you did!

Born in California I was born at Vandenburg Airforce Base in Lompoc, Santa Cruz County, California. My parents lived in Los Angeles for a while before moving the new family to the San Francisco Bay Area. My formidable years in Oakland gave me close exposure with UC Berkeley and San Francisco, both were arguably the center of the Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s. My parents were part of the first generation to break away from the old school “father knows best” mentality. They instead adopted a socially liberal lifestyle and they fit the image of the pot smoking, drinking, leather wearing, incense burning, earthy people of the area at that time. It started with love and peace but later turned to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. For all its faults, this was a generation where people of all races and cultures aspired to live together as one in love, peace, and freedom. Colorblind in Oakland In the late 60s San Francisco Bay Area, my parents exercised very open race relations such that I was raised to be colorblind. My parents, who would be divorced and remarried, intermittently dated and cohabitated with people of different races. They also had friends of all different races and cultures, so they never put much attention to skin color. My parents gave us the teachings of MLK, and as a result, I look at a person’s heart and only their heart. Up until 1999, I truly felt the country was going in a good direction and that soon racism would be entirely exterminated. Although my parents were always partying, I was born naturally smart and was lucky in school. I was never the smartest but my education was exceptional because of the merit system. There was no diversity quota. If I had not been bused or gone to school in the bay area, I know I would not be as successful and experienced as I am today. When I started elementary school in the late 60s, Proposition 13 was in full swing and gaining steam in the Bay area. The proposition was still controversial in some parts of the U.S. but it was mostly accepted there. In today’s world, politicians like Biden-Harris continue to advocate against this merit based system. To better explain the benefits of this proposition, I will discuss my experience being bused to Lakeview Elementary, which was located many miles away from the Skyline area of Oakland where we lived at the time. In the original proposition, a program was designed to rank all children based solely off of test scores which were determined by IQ testing. This was called the Mentally Gifted Program (MGF). The top scoring children were placed in classrooms with curriculums that were designed specifically for their high IQ. The cutoff IQ score to join the MGF was 130. To put this into perspective, Steve Jobs has a score of 160 and Albert Einstein scored between 160-190, although news articles mostly reported Einstein at 160. Any score of 135 or higher is placed in the top 1%, or in other words, the 99th percentile of the population. My IQ was 134 at the time and hopefully still is! The advanced classes put in place by the Mentally Gifted Program only made up 0.3% of the total student body and the brightest and smartest students could be found within them. At Lakeview Elementary only one of these advanced classes existed within the school. This happened to be Mrs. Shapiro’s 6th grade classroom, where I was enrolled. Hard Work Has No Color At the time, the demographic of Oakland was approximately 95% African American, 3% Caucasian, and the rest were Asian American and Hispanics. When looking at these demographic percentages, most would assume that the majority of my classmates were African Americans, however they were not. As you can see in my classroom photograph, most of my fellow classmates were Asian Americans but there was a wide range of Caucasian, Hispanic, and African American students too. Consider all the factors above, and you can see that race and genetics had absolutely nothing to do with classroom merit. Asian American children made up much of the advanced classroom, despite their low demographics percentage, because their families valued education and had high expectations for grades and hard work. They encouraged their children to succeed in every way possible and this determination was ingrained within the Asian culture at the time. On the other hand, although African Americans made up 95% of the demographics, they did not make up the majority of advanced classrooms. This had nothing to do with their abilities and everything to do, again, with culture and family. African American children who wanted to succeed in their education were often singled out with harassment, bullying, and shame. Some of this abuse even came from within their own families. This tragedy still exists today and can be seen when the data and statistics are analyzed objectively. Even with the factors of race and genetics left out, the advanced classroom at Lakeview was still completely multicultural. My classmates and I developed amazing bonds with one another and I cannot say there is a finer group of people anywhere. In the photo below, you can see one student with an afro. His name was Rodger and we were best friends. Other classmates even nicknamed us “ Oreo cookie ” because, well you can figure this one out! My elementary school held quite a few reunions over the years but I haven’t made it to one yet. The majority of my classmates lived on to have successful careers and not one of them became a socialist as far as I know. Race was never the focal point yet we all experienced equality and earned success in the end. I grew up in a diverse environment, and even 50 years later, I think of all of them fondly. Politicians these days have no idea what it means to grow up culturally diverse and what equality truly means in America. Today’s Classrooms Today, we can see new quota systems put in place at schools that ensure diversity, but not success and hard work. The issue at hand is that students are placed simply by their race and not their productivity. The result is students only progress because of their demographic and not because they earned it above others. Instead of placing children solely based off skin color, we should have focused on the factors that are preventing students of all colors from succeeding. The cultural factors, which I mentioned above, consist of strong families and their determination to put education first. The narrative of politicians, such as Biden-Harris, is that classrooms would be largely Caucasian if a merit system existed. However, stories like mine demonstrate that a merit based classroom will still be largely diverse regardless of the demographics of the area. Today, Asian Americans continue to rank at the top of education and these students also have the highest rate of two parent households. Family, acceptance, and educational standards are what will ensure the next generation is successful. From hard work, and not skin color, will the most positive outcomes be achieved. For good reading on this topic I encourage you to read some Shelby Steele: t.ly/2y8A. Another good read is The Diversity Delusion by Heather MacDonald. After sixth grade, the Mentally Gifted Program experiment was finished because Proposition 13, at the time, only allowed for these types of sophisticated and advanced education tactics within the sixth grade. This was truly a shame because it was absolutely very successful. How many sixth-grade elementary school classes do you know that still hold reunions? Nevertheless, busing continued. I was first bused to Bret Harte Junior High School and later to McChesney Junior High School. Both schools were located in tough parts of town and far from my home. Mayhem, Mischief, and Lessons Learned What happened next was traumatic for me. There is no way around it, I admit that I had become a gang banger and it was the peer pressure that got me to that point. I experienced significant racism as a young white boy which resulted in me getting daily beatings, harassment, and falling victim to crimes throughout the beginning of my 7th grade year. People also stole money from me and I was even sexually assaulted at one point. It wasn’t long until I was eventually beat into a gang. I coped with this by learning how to fight, becoming a fast runner, and settling in with a group that was not accepted by mainstream gangs at the time. Strength was found in numbers and my gang included a couple white guys, a couple Asian guys, four black guys, and one Hispanic. We hung out together mostly for protection, but we also developed a strong bond and got into all sorts of mischief. This included, but was not limited to, stealing old people’s Social Security money after payday, ripping off liquor stores, and other misdemeanors and general mayhem. I think it's important to say that I am not proud of this part of my life, and I am certain that I developed PTSD because of the beatings and the things that I witnessed, some of which were so gruesome that I will not put them to ink here. Suffice it to say that when God has his hands on you and things get to be their very worst, he can do miracles. This is what He did for me. If I had stayed there, I am certain that I would have ended up dead or in prison, or probably both. Pony Boy in San Diego When I turned 16 years old, my family moved to San Diego where things were much different. The people there were significantly more divided than back in my hometown of Oakland. Instead of predominantly African American students, at Monte Vista High School in Spring Valley CA, there were mostly Caucasian and Hispanic students with few African Americans. Since I was accustomed to Oakland and most of my actual friends were mainly Black and Asian, I had a difficult time befriending other people. I remember reading The Outsiders in the 7th grade because I identified with the greasers in the story. I did not care for who I thought to be the socs in school and instead joined in with the Hispanics and dated women from all sorts of cultural backgrounds. I also made use of the fighting I learned from Oakland gangs because, as a white guy dating mainly Hispanic girls, I found myself attracting conflict. However, this never stopped me from dating who I wanted to. Needless to say, I was out of place and experienced some social shock in my new environment. I played a variety of sports but still I maintained the label of a stoner. However, the football head coach didn’t let me play football mainly because of this reputation even though I was the fastest and best wide receiver there. I was denied the positive social experience I would have almost certainly enjoyed had I played football. Then my life took another turn for the worse as my parents ended up divorcing once and for all. My father had an affair with the mother of one of my fellow classmates and this lead to a bloody fight between us. I ended up sitting in a pool of blood with all of my things packed into my Toyota truck. He took the house keys and that was when I came to the realization that I was officially on my own. This was 1978 and at the tender age of 17, I was all alone in the world. Never one to quit or give up, I struggled to put myself back in school again and ended up withdrawing to pursue my GED during my senior year. I was unable to finish my diploma because I was busy trying to find a job and pay my own rent. I did however pass the GED and have a high school equivalency certificate. After finally getting my first apartment, things began to settle down for a little while. I enrolled myself at Grossmont Community College and eventually completed 2.5 years of education while living on my own. I had left right before I was about to complete an associate’s degree in business administration and a minor in psychology, with additional emphasis on political science. During this time, while I was attempting to earn the degree, I had to sleep in my van on occasion, finding myself homeless between various sales jobs, until landing my first good sales job at 19 years old. I landed a great sales job selling photocopier toner and computer printer ribbons to corporations. During the late 70s, computers were a huge hit and it seemed that suddenly everyone wanted a computer, leaving a huge window for commission sales. By the time I was 20, I was making $20k per month from commissions alone. I was significantly good at business-to-business sales and it seemed my pockets were lined with more money than I knew what to do with at that time. Flying High in Orange County By 1980, I took my new skill set and moved to Orange County. I was hired on at Centon Electronics selling semi-conductors. I made even more money at this endeavor, soaring into the millions. At this time, I was flying high as a highly paid sales executive, living in Newport Beach, riding in limos, and buying copious amounts of cocaine and concert tickets. I had no idea how to function in the real world yet, but I was exceptional at selling things and this led to some great opportunities as well as some really big temptations. I was caught in the perfect storm of success driven by a deep desire to never be homeless again and some deep-rooted psychological issues from my gang banger days in Oakland. I suspect that most of my dysfunction during this time period was from the PTSD I suffered and I still suffer from it to this very day after having survived the ordeal. I thought that I had everything I wanted but could not avoid the feeling that something was missing. I dated beautiful women, including a top billing stripper at the Cheetah Men’s Club in Orange County. I met up with her along the highway one day in my Vette. She sped by me in a beefed up Firebird and we raced along until I motioned her to pull into a rest area and you might imagine the rest. My life was a nonstop party but no amount of cocaine or beautiful women could fulfill the gaping hole I felt deep within my spirit. By 1985, my Corvette led me to befriending the auto detailer, a man named Carey, at the car wash on Beach & Warner in Huntington Beach. He in turn led me to Jesus and this led to the start of my born-again transformation. I started to attend Calvary Church in Costa Mesa, where Chuck Smith was the head pastor, where much of the evangelical movement started. Great evangelists such as Greg Laurie and Raul Ries, to name just a couple, were part of the Calvary movement. Raul Ries, then Pastor of Calvary in Rowland Heights, CA, is the author of From Fury to Freedom, which I highly suggest everyone read. This book, also made into a movie, tells a story that is unforgettable and life changing for the reader. Raul’s name stands for fear, for fighting, and for fury. In his childhood, his classmates referred to him as violent and rebellious and his family labeled him a “ time bomb ” ready to explode at any time. This was a notion that I would soon come to experience myself in the near future. In Vietnam, those who fought by his side claimed that he was an “ angry, bitter kille r”. As time went on, Raul developed into a violent martial arts hoodlum who eventually found himself at the end of a very long road. Raul put a shotgun to his head with the full intention of pulling the trigger and ending his life for good. However, right in that moment, a sermon from Chuck Smith began to play on the TV. Chuck’s invitation to accept the Lord released Raul’s finger from the trigger and started him down an entirely new path, a path that would save his life and put him on a new journey with God’s protection and guidance. Raul took this realization and centered his entire being on it. He became one of the most renowned pastors within the Calvary movement and has changed many lives for the better including my own. But this journey wasn’t simple for me either as I found myself toying with death and lacking any answers to the meaning of my life. Baptized in the Pacific Ocean By 1987 like Raul Ries had before me, I was heading down the road to perdition. One afternoon, I took my head turning Corvette and jumped onto the highway for an appointment in Los Angeles. I was speeding at 120 mph and I was listening to a sermon on the Christian radio station KWAV. The sermon was about accepting Jesus and asking Him for signs. Pastor Chuck, as we called him, went on to teach that if you are seeking the Lord and you know the Lord is calling you, yet you cannot seem to wrap your head around it, then it’s okay to ask for a sign. I soon came to find out, a sign was about to sweep right through my existence. As I was racing down the highway just past Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, high on cocaine, Jesus sent me a sign that I could not deny. I was running late, had been partying too hard, and knew right then and there that my life was on a collision course. I felt hopeless and even helpless. In that moment, I heard Pastor Chuck say “if you are lost and just need a sign, just ask for it, He will show you the way.” So I said out loud, “Dear Lord, I really need you right now, please show me you are real, please show me a sign.” At that very instant is when I saw a semi-truck blow a tire on the highway just a quarter mile ahead. I saw the cab drop, and jack knife oncoming traffic. I immediately thought that the situation was very bad, and my adrenaline went sky high. The semi started smoking, the tires were ripping up, and cars were dodging it left and right. This life-threatening crash was like a scene from Fast & Furious because I drove straight through it without slowing down. I really had no time to react or do anything, it happened so fast! How did I drive right through this without getting blown up or killed? It was so dramatic that I thought I might have hallucinated the entire situation. Then it dawned on me that I had just asked for a sign, and if ever there was a sign, this had to be it! This was my moment of conversion. I knew right then and there that God and Jesus were real and nothing could possibly convince me otherwise. Following this realization, I started to regularly attend church and was baptized at Dana Point in the Pacific Ocean just 3 months later. I made the choice to dry up, get off of drugs and put an end to my party lifestyle. It didn’t happen overnight but took many years for me to get sober. My entire perspective changed for the better after I found Christ and was validated by my near death experience on highway 5 just past Oceanside. Corruption, Yuppies, and My Exit Today, I am grateful for growing up in California because I would not be who I am today without my experiences. As I continued to sober up and make changes to my lifestyle, I also saw changes happening within the golden state. California was becoming less and less culturally rich and more centered around money and fame. Everyone started wanting to look good and have their pockets full. People wanted to become celebrities and paid attention to where they ate, how much money they made, and how well dressed they could be. This superficial trend is what led to the term “yuppies”. A yuppy was most likely a southern Californian who was shallow and rich, focused only on materialistic values. I knew in my heart that this wasn’t the place for me anymore but it wouldn’t be until another journey through the riches that I decided to up and go. I started working in internet consultation at US Web as a lead business analyst and while the income was great, my eyes were opened to just how corrupt the corporate world of California really was. I once went to a meeting in Irvine with AOL’s project management team and discovered that the data centers were located mostly in residential houses, not data centers, and CDs were transferred in the mail. I knew then that they were cooking the books because there was no way that the business model they were running could ever be sustainable nor profitable. I ended up leaving US Web because they, among many other tech and financial firm of that day, aided and abetted AOL in what would later be the catalyst of the dot com bubble and subsequent crash on 2000-2001. They lied about their actual profits to cover up that they were losing copious amount of money. They did all of the advertising and in 1999 they held a public offering to raise their stock so high that they could leverage the hostile takeover of Time Warner. In 2001, an investigation actually proved that they had lied about 5 billion dollars in losses! The write down illegally treated the sky high marketing costs as a long term asset on the books! Without this money, they would have never been able to buy Time Warner. It was a total sham and resulted in thousands of seniors losing their retirement funds and turning to Social Security. They ended up having to keep AOL as an entity until they sold it to the Huffington Post in 2011. This was hardly a slap on the wrist. I ended up quitting and choosing to no longer partake in the scandal I became all too familiar with. By 1999, I was officially born again and no longer just a sellout. My prospects were much lower because I refused to conform to the corruption and superficial environment. I was disillusioned, divorced, lonely, and knew I needed to keep making changes. Soon enough, I was given another sign. My mother called me from Georgia and asked me to come help my grandmother who was not physically well at the time. She could hardly get to the bathroom and insurance was not helping in the slightest. This was my sign to move. On August 12th, 1999 I officially left California and my new journey was about to begin in Georgia! Making Roots in Georgia I remember the day I left California as if it happened yesterday. I was driving a Cutlass that was on its last leg and I only had $682.91 to my name, with my credit ruined. I remember watching the temperature needle go up every time I would drive uphill and the engine steaming. I had to go 30 mph just to prevent the car from overheating on me. I realized that I was no longer flying high in my corvette and was instead bumping along the unknown. I had barely made it to Georgia but the Lord got me there safely. Although the trip was challenging, I know this was one of the best choices I could have made. When I got to Georgia, I had already acquired skills in business and was ready to put them to use. The benefit was that Georgia had much less competition than California. I started coding HTML and within two years I was making over $500.00 per day. Despite making good money, the first year was really challenging. I lived with my mother and aunt at the time and had a side job as a salesperson for Phil Meek. To my surprise, most of my clients acquired in California stuck with me, even from a distance. Life was finally going in the direction I had always wanted but this time it had meaning, the factor missing from my California memories. From that point in time until now, I have been steadily building a family and multiple businesses. There have been challenges, but it has been a great time. My experiences in California shaped the husband, father, and businessman I am today. Recently, my youngest daughter Mali left for college, and it brought up a lot of feelings within me. She told me she was scared to leave because she had lived in our house her entire life. This reminded me that I grew up without roots or stability. If I had never left California, I most likely would have never put down roots for a family either. The change of environment allowed me to make a stable lifestyle and raise a family. I thank the Lord for this blessing. Gratitude and Equality Today, I am grateful for both my journey in California and my landing in Georgia. I used the knowledge I gained in Cali to create something new and unifying in Atlanta. It really saddened me to see the community here divided over class and race. People segregated themselves at church and even where they shopped and hung out. I wasn’t used to seeing this after living so long in Cali with diversity in every direction. I realized that prejudice and racism was indeed alive and well right in front of me. I decided to incorporate my California experiences here in Georgia by advocating for diversity within my own business and demonstrating that people of all ethnicities can work together to create a unified community. Currently, all my tenants at Mimosa Salon Suites are African American. I successfully made the first salon suites business in Georgia and I am proud to be with people of all colors working hand in hand. The majority of our social media embraces diversity and strives to get the message of unity across to the public. I went against the grain of the culture here and brought my 60s California energy into the mix. I became the complete opposite of what I was in California and devoted my career to social justice by way of entrepreneurship. But even in my new ventures, I thank the Lord for the journey he put me on and all that I learned as a result. Reflecting on My Journey When I look back on my journey, I reflect on exactly what it means to have roots versus living without them. I realized that you can always travel and experience new environments but you only get one shot to establish roots. If you establish roots first, then you will always have a home base to return to. If you are thinking about starting over, then most likely you have hit rock bottom in life and that’s ok. You have nowhere to go but up and it’s never too late to create a foundation for change. One person I especially look up to and relate to is Elon Musk. He moved his entire business to Texas, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. It was personal to him, just as it was for me. He refused to remain in California, surrounded by corruption and greed. One quote that I can relate to is: “Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.” Remember to stay open to new opportunities that come your way and look for healthy ways to live. Find your purpose, establish a mission, and move forward. And don’t forget to always look for signs from the Lord because He will always point you in the right direction when you feel lost. Additional Information: Insight on bussing and merit based schooling: https://www.thefreevoter.com/insights-busing Finding your life purpose: https://www.doughauptman.com/working-for-your-life-purpose Link to “ From Fury to Freedom ” book: https://www.amazon.com/Fury-Freedom-Raul-Ries/dp/0890815372

Independence is not something that can be taught. Independence is a natural instinct that we all possess; it’s the urge to roam, be free, and not take orders. All humans are born this way. Whether or not you can break or train a human out of this instinct, is quite debatable. It might be possible under specific circumstances but history has proven that independence has managed to always make it’s way through because it simply is in our nature. You would have to be raised in a completely controlled and restricted environment in order to not be independent. But even then, you could only be docile to a certain point. Some part of us, at the bottom of our souls, we would still crave independence despite never tasting it before. We do not have to learn independence, we just need to be able to experience it. A Gift From God The notion of independence is not a lesson but rather something that we can be in awe of in relation to the human spirit. God gifted us this ability. Hemmingway helped me understand this concept as well as the ancient Greeks. Found in his book "East of Eden" is the word “timshel” which literally translates in ancient Greek from Arabic, to mean that God gave man the gift to have a free will and the ability to decide between good and evil. God gave us the gift of independent thinking and being. He gave us the gift of thought and choice. Since the beginning of time, before any writing was on shell or rock, timshe l validates that freedom is a gift from God. This is impossible to contradict. People can be ignorant of the history and religion relating to who we are and how we develop, but the reality is that independence is born into us from the start. Let Children Be I do not believe that there is a way to teach a child independence. The way to respect their journey, is to simply allow them to have independence naturally. We can support them in having frequent doses of independence by giving them assignments of responsibility. Rather than call this learning, I think of it as more of a safe guarding of their sacred right deep within their being. This is the sacred right the God gave them and this notion is something we can help them understand through modeling and explaining biblical steps. Children need to understand that God is the source of all good things. We can also teach them to recognize the feeling of independence and encourage them to want it while also taking caution to boundaries and so forth. So the question is not how to teach children independence but rather how to we help children feel independence and provide support such as self-sacrifice, responsibilities, etc. Limit Judgment While on this topic, I want to bring attention to how important it is that we do not pass judgment on our children for the choices they make. A motto that I have used with children is that bad thoughts don’t exist, only bad actions. If we are overly critical of someone, we can inadvertently harm their natural tendency to experience their own independence which can lead to significant harm. When you are continuously negative to someone, their natural reaction is to curl up, get nervous with self-doubt, and not say anything at all. As parents, we do not want to ever make our children feel doomed to judgment. A Generation of Dependents If you raise a child to be solely dependent, then you are committing a sin because your job is to make them independent so they can care for themselves. Today, kids are so dependent on their parents that they eventually find themselves having a hard time do to break free and enjoy their own independence. Parents are the enabler in this scenario. Massive scores within my generation, and the one following it, were raised in the post-civil rights and hippy era. For many adults, the only purpose in life became to be a good mom. This lead to soccer and PTA moms and a generation where all kids received a trophy. This generation is much more fixated on babying children and the consequences developed quickly. For example, parents have become extremely sheltering when it comes to playing outside and being exposed to germs. As a result, many children have developed severe allergies from lack of exposure. It’s as if people’s utopian mindsets became nowhere near the reality of the scientific facts about what we need in order to be healthy humans. We need to be outside more and exposed to all sorts of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, and fresh air. The sheltering over children has really become quite ridiculous. Personally, I always wanted to teach my kids to be self-sufficient enough to be able to survive in the middle of the forest alone. If a nuclear holocaust happened, a lot of parents would be panicking over how independent their children really are. Obviously this is a dramatized scenario but my point is that we will not always be around for our children to fall back on. My daughter is a complete badass that cannot be messed with. She is strong minded and sometimes I am confronted with my own self when I come up against her. However, this makes me incredibly proud that she is her own person and I feel peace knowing that she values her independence. If we do choose to shelter our children, then they will fail to learn beneficial responsibility and independence. This can lead to drug addictions, excessive reliance on video games, and other things that zombie down their creativity and passion. When kids and young adults use these unhealthy outlets, deep down they are crying to be free. Why Family is Vital Of course, there is one exception when it comes to depending on one another. Children need to be able to count on their relationship with God, themselves, and their families. They should never think that they can count on anything outside of that. Church, government, and sometimes even spouses, are things we cannot always count on but we can seek support from. Family needs to be a significant part of the ethos of training and teaching independence. All the children in my life know that they can always come to me and I will always instill this support to them. Thinking Like a Leader The best business people are independent thinkers. If you cannot think on your own, you cannot be a leader and therefore will not be able to build a successful enterprise. Do not try to become an entrepreneur if you refuse to think independently because you will be incompatible with the environment and expectations. There is no successful businessperson that reached great heights from following. Even in corporations, titles such as “VP” do not appreciate independent thought like they imply. They require people to follow a specific ideology of what to do, putting them right into a box. One saying I enjoy using is: “Do you want to be a small fish in a big fish tank, or a big fish in a small pond?” On a broader scale, you can see tremendous negativity that comes when you limit a group of people’s freedom and independence. Eventually, communism can take root in such an environment. Communism is codependency in its purest form. In order for this system to survive, it has to eliminate free thinking and all independent thought. Think “beehive mentality” and you’ll get the picture. Why a Life Coach Cannot Make You Independent Like I mentioned above, independence cannot be taught because it’s more of a spiritual journey within someone. Many life coaches have canned techniques and plans and processes and programs to help people but being independent is something someone must choose to do for themselves. If you were raised sheltered and reliant on others then it will be more difficult to break free from that dependent thinking as an adult. If this struggle is severe, then I highly suggest speaking to a therapist. I also suggest reading for more understanding and knowledge. One book I really enjoyed is, “The Road Less Traveled”. This book is a timeless and wonderful piece that teaches a person about all of the things that are important for living a happy and healthy independent life. I can also help people become self-sufficient by becoming successful at things they love to do and making an income and supporting their lifestyle. Self-sufficiency is a critical ingredient and while it doesn’t teach independence, it helps you gain individuality and the tools to have an independent life.