Always the right time to say yes to opportunities
Thoreson
My daughter and I were talking about saying yes to opportunities that are sometimes scary, wondering if you’ll look foolish if it’s not something you know you can do well. A few of those times when someone else saw something in me that I couldn’t see turned out to be wonderful.
After starting part-time in the classified advertising department at the Coeur d’Alene Press in 1986 and becoming an account executive, I was promoted to weekly newspaper publisher/editor at 39 and have continued to write this weekly column since 1990. In my 50s, I became a morning radio personality when a KXLY VP called and asked me if I was interested in filling in on air. Not long after, I was hired as a regular in the mornings. Later in my 50s, I signed with an agent and became a commercial actor appearing in the background of movies filmed in Spokane, television commercials, print ads and even on billboards from SEATAC to GEG and along Interstate 90 and U.S. 95.
All because I said yes when someone proposed getting outside my comfort zone. What have you said yes to that was outside your comfort zone?
Joel Greiner left farming to become a Realtor. He says it wasn’t easy but totally worth it.
Jane Pierce sold everything when she retired and has been traveling in an RV. She’s loving the mobility and having her “house” and everything along for the ride.
Wendy Carroll founded Coeur d’Alene’s Out of the Shadows, a nonprofit organization for disabled actors when she was “over 60.” She admits helming an entire theater company was a scary step into the unknown.
Sandy Langston started a business when she was 49.
Diane Hayes Wahl bought her first home at age 22, followed by buying and flipping many more houses through the years. Another business she started is flourishing and she’s a successful entrepreneur in her early 70s. She said she accomplished it all despite much negative input in the early years.
The moral of stories like these Is that you’re never too old, too young, too anything to say yes and believe in yourself, even if the unknown and untried seems scary.
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Garrison Kellor: “March is the month God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like.”
Full disclosure … of all of the months of the year, March is the one that tests my patience, sense of humor and even love for my fellow man. I blame it on the color gray, lack of warmth from the sun, rainy days interspersed with snowy days, outerwear and just being so over winter.
On the upside, Daylight Saving Time starts this Sunday, March 8, so we’ll have an extra hour of daylight!
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Happy Main Street Birthday today to Michael Ward, Sam Williamson, James Steffenson, and Jon Newcomb. Tomorrow, Natalie Erickson, Becky Funk, Jim Riley, Amy Tolzmann Warker, Jennifer Harbour, Paula Ryan, Nicole Barnhart, Kelly Lattin, Hallie Gennett, Allison Mehan, Stacy Veach, Carly Hall and Matt Matthews turn a page on the birthday calendar. On Friday, Billie Dust, Rich Winter and Adam Johnson celebrate. On Saturday, my much younger sister, Janna Scharf (70!), shares a birthday with Heidi Rogers, Jaime Jaworski, Todd Gilkey, Wayne Larson, James Barfoot and Julie Sandstrom. On Sunday, Lisa Ferguson, Robert Page, Linda Koehler, Joni Morrow, Chelsea MacEntee (40!), Kylie MacEntee and Veronica Peacock take another trip around the sun. Karen Roetter, Bob Frazey, Giuliana Palmas Rogers, Keith Van Slate, Debbie Myles Shawver, Joyce Connolly and Megan Round blow out the candles on Monday. Wish happy March 10 birthdays to Nancy Frazey, Mary Akers and Jon Dingman.
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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and a former publisher/editor in the Hagadone Newspaper division. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press. Kerri can be reached on Facebook or via email at [email protected].