Tonya Showalter- LaLonde

Find what you love doing and what you are naturally good at, and do that, no matter what the pay is. Number one, you're going to be better at it and will be able to advance your career more than you ever thought you would be able to. Number two, you'll love doing it every day. And number three, you'll be in your purpose, how you were designed. Because if you do something that makes you a lot of money but your heart is not in it, you will be miserable in time. Money only takes you so far. Money is not the end-all be-all. It is a tool, and you part with money. Money is an energy, and the energy comes to you if you are in alignment with what God designed you to do. So that would be the biggest advice: find what you're good at, what you're naturally inclined to do, how you're cut, and find a job and career path where you can do that, provide that service, do that thing. And if you're ambitious, do it on your own. If you're not ambitious, work for someone else. Another piece of advice is you have to keep grace for thinking, creativity, brainstorming, and that's a half hour a day that needs to be in your schedule. You need 30 minutes a day where there's no phone on, no TV, nothing's going on. You are in quiet. Not even music, because then you're thinking of someone else's creativity and not your own. That needs to be a part of your day because you have to allow freedom for growth and you have to keep your sense of wonder.

You don't have to just do what you're told. You have a say. In fact, you're the driver of it, and if you don't drive it, somebody will drive it for you and take the credit and the money. As ethics and morals have come down in society at large, so have the business practices, especially of CEOs that generally are people that scramble for power and money. It only makes sense that those hungry for power and money are gonna do whatever they can to get to the top if they don't have morals and ethics. That is one of the reasons I'm going to be leaving the center and going out on my own. You don't have to just do what you're told. You're the driver of it. And if you don't drive it, somebody will drive it for you. When there is a strong woman in a field, the CEO generally is a little intimidated and jealous and does not give credit to that person. In fact, they will take the credit themselves and say that it was their idea. That is what my CEO has done. I have tripled the bills coming into our center, tripled it in 3 years. We have 3 times as many employees also that we had before to take care of all of this. And I got zero credit, have had zero raises, and she tried to demote me twice, which I didn't allow. That is how business is going right now. I am not the exception. I have talked to a lot of people. That is one of the reasons I'm going to be leaving the center and going out on my own. I'm tired of doing all the work and putting all the energy out and being used.

The biggest challenge is probably the type of setting I'm in, because I'm in a non-profit and donations are down, so raising funds is very difficult at this time because people don't have extra. Fundraising and sales, I would say, is down for the most part. People are relying more on what their insurance will cover, and whatever their insurance won't cover, they don't want extras. You have to make more than you put out in order to keep everything afloat and prepare for the future and maintenance and all of that stuff. So when the economy is tight, I would say that's generally more of a challenge to keep your business afloat. That requires really good planning and investment. So I would counter that by saying, when you go to start a business, or if you're new into it, or even if it's a couple years in and you haven't done it yet, get with a financial planner, an investment planner, that takes care of the planning for the future for when things are tight, to make it through the tight times and keep everything a little more even keel always.