Four things to avoid on the way to success

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  Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome Cameron Mills opened the door; the long-awaited delivery truck presented him with the box that contained the representation of success, the symbol of having reached the top. The ring inside the box proved his champion status as a member of the basketball team that won the National Championship for the Kentucky Wild Cats.

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What was I thinking???!!!

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  Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome In my career as a writer and speaker, there have been way too many “What was I thinking!” moments Through the years, I’ve written about the pitfalls of looking into the past. I have realized the drawbacks of dwelling on yesterday’s mistakes, or last year’s failures.

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Empowerment to persevere.

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  Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome During one of the first writer’s conferences I attended a decade or so ago, I met another writer. She was in the bathroom blowing her nose and sniffling. We chatted a bit and she related her devastation about the comments that had been scribbled throughout her manuscript.

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Three steps to overcome rejection

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Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome A friend I knew from high school came to visit recently. As we sipped tea, we laughed about our days as teens. But then she got a bit serious and said, “You know, when you broke up with my brother, he was devastated.” Guilt came over me. I remembered the details of dating him. And for reasons only a 16-year-old immature girl knows, I ended the relationship in an insensitive and abrupt way.

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From Best-Seller to Best Servant

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Janet Perez Eckles, Igniting Your Passion to Overcome When I began this writing and speaking journey, my goals were lofty and my ambition, passionate. I could taste the success as thousands of readers would devour my insights. I fell for the lie that says you have to do extraordinary things to be a true servant. And I believed that nothing less than selling tons of books or speaking to thousands would please God. But rather than me focused so much on speaking, God’s wisdom speaks to me now. And recently, He did that very thing. My friend and I were…

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Am I doing enough? Four ways to please God.

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How can I write and speak to reach enough people in order to please God? That question played a nagging tune in the background at odd times—while preparing a keynote message, writing the next chapter in a book, posting  inspirational messages on Facebook, or hosting a radio show. With permission: wikimedia.org The answer came one sunny day. The Orlando afternoon was hot, and the parking lot even hotter.

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Filled with Fear or Firm in Faith?

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Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise. In the midst of writing and heading to speaking engagements, God whispers a call to a different task. Mine was a mission trip to Bolivia and Peru. A special visit in many ways for me as Bolivia happens to be my birthplace. The weather was beautiful. A shower of blessing upon blessing poured upon me. And the folks whom I ministered to shined joy into my days. But in the middle of doing good work, a bad glitch appeared.

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Getting rid of stress

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Who loves classical music these days? My six-year-old granddaughter does. And Mozart is one of her favorite composers. She plays his music over and over again. The other day, she pulled my hand. “I love it. C’mon, Nana, let’s dance.” Dance? It’s not salsa, I thought. I smiled and shuffled a bit, trying to follow the beat and move with grace. But not my little princess. She twirled, jumped, wiggled, stomped one foot, then the other, and moved from here to there. Then when it was over, she was out of breath but said, “Let’s do it again.”

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How to craft happy endings

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Have you ever worked on a piece so much that you practically memorized it? That was me when, for the umpteenth time, I rewrote the first chapter of the novel I had completed. The story, engaging and the characters, sassy and insightful. The end product was, well, in my opinion, pretty wonderful. Then it happened. I got it back from the editor. I swallowed hard and my shoulders drooped with disbelief. The whole thing was riddled with corrections, questions, and endless suggestions for improvements. I cringed, but accepting the changes was imperative because the editor had in mind a great…

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