Week 8: Overcoming Challenges

 I have always loved the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland titled "An High Priest of Good Things to Come".  When it was first given, my husband and I watched it with tears rolling down our cheeks.  He was going to school full time, working full time in a call center, I was seven months pregnant with our first baby, also working full time and going to school full time, and we were somewhere beyond the limits of "broke".  His words of encouragement meant so much to us, and the world didn't seem so bleak and scary when that talk finished.  

This talk still impacts me the same way today.  Its message can be applied to any situation that brings challenges of perseverance.  My sister is not a believer, but I have often wondered if I should send this talk or video to her when she faces challenges and finds it hard to go on.  I'll have to think some more on that.  

One other study topic that really resonated with me this week was the Naive Networking article by Acton.  I have read many etiquette books that mention this kind of thing, the person who walks up to a doctor at a party and starts asking about his knee pain, essentially wanting free medical advice, the social and business climber who don't consider the premium that is placed on the busy and successful person's time.  I found myself nodding along after every point in the article and yet, as I've been thinking about who to interview for my entrepreneur interview, I found myself thinking "I wonder if the Barefoot Genealogist would talk to me..."  The Barefoot Genealogist speaks at conventions with thousands of people in attendance, she runs her own genealogy business, works for Ancestry, and to be blunt, she's probably the brightest light in the sky right now in genealogy.  I would do nothing but waste this woman's time.  I know so little about the field, and have tons of reading, discovering, and learning to go before I would even have an intelligent question to ask.  Maybe I start a little dimmer.  Nobody wants to be obnoxious to the very people they are seeking help from.  I really appreciated this reminder.  I think the world needs more of this message.