A CAREER IS LAUNCHED!

Back in 2005, my daughter invited her friend, Justin, to join her at youth group.  Surprisingly, he looked her square in the face and said, “How do you even know He’s real?” She had no idea how to respond to that question, and to be honest, neither did I. It haunted me. That is the universal question isn’t it?  How do we know Christ is real? To many people, Jesus is just a legend, a wise and kind man, a prophet. I wondered, what would convince people like Justin that following Jesus is worth a try? I embarked on a journey to prove that Christ is real. In a moment […]

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WACKY WORDS OF THE DAY RECAP – Week of January 13

It is week 2 of my WACKY WORD OF THE DAY blogs. Remember, use the word in a sentence and post it here, on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and I’ll add your name to the monthly drawing to win one of my books! Enter as many times as you want. Without further ado, here are last week’s words: January 14 ORTHOGONAL (adjective) = at right angles January 15 CRESTOMATHY – (noun) – a volume of selected passages or stories of an author, anthology January 16 FLAGITIOUS (adjective) = extremely wicked or criminal, or guilty of scandalous vices January 17 THEWLESS (adjective) = cowardly, timid, or lacking energy In love and […]

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A Big Piece of Humble Pie

  If an author’s publisher has a little marketing budget (rare these days) he or she may get booked on some TV and radio broadcasts to gain publicity and move some books. The publicist (Nashville Publicity) for my first two books did a phenomenal job and I was on all kinds of fun shows.   Several years ago I made  a quick trip to Indiana for an appearance on the Harvest Show. These little jaunts can be grueling. You spend days preparing and traveling for an interview that only lasts about 10 minutes, but it’s all part of the game. Hopefully the time spent away from family and work pays off in […]

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THE WONDERS OF WATER

  I sold yellow pages advertising for twelve years, eleven of those years as an outside sales consultant dealing with major accounts. While it was a great way to make a living, it was definitely NOT glamorous. Most of my clients weren’t in luxurious offices with mahogany furniture; they were plumbers, remodelers, and roofers working out of a van. As long as I live, I’ll never forget meeting with a mechanic at his auto repair shop in a suburb of St. Paul. I pulled up to the dilapidated shop in my yuppie sedan and clicked up to the front door wearing three-inch heals and a designer suit. I swallowed hard when I […]

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MY LIFE AS A WRITER

Many of you are aware that I am a writer, but you have no idea what kind of work I do. Well, it is time to remedy that. Writing is not a hobby for me, it is my profession. After spending more than twenty years in corporate sales and marketing, I made a huge career U-turn and wrote a book. It was an insane idea; I had never had a word published. In fact, If you would have told me back in 2005 that I would be wearing pajama pants to work instead of suits and pantyhose, I would have recommended a good therapist. Yet here I am interviewing the […]

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WACKY WORDS OF THE DAY RECAP – Week of January 6

If you are a friend or fan of mine on a social networking site, you already know about my WACKY WORD OF THE DAY posts. In a tongue-in-cheek attempt to improve our vocabularies, I post a fun word every day (well, I do miss a few) along with its definition and pronunciation if it’s a toughie. If you don’t get a chance to see them on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin during the week, you can check out the recaps here each Saturday. Now, this is more than just a fun linguistic exercise; you can actually win something! Every time you leave a comment using the word in a sentence (either […]

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A Slippery Slope

Last night I enjoyed an abbreviated game of Bunco with a group of friends. Unfortunately the aura of an impending migraine came on and I had to pop an Imitrex and leave early. I felt pretty sorry for myself; I had been looking forward to getting together with the ladies for a long time. It was a dismal night of freezing drizzle in rural Minnesota. As I headed out to my car, head pounding and stomach lurching, I steadied myself against the vehicles lining the driveway to prevent myself from taking a flop on the ice. The drive home wasn’t too precarious until I reached our township where the roads are poorly […]

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Getting to Know Me

Every marketing guru on the planet (including me) recommends authors develop active blogs with killer content to expand their audiences and push book sales.  Since the dawn of the Internet, the quandary has always been deciding what to write about. For those of us with multiple projects in the pipeline, choosing a topic is definitely easier said than done. I have scores of magazine articles in circulation on topics ranging from faith and family to business, health and women’s issues. My specialty has always been celebrity profiles. I have eight books on the market, do a fair amount of speaking, and have decades of business of experience. Clearly, I wouldn’t have time […]

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To Everything There is a Season

“Every blade in the field – Every leaf in the forest – lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.“ ~ Henry David Thoreau Autumn is my favorite season. The cool, crisp air of September is a welcome respite from the sweltering dog days of summer. The woods surrounding our lakeside home pop in stunning crimson, gold, and bronze and I stand in awe of God’s masterpiece. How did He conceive something so majestic? He must have been very cheerful that day. This is a photo of my favorite tree on our property. Although we live amid a canopy of magnificent sugar maples, it’s […]

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The Wonder of God’s Creation

In 2005, I wrote and released two books in my “How Do You Know He’s Real” series. They both feature incredible testimonies by celebrities from the worlds of sports and entertainment. Of course, personal experience is the best way to recognize God’s hand, but we also see His divinity in nature. For a moment, picture yourself walking in a forest of pine trees in the north woods. Do you see the cardinals and the blue jays, the eagles and the hawks? Do you see the little chipmunks, rabbits, and squirrels scampering around on the ground? How about the majestic blue sky filled with billowy clouds and rays of sunshine. Then […]

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