As I write this post, an AdvoCare distributor drives a dark and lonely road in Mississippi. Jill Acosta has been a Legacy Team member for 10 or more years now. She’s spent the last two days in an intense training that should have wrapped up by 3 PM when she expected to head for the Cash In Weekend in Monroe. Getting out 3 hours late, she’s tempted to cancel the trip, but instead of giving in to despair, she packs her car and pulls out at 8 PM. She’ll drive 2 ½ hours into the night, get a hotel, sleep 5-6 hours and get up early to finish the 5 hour drive and make the training. Why? Doesn’t this seem to you just a little unreasonable? What makes this meeting so vital and important for her? Why can she not simply make the next meeting?
As she heads out of town, she has me on the phone, describing her frustration. I know the event can be a game changer for her, but I also know she’s tired, sensing a migraine coming on. I know there are risks. I would completely understand if she decided not to go. I even suggest it. She says to me “I’ve got to go ” as her voice cracks and trails off. I know she feels what we all feel when our dreams are unfulfilled and when life doesn’t seem headed in the right direction. Jill begin to dream this dream years ago. She built a business, but because of circumstances mostly out of her control, the dream faded to the background. Though she never gave up on it, it was hidden deep in her heart. Today, the dream is coming to life. It burns in her heart as she drives to a place where she knows she’ll get the answer to “what if?” I’m so very proud of her and of others like her who despite the obstacles and circumstances that beat against them would not be kept from the answers they so desperately seek.
For this meeting to even take place, it took the preparation and planning of other AdvoCare distributors. This meeting was the brain child of Tonja & Bengie Parr. The Parrs along with their Georgia Leadership literally put Georgia on the map years ago and still set the pace for their state today. They have worked tirelessly for months and managed every single detail to bring a meeting that would have the potential to change the trajectory of people’s lives. In the course of all this planning and preparation Tonja has cried out to me about the pressure that opposes her. That part of the world that hopes she doesn’t succeed. Anytime you’re helping others, having success, there will be those that oppose us and some of those are people we love. It’s all just a part of life. It’s about developing your character and making you more than you ever imagined you could be. This transformation has and is happening in the lives of Tonja and Bengie, in part because they have been willing to pay the price and pour themselves into others. I am so immensly proud of them. Have you ever noticed that often the “good stuff” in life comes with a certain amount of pain attached to it? Why would Tonja and Bengie go to so much effort? Why would they create so much extra work and put so much pressure on themselves when their lives are so busy with life and family? I know the late nights, the exhaustion, physically and mentally that you experience when you put together this type of event. Why would they do it?
I know why they do it. I know their hearts. It’s for the same reason Todd Cash left his family for two days to fly out to Georgia to train people many of whom he doesn’t even know. Their hearts are burdened. A deep and even painful understanding that unless someone deliver’s the message lives may not be
changed. A sober, understanding that they have a responsibility and a calling to help people become more. These “champions” as Charlie used to say, look into the eyes of the hurting and the discouraged knowing full well that they have some of life’s answers and they must be shared. They invest themselves in others, a band of difference makers. The AdvoCare opportunity is alive and well today, because of these and other unsung AdvoCare heros.
As I conclude this post, I’m calling out to Tonja to get a report on the meeting. Her excitement outshines her exhaustion as she reports standing room only and more importantly that lives were changed tonight in Monroe, Georgia!
When you face challenges and obstacles, you have to learn how to either overcome them or adapt to them. Wisdom guides you to the best choice. To adapt is not to surrender but to become unstoppable. It is the difference between being a boulder or a river. Many of us see virtue as being immovable. Yet in times of crisis, it is our willingness to be adaptable that distinguishes us. Conviction is a popular excuse for rigidity, but faith should actually make us more pliable, not less.
You either adapt when you face circumstances you cannot control, or you allow them to become the boundaries of your life. They will establish the parameters of your freedom, define your limits, and diminish your dreams – and that is where you stop.” Wide Awake Erwin Raphael McManus
