Winner, winner, vintage dinner!
Above is a photo from 2018. The vendor mall I rent space from, Lula B's, in dallas won The Voice reader's choice award for best antique mall. The owner asked me to pose for the picture because this was accomplished through my initiative of strengthening the store's social media presence and also beefing up the selection (in my booth) appealing to the designer crowd that lead to increased traffic all with bigger budgets. It's what I do - I work. I work hard and my main thought is always "what can I do that will help everyone"? All the while I never thought of the focus being on me and I'm usually oblivious to my leadership because I'm too busy helping others achieve their potential.
I guess now that the the train is leaving the station - I'll go ahead and just talk about me this entire blog entry.
I've worked since I was 8 years old. I mowed the lawns in my neighborhood during the week after school and washed cars on the weekends. When I was 13 I worked for my family in the kitchen of the Camden location of the tiny restaurant chain, Tiger Harry's Diner. After my grandmother died in 1995 and I had just turned 16, I took a year off from my every night job and worked for a B&B and catering company I'd started with when I was 14. That gave me time to tear out all the carpet and restore and refinish the hardwood floors in the house my mother and I were living in as well as clear all the fence rows around the 8 acres of pasture land. After that was complete I started working at the oldest jewelry store west of the Mississippi, Stinson's Jewelers. I continued to work for the B&B, Stinson's, and then in the Dean's office at the school of business at my college as well as hosting social events for Sodexo-Marriott who managed the cafeteria. Two nights a week during college I did SI - Tuesdays was chemistry tutoring and Thursdays was a class teaching older adults the basics of Microsoft office. I'm going to stop there because I'm tired just thinking about how busy I was back then. Oh, wait...I'm still that busy today! *LOL*
Working for myself doing outside manual labor taught me how to manage my time in order to complete things done in the time frames I set. Working for my family taught me that I don't want to work with my family. The "crew" was a good crew but I was singled out and ridden harder that everyone else but it fucking taught me nobody cuts you any slack. It was the first time I'd ever worked in a a group setting. It was also my first time to experience how disappointed I could be in people that didn't give (or were expected to give) 100%. That trait has not escaped me even 30 years later. My job with the B&B/caterer was the biggest eye opener in my life. I worked for the first openly gay man I ever knew and he had a crew of guys that did everything from vacuuming to cooking to leaving the house in "dying order" when a party was over. When I have an hour and a bottle of scotch, I'll tell you more about the parties and the education I got in life from this place and the owner, Mr. Richard Milner. Stinson's was my dream job. Indoor and air conditioned. Surrounded by exquisite jewelry and the finest silver, crystal, and china you could ever imagine or see with your own two hands. I learned about "the finer things in life" as one of my co-workers, Sue Adams, would to say. I learned to be responsible, not be flippant, and to help/teach customers who came in. My entire adult life can be traced back to my years between 8 and 21. I have scars, both mentally and physically, from everything I went through and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.
I now work for myself. I bake desserts for restaurants and private clients. I resale devastatingly chic items for the home. I'm also an actor. I have no 9-5 job because I do not want ONE thing to disrupt my ability to commit 100% to this chosen profession and I take my work very seriously. I also take my studying very seriously. People who waste my time or who waste their own time put me in a position that I have to pray about.
I try hard to not compare others to my accomplishments but I do hold others to my values. In this difficult-to-get-ahead entertainment world I wonder how people can not realize that when they're not succeeding, it's because of their lack of effort and/or valuing the wrong things. I would see it in the audition room - I have always seen it on social media. I now see it in the class I take every week that has since the beginning (last year) been a tender place in my heart because I value the knowledge and opportunity it provides.
One thing that comes with age is the realization that you can't change people - but I think they can still be helped.
This entry is a little different. I'm asking for help and guidance. How can I help people that don't know or acknowledge that they need it? I'm so fucking excited to be a part of this 2 year experience and I want everyone to share that excitement and dedication. Is it wrong to want everyone to succeed at a higher level or am I being a brat because I feel some are not as advanced as I, and others, are in the group? I'm caught in that "in between" of wanting to help others and wanting to shake them like a rag doll.
