Monthly Archives: January 2020

Prepare for Victory

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Prepare for victory if you’re ready to stop caring so much about what others think about you. Prepare for victory if you’re ready for a healthy dose of self-honesty. After all, these two are linked to the one thing that you want most but are starting to think you’ll never grasp and keep.

What’s that one thing? Freedom.

If you’re like many people, you want the freedom to do what you want when you want and not just on weekends. And you want that thing to bring increasing empowerment, peace and joy to you. For me, that’s writing intense novels, the types of books that leave readers thinking, sometimes rattled and definitely, entertained, and dare I say — changed.

Runner opening arms to prepare for victory
Victory Race – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Darren Wilkinson

Prepare for victory with clarity

However, saying what you want to become victorious at and achieving that goal don’t always link up right away. Sometimes, you gotta fight for what you want.

Which brings up the first step in victory preparation.

To prepare for victory, get clear about what you want. Once you get clear about what you want, you can write the goal down in one to two short sentences. You can stand in front of a mirror and, in less than 15 seconds, tell yourself exactly what you want.

Forbes shares that knowing what you want may be linked to happiness. Forget trying to talk yourself out of what you know you really want. For now, just get clear about what that experience is.

The next step in preparing for victory might scare you, especially if you grew up in a traditional home. And here it is. Be willing to fail. Be willing to fail often. If I told you how many times I’ve tried a book marketing strategy that fell flat, you might think that I’m nuts to still be writing novels.

Victory steps

The ups and downs, failures and successes are not all fun. It doesn’t always feel good. And you’ll certainly need to keep working to keep your confidence and enthusiasm up. But it’s worth it.

Other actions that can help you to prepare for victory are:

  • Use a new scale – Stop giving more weight to what others think or say than to what you think. The old scale that I was using while I wrote my first novel, Portia, almost stopped me from publishing the book that went on to become a classic.
  • Identify blocks – There’s a verse of scripture (Mark 11:23) that says it’s possible for you to move a mountain if you speak that the mountain move (gotta know what you really want to pull this off). You also have to believe that the experience will happen for you. But you need to identify the blocks (mountains) to know what to address. Journal writing, meditating, freestyle writing and jotting down dreams are ways to identify blocks. Another way is to pay attention to times when you feel uncomfortable for seemingly no reason (e.g., someone compliments you in a crowd, you’re given a gift).
  • Ask for what you want – Give up magical thinking. Victory may not fall in your lap just because you want it. Eventually, you may need to ask someone to help you.
  • Become your number one fan – Lack of self-love shows up in so many ways. Times when I struggled with lack of self-love, I felt uncomfortable around nearly everyone. Not loving yourself can create a viscous cycle of projection. So, love yourself. Genuinely love yourself no matter what. It’s a lesson that I share through the character Raymond in Love Pour Over Me.

Paths to victory

Paths to victory vary. But you can shorten the time that it takes to experience victory, by incorporating the following steps into your life.

  • Make room for victory by being open to change – You could do this in small ways like wearing a different pair of shoes (if you generally wear the same pair of shoes), wearing a new hairstyle, driving a different way home, speaking to a stranger in a safe environment and talking with others to avoid becoming self-absorbed.
  • Keep good company – Surround yourself with people who love you, people who are pursuing their own victories. Free yourself of people who belittle, mistreat or abuse you.
  • Celebrate each forward step – It may take months or years to get the victory that you want. Enjoy the journey and celebrate in healthy ways.
  • See things differently – Start seeing yourself achieving what you want. Start seeing yourself enjoying experiences that you want. After all, when it comes to people enjoying a love-filled, joyous life — why not you?

Prepare for victory and you could avoid nesting these top regrets or unwanted motivations once you reach the end of your physical journey. You could feel more love, peace, joy and centeredness even as you move through a chaotic world.

And that is my hope for you. After all, your joy and peace help to light the way. But first you need to prepare yourself for victory. You most certainly can do it. The victory that you’re preparing for and truly want is going to come from right inside of you. Are you ready to go get it?

Great Journalists Help Shape the World

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Great journalists help shape the world by digging so deep into real life events, some which world leaders, local politicians and business moguls, prefer kept hidden, that they gain real keys. Some unethical and illegal operators will stop at nothing to protect their image, the very idol that journalists expose. It is most unfortunate that, in 2019 alone, as many as 25 news writers gave their lives in pursuit of truth.

W. E. B. DuBois professional portrait of great journalists
Wikimedia Commons – W.E.B. DuBois (Library of Congress)

Committee to Project Journalists (https://cpj.org/), Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/) The Center for Investigative Reporting (https://revealnews.org/ ) and Reporters Without Borders (https://rsf.org/en) are among the organizations that work to protect journalists. Their work is necessary. If investigative journalists are silenced, so too could be the truth. It’s why we need more of these effective fact finders.

There would be no Watergate without great investigative journalism. We might not learn about corruption at the local government level. Stories like the Flint, Michigan water crisis and the North Dakota pipeline protests wouldn’t get the widespread attention that they receive were it not for the work of great, probing journalists.

Probing great journalists surface issues before they develop into bigger social storms

During the Civil Rights Movement, it was the investigative writing, the radio shows and probing television journalists that pushed deeply troubling events into the public eye. It was those printed, heard and watched stories that helped to change the conscience of the nation.

During my early years, I was impacted by the works of great journalists like Gwen Ifil, Walter Cronkite, Xernona Clayton-Brady , Ed Bradley and Ebony magazine’s Lerone Bennett, Jr. On Sunday evenings, my family watched 60 Minutes religiously. Ed Bradley covered a story and interviewed influential guests as if the only thing that mattered to him was the truth.

And how I admired Mr. Lerone Bennett, Jr. and the amazing, moving stories that he told about the African American community. He had a rare way of digging into a story and uncovering hidden gems.

Other great journalists who I recall and appreciate are Edward Morrow, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Ross, Michelle Norris, Helen Thomas, Dan Rather and Bernard Shaw. There is also Max Robinson, Maureen Dowd, Diane Sawyer and, of course, the great, W. E. B. DuBois.

Imagine if stories they broke were never shared. How much would we not know?

Springboard off good journalism training

As aforementioned, we need more of these courageous, curious event explorers. We need more truth seekers, truth sharers. If you are thinking about pursuing a career as a freelance writer or journalists, I commend you. I encourage you to be committed to the craft.

Research colleges and universities. Consider college journalism programs that have robust internships, externships and that have established journalists as guest speakers. Be prepared to do the hard work during and after school. You could become one of the greats. You could help to change the world.

I wonder if it’s the knowledge that the work they do can change the world, enlighten and help to awaken, that fuels journalists. The risks are too high for the chance to experience an adrenaline rush to be enough to keep someone on the journalism path. And there are certainly easier, safer, ways to travel. Regardless of motive, I deeply appreciate great journalists’ work.

Motivation Traps – Dream Chasers Be Careful

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Dream chasers are believers. They are steadfast in their hope that they will attain their deepest desires and reach their most sought-after goals. At the worst, they doubt that they will ever do what they keep striving to complete. Is this you? Does this sound like you? Are you a dream chaser?

Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Benh LIEU SONG

Dream chasers turn away from facts

Do you run away from facts when weeks, months, maybe years have passed, and you still haven’t met one significant goal? And these are goals that you set for yourself. I’m not talking about goals your parents, friends or older siblings set for you, whether they pushed you toward those plans directly or indirectly.

Examples of facts include bathroom scale readings, health screening results, book sales, time spent with friends, depth of family relationships, athletic performance, late bills and money debt. So, let’s say that you want to lose 20 pounds within three months.

If you’re a dream chaser, you might get a fitness watch, track your daily steps and trade soda in for water. That’s the good part. On the flip side, you might start munching on potato chips, eating more bread and snacking on pizza on weekends.

It’s time to face facts dream chasers

Result is that, despite how many times you tell yourself and others that “you’re trying to lose weight”, you either go back and forth between losing and gaining weight or you don’t ever lose even five pounds. If you’re a dream chaser, the fact that you haven’t lost five pounds in 10 years might not be enough to stop you from swearing that you’re really serious about losing weight.

This is called self-deception. Hope to move beyond just being among the dream chasers? Pay attention to the facts. Track your progress. Create a spreadsheet and list specific actions that you take to reach your goals. Each month, list the results that your actions produced.

Open yourself to changing your actions as needed. Big businesses do this. It helps to determine which businesses survive and thrive and which businesses fold. It might sound hard; but facing facts could save you years of striving and exerting energy that will never get you what you want. Ever.

Are you another Raymond Clarke?

This is a critical point where you may have a lot in common with a guy named Raymond Clarke. Raymond spent the majority of his childhood trying to fit in. For Raymond, it started at home with his alcoholic father.

No longer able to stomach anymore of his father’s disapproval, Raymond started telling himself that his father wasn’t really angry. He did this despite the fact that his father treated him with an unrelenting meanness.

There are downsides if you lie to yourself

That’s when Raymond learned to lie to himself.

What happened to cause you to think that self-deception or chasing dreams (and never catching them) was the answer? How did you come to perceive lying to yourself as a better alternative than facts?

If you’re willing, consider examining this habit. The last thing you want is to spend decades chasing dreams that will never come true. You also don’t want dream chasing to consume so much of your attention and energy that you miss awesome opportunities, none of which is related to your dreams.

Please don’t let this happen to you.

If you’re ready to get familiar with Raymond’s story, grab a copy of Love Pour Over Me. Look for similarities in your life and Raymond’s story. Be open to making changes. Give yourself a chance to live your best life starting right now.