While this message is a tribute to all fathers, I would especially like to recognize my husband, Jahid A. Wilson, Sr.

I do not have a relationship with my own father because he chose to deny me from birth. I grew up without any firsthand knowledge of what it meant to have a father’s unconditional love.

It wasn’t until the birth of my own children that I was able to witness and truly understand what a father’s love is through my husband.

Parenting is probably the hardest yet most rewarding job that can be given to a human being. It is filled with sacrifice, humor, regret, pride, humility and far too many other emotions to list. Yet despite the many ups and sometimes downs of parenting, I have witnessed my husband time and time again rise to the occasion to do what is necessary to be the best father possible.

My husband is genuinely committed to bringing out the very best in our children and he is willing to do what is necessary to ensure that their best interests are always met.

I am grateful and thankful to my husband for being the father that he is to my babies, and for giving me the experience of finally knowing what a father’s love truly means.

To my husband and all of the other amazing fathers out there who are active and present loving forces in their children’s lives, this is for you:

Happy Father’s Day!

In Celebration,
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We’ve all heard it before. Whether it be reaching a sales goal, scrambling to answer all the questions on a quiz before the time runs out or trying to reach the maximum number of reps in weight training – the quality of what you’re doing is more important than the numbers. I just learned a valuable lesson that proves to be true even on Facebook.

Recently I’ve been actively reaching out to others who appear to have common interests and inviting them to be Facebook friends. Now, we’ve all seen people with swelling FB friend numbers, so many in fact that they have to stop accepting friends and create a fan page.

Well, I have a goal of reaching out to about 20-30 people per day in an effort to grow my network – nothing unusual there. Two days ago I made a connection with a woman that started off like all the others. She accepted my request so I replied by thanking her, telling her I’d met some great folks on FB and asked what she does.

She responded back and said she’s a real estate broker but that she’s on hiatus after an intrastate relocation over the winter months. In response, I asked her what is she doing during her hiatus. That’s where it all went south.

An innocent question I thought, curious if she perhaps is taking advantage of this time to pursue a hobby or life long dream, was interpreted as me prying into her personal affairs. She replied with…

“That’s kool but now I think you’re trying to dip into a grown woman’s personal business? What I do with my time while I’m on my hiatus, is my business don’t you think?” I apologized and told her no foul play was intended, just making conversation and curious if she was using her time to pursue other interests.

She replied back by saying “Gotcha. But I had answered previously already. I’m a real estate broker, currently taking a hiatus to ‘settle my home from my very arduous relocation over the winter months’” I then simply replied back and said “I hope this time is proving to be fruitful and beneficial for you.” She replied back yesterday morning with…

“I cannot see why it would not be- I aspire to be able to walk freely about my home and enjoy the summer as much as I can as would anybody else vs. living out of boxes and seeing my things misplace. Just a bit common sense that it would be, don’t you think?”

I removed her as a FB friend.

I don’t have time in my life for negative people. I am in a place where I am surrounding myself with positive people and experiences. I am bringing abundance and prosperity into my life. My actions and interactions not only affect me but my family. I cannot allow anyone and their negativity, whether they realize they are negative or not, to stand in the way of the abundant good that is my birthright.

So yes, while having a large network of friends on FB and other social media platforms increases your sphere of influence, I am more concerned with the quality of folks I let into my circle. I’d rather have 10 positive people with joy in their hearts as my friend, vs. 1,000 negative, bitter, jealous and angry people who don’t know how to love themselves or anyone else.

There is no need to remain in association with negative people. It doesn’t matter if they are on FB, at your job or live next door. You are in control! Decide what kind of people you want to surround yourself with and seek out those types of people. The more positive people you are around, the more positive people you will attract. You will radiate such an air of confidence and joy that you will not be able to help but to attract the right kind of people to you.

Now of course, in knowing that, I’ve had to ask myself how on earth I attracted her into my life because I am a kind and positive person. Well, the simple answer is that she was placed in my life to teach me a lesson…the very lesson I am passing on to you.

But what I think is the more complex answer is that perhaps this woman needs to be blessed. She may be gong through a difficult time in her life. She may suffer from insecurities and low self-esteem. She may be unhappy and the only way she knows how to feel good about herself is to attempt to make others feel small. I don’t know what her situation is to be honest, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there is something deeper going on with this woman that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

My communication with her from start to finish remained friendly and positive, yet she felt the need to attack and try to belittle me. There’s a deeper reason for that, and whatever it is has been brewing long before I sent her a friend request.

Of course initially my conscious mind responded immediately with the thought “This #itch is crazy.” But once I got still for a minute and allowed my spiritual mind to come into play, those less than loving thoughts in my conscious mind fell away and I saw a woman in need, a woman who may be looking for love and joy in all the wrong places. So I did the only thing that I have the power to do to help her, I prayed for her. The rest is between her and the Creator.

So while expanding my network to be able to connect with and help as many people as I can who want and need my help is my goal, having a large network for the sake of numbers is not. I realize that everyone I connect with may not materialize into a lifelong friend, but if  I only ever max out at 500 friends and I am able to help those 500 even in some small way, the value in that alone is worth far more than a fan page with 10,000 people who for whatever reason I am not able to help.

I will take quality over quantity any day. Lesson learned.

In Celebration,

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