Success is fleeting,... unless.....

This past weekend, I had the honor of attending the LDS Storymakers Writing Conference. It was a wonderful experience being surrounded by so many talented people who made me realize the importance of working hard and never being complacent.

There are a few times in life when I amaze myself. Today is one of those days.

Not because I am so wonderful and creative, but because I simply have the most incredible dumb luck at times! Once again I digress as I get off on one of my ADD tangents. I’ll begin at the beginning….

After getting home and mulling over all that I learned and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the gratitude of being able to help, meet and learn from so many wonderful people, I finally remembered that I needed to do my blog posting .Since I had arranged the tour over a month ago, there was no way that I could have foreshadowed my thoughts and feeling on this particular day. I looked at today’s Life Saver and smiled. It read;

“Unless you’re the lead dog, the view is always the same.”



Publishing is an interesting business. As authors we are always trying to step up one more rung on the ladder. If you are unpublished, you want to get a contract. If you are published, you want an agent, a bigger contract and a national audience. If you have a national audience and an agent, you want to be on the best seller lists. And once, you’re there, you want to stay there and do it better and better and better…..

I’ve been lucky and had an amazing amount of success – success that others merely dream of. I’ve hit the national market, done TV, radio and hit the charts high on Amazon. I’ve seen my name in print in prestigious publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Financial Content and big papers across the nation. I’ve seen my name go as far as England, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. But I look at J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyers and Richard Paul Evans and even some of my closer acquaintances like James Dashner, Josi Kilpack and Janette Rallison and think, “Man, I have a LONG way to go!” I watch other closer friends like Candace Salima, Annette Lyon, Michele Bell and Tristi Pinkston who have more knowledge in their little pinkies than I have in my entire noggin and think, "There is no way I can ever catch up!"

Discouragement sets in and before I know it, success is out the window and I’m a failure. Thankfully, God knows me well and slaps me up the side of the head every once in a while and places opportunities in front of me that get me outside of myself and focused on others in a positive way. It’s when I have the ability to serve and follow in the footsteps of the only lead dog who matters – the Savior.

And when I do that, the level of success suddenly does not matter but the route in which we get there – flowing in His footsteps following His lead – does.

I came out of Storymakers so incredibly grateful that I have been placed in positions where I could help fulfill the dreams of others, learn from others, teach others and spur the hope of others. But mainly, I am grateful for the opportunity to be used as an instrument in His hands for blessing the lives of others.

It’s true; success is fleeting -- unless you look at it as an eternal proposition. And if you do, not only your success, but that of others, becomes an eternal gift that is satisfying where ever you may be on the success spectrum.

The grass is always greener when they use sewage

Last summer, there was an article in the Deseret News titled 'Utah using technology, law to save water', and I have to admit, I chuckled....a lot!

The article referenced several 'government authorities' denoting concern for the fact that we need to reserve our precious stores before they dry up and yet, some of the biggest waste I see is at parks, facilities and buildings that are run by,…. you guessed it, our concerned government.

I will give them this, they are right. We’ve had many years of drought and despite the bounty of moisture this last little bit, our water index is still not way off the charts. And why? Because Utah is a desert.

People want to live in Utah pretending that it is a veritable oasis of endless lush lakes, reservoirs, streams, ponds and mountain brooks. If this were true, we would actually be in a place called Minnesota, land of ten thousand lakes or on a freeway in Seattle after a rainstorm during monsoon season.

Even though this spring (what spring???) has left us guessing as to what it would’ve been like a few weeks before Noah could’ve sailed off into a snowstorm, it’s not yet enough for the mandatory one year supply we all strive for and we are technically still living in a desert which is NOT in Seattle or Minnesota.

So that gets me to thinking, when I go by an apartment villa that is bigger than the Wasatch mountains themselves and see that the sprinklers are on in a rain storm next to the sign that says Low Utilities, Great Rates, Come on In, I am going to wonder where they got their magic wand. I'm even going to ask to borrow it so I too don't have to pay taxes to the water deity and can hopefully keep my sprinkler, shower and toilet flush bill at its lowest possible rate. That would certainly make my budgetary numbers a heck of a lot more appealing!

It also means that when I see the broken sprinkler at the city's water improvement district shooting 30 feet into the air at a rate of 13,000 gallons per second, I am going to assume that they are watering with sewage or that they subscribe to the same rule my mother taught me to live by; DO as I SAY and NOT as I DO.

Either way, sewage or archaic rules, it kinda stinks if you ask me. Now that I mention stink, that reminds me of today’s “Life Saver” which is what my dad used to tell me whenever I got bit by the green envy bug;

“If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, then it must be all the ‘fertilizer’ they are using. Because in my humble opinion, it certainly couldn’t be the water….”

Remembering that love is what is most important....

Admittedly, this is a hard week for me.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some rather bright spots and I try to keep perspective on life and all that jazz but there are a few times when life kinda kicks you unexpectedly and this happens to be one of those weeks.

So when I looked at my blog schedule to see what Life Saver I got to write about today, I had to smile amid tears. It read:


“He who dies with the most toys is still nonetheless dead.”


Either this is the definition of irony or it’s one of those moments when God is trying desperately to give me comfort by reminding me of what is truly important. Let me start at the beginning……

One year ago today, I spent the last moments I could in my mom’s hospital room. It was one of the last days she was coherent and she was afraid to die. Not because she was unprepared, but because she didn’t want o leave us – especially my youngest brother who was serving a mission in Mexico – as motherless waifs. Dad had passed away nearly four years before and she, even though we were grown (if you can call six kids between the ages of 20-40 grown), didn’t want to leave her family behind without a parent.

“Stacy,” she said, “Do you think I’m going to die?”
“I don’t know, Mom. We’re going to fight this till the very end. And I don’t know if we’ll win or if the cancer will but I do know this, if taking you from us is the Lord’s plan, then we will be here with you holding you as you are ushered from this world into dad’s waiting arms.”
“Just promise me, that you will take care of our family. Promise me that Taylor will always know that he has a mother who loves him..”

That was when I knew she wouldn’t make it – she was passing the torch.

One year later, as I prepare for my brother to come home (his official release date is June 29), I cannot help but remember the promises I made to her. And I have cried bitterly at an economy that hasn’t allowed me to put into play all the dreams I had for his homecoming. I have ached as I realized that he won’t come home to a parent or his house or even his ward on a permanent basis.

I somehow wanted to make up for all of this and give him something similar by giving him the house she would’ve or the car, take him on trips and help him refocus. I had in mind grand Christmas presents and anything his heart desired to take away the pain of losing his mother.

But I can’t do any of this and feel as if I failed miserably in keeping up my end of the bargain because in today’s world, I am just lucky enough to keep a roof over all of their heads. As much as I want to, I can’t lavish everything on him because I still have four others at home to provide for too.

But I can give him love and support and let him know everyday that he has a mother who loves him. She may be in heaven but her arms will always be wrapped around him – and so will mine.

So I think that today’s Life Saver was meant for me and I pray that I can take it to heart and remember that it’s not the material things that are important but the gifts of the heart and the memories we make that mean the most.