Encouragement - Deb Sofield

Don’t Give Up…Unless You Should

Don’t Give Up…Unless You Should – probably not the headline you were seeking. If you’re like me, you’ve often heard the phrase our parents repeated: “never, never, never, give up,” Quoting the great Winston Churchill. Well, although that sounds nice and good, the reality is sometimes you need to give up and find something else, do something else, or be something else, especially when the direction you’re going in is going nowhere. The damage you are causing will last a lifetime if you don’t stop. So, not to be disrespectful to my elders, let me rephrase that quote to say,

The Emotion of Greed

Greed This is the last part in my series on Emotions That Are Causing You Great Harm, and I am going to finish with one emotion that is as dangerous as the one I started with. If you remember, the first one was anger, because it is a cancer on your soul and does great damage to others. So, I want to talk about one more emotion that can wreck your life: greed. And that’s my theme for today. Let me do a quick rundown on the emotions I’ve spoken about in this series. I began the series with anger,

Start Wading

Stop Waiting and Start Wading When I was a child, there was nothing I liked more than to wade into the cold creek and look for crawdads, frogs, and other creek life. Then we started taking our summer vacation to the Isle of Palms on the coast of South Carolina, and my creek became an ocean. Back then, the island was row upon row of summer beach homes (not the spectacular ones you see nowadays). Our beach bungalow was easily recognizable, as we were very close to the famous island house called Tickled Pink, and yes, it was a bright,

I Don’t Know a Single Successful Person

I don’t know a single successful person who leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. I freely admit that I am probably in the 2% of people who love to go grocery shopping. I always have a list, but I also like to wander the aisles to see what else is new in the market. It’s not that I have to buy anything; I’m just fascinated by packaging, current must-have mineral waters, acai berry teas, and live lobsters in the tank with the little rubber bands on their finger-crushing claws. I tend to shop everywhere because

Don’t Hold on to Grudges

Don’t hold on to grudges; it only hurts you have been thinking about a few clients I work with and have come to realize that there is one thing that seems to hold many of them back from becoming amazing rock-star speakers. That one thing is an old hurt from someone in their past who is now irrelevant and who told them they were awful speakers and to keep quiet. Now, I don’t know what the teacher or another adult said, but to a young person, what they heard was, “Don’t open your mouth again.” And here we are years

The Past is a Place of Reference

The Past is a Place of Reference, Not a Place of Residence I had a client tell me about a family situation that happened while she was in high school: due to unforeseen circumstances and the economy, her family had to file for bankruptcy, and in the blink of an eye, their lives changed. Although that would be traumatic for any young person, this young lady’s parents held the family together, vowing to rebuild and continuing to provide for their kids to the best of their ability. Instead of allowing that experience to define this amazing young woman’s future, she

Encouragement For Your Life