April 2006                                                                                      Carol Adrienne, Ph.D.

The last time I talked with Sue Christensen, fifty-nine, she had just moved to Tucson, Arizona from Flagstaff following a painful divorce.  At the time she was working in real estate and writing a novel based on her life experiences of marriage, betrayal, growth, and recovery.  She recently reconnected by email, and I was delighted to know what had happened to her in the interim.  Sue is one of the most positive people I have ever met—with well-defined goals.   

Stability After Upset 
During this last three-year period--which she now refers to as her recovery--she decided to get a job with a high profile developer.  She wanted to get back to her old productive mode, and felt she needed to create more structure and get grounded.  Having achieved, once again, a high level of achievement, however, she began to feel that the lure of security and health benefits was keeping her from a deeper expression of her life’s purpose.  “The first three years of selling new construction gave me tremendous opportunity,” she says.  “I made a lot of money and won every award in the field.  I was even named to the National Advisory Council for the company.  However, when I transferred to selling homes in an active adult community, my sales plummeted.  These buyers—usually retired-- take a long time to decide to buy, as there is no urgency such as in the case of job transfers.  Even though the lack of income looked like a bad thing, I now believe that this sales downturn was part of the grand scheme to make me look at what I was doing.

The Success Trap
“At the end of every week, as I checked through my calendar for loose ends or people to contact, I found myself writing some form of this thought:  ‘How much longer are you going to devote your life to a job that is not really a career at the expense of ignoring your dream?’
Sue realized that the security of her job was keeping her from moving on.  Even thought she was dedicated to writing every day--and got up at 4:30 am to write—she had little time to promote her writing or do any other personal growth work. With great intention and clarity, Sue says, “I want to be a novelist.  I have a poster in my bedroom, which is the first thing I see every morning.  It says, ‘What do (all these authors) have in common?  What they have in common is that they were once unknown authors.’  Within five years, I want people to rattle off my name, Sue Christensen, along with John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Stephen King, and Nicholas Sparks.”

A Positive  Spin
    Last October, Sue went to her supervisors and told them she was leaving.  “It has been my experience,” she says, “when people say that they want to resign, the person they are talking to feels some form of rejection. Therefore, I said to my bosses ‘I have decided to retire from real estate so I can pursue my dream as a serious writer.’  Her colleagues were impressed.  At the end of her last  presentation for the Tucson division, about 300 co-workers lined up in the ballroom to wish her luck—some even crying at her decision.  “People told me that if I ever want to come back, the door is wide open.  I believe that the whole dynamic would have been entirely different if I had said I wanted to resign.”

Allow the Universe to Position You
    Five years ago, at our writing workshop, Sue told me something that deeply impressed me at the time.  She said, “I feel that the whole universe is conspiring to make my life wonderful.”  I thought that this statement is a wonderful affirmation. Today, Sue says, “The Universe is absolutely doing that!  I see more and more evidence of that all the time. Sometimes when we can’t seem to get out of our own way, the Universe gives us a nudge.  In my case, it was the lack of sales in that last assignment.  Now I am freed up to learn what I need to learn in the writing field and go forward.”

Living on Your Terms
    Previous investments in commercial real estate are now allowing Sue enough income for the next couple of years, so that she can pursue her publishing goals.  For example, she mentioned the Colorado Independent Publishers association as a great place to learn about self-publishing, book distribution and so forth.  “Whenever I attend a writing event,” says Sue, “I’m happily surprised to see how people react favorably to my first book, Making a Six-Figure Income on Your Terms.  The message in that book is as much about life balance as it is about making a high income.  Every single thing in it is a proven strategy that works.  These principles work in almost all circumstances, even in a small community without any major industry or significant influx of new people. I believe that this book needs to be in every real estate school or school that offers a real estate degree.  I’m having a professional write a book proposal to help me get into that market.

   “My novel, Life du Jour, is also a great book," says Sue. "The feedback I get is wonderful, but I need to get that book the attention I think it deserves. People tell me that they were just going to take a peek at it, and then they find that they can’t put it down.  Afterwards people call and say, When is the next one coming out?  Wow, what encouragement!”

Ask and Receive
Sue mentioned to me about a great synchronicity she had on a trip to Italy—almost an answer to a prayer.  “My sons and I were spending our last day in Italy last fall.  We were in the Duomo Cathedral in Milan, and although I'm not Catholic, I have always liked the Catholic tradition of lighting candles for specific prayer intentions.  None of the other cathedrals we had previously toured had any available unlighted candles, so we were delighted that this one had many available holders and huge boxes of long tapers.  We made a generous donation and proceeded to light candles for all sorts of human needs, such as peace in the world, the safe return of all soldiers on foreign soil, a cure for breast cancer, a cure for every other kind of cancer, a cure for AIDS, and greater understanding among all humans.  Then I prayed, "Well, Lord, I don’t expect you to shove everyone else aside and catapult me to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, but how about a sign?  Could you just give me some little sign that I'm at least on the right track?"

Sue continues, “Fully aware that the requested answer to prayer comes when it comes, and can't be rushed or even prodded, we just went about the activity of the day,  which included, of course, shopping.  I had just finished the last of the books I'd brought with me, and needed something for bedtime reading as well as for the thirteen-hour flight home the next day.  We were in a book store when one of the boys decided to go to the bathroom—leaving us to browse. The entire store was filled with recognizable American titles and authors, but everything was in Italian.   In the last two minutes of the wait for Pat to return, I found a small section of books in English, and immediately picked up Nicholas Sparks' "True Believer" which I had been wanting to read.   It was well after 11:00 pm when I finally settled into bed with the new book.  I was just reading the acknowledgments page when I let out a war hoop that scared my boys half to death.  There in the first page of the book, Nicholas Sparks expresses his gratitude to his agent, Theresa Park, and congratulates her on her new literary agency, with this in parenthesis: "For all you aspiring writers out there"!! Here was the sign I was looking for!

Why Not Think Big?
    Immediately upon returning home, I called my publicist to tell her about the dramatic sign I'd received so soon after asking for it, and to ask her to help me get in touch with Theresa Park! That phrase “All you aspiring writers, ”  just seemed to be speaking to me.   I don’t want just any agent.  I think big.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I think I can be in the league of best-selling authors, and I am open to learning what I have to learn to get there.  I admire the work of Nicholas Sparks, and I want Theresa Park for an agent.”

Sue’s upbeat story doesn’t end here.  She has also met someone special.  “After my divorce I was shattered. In the four years following our break up, I had been approached by several men.  Depending on who was asking, and how they asked, I had three standard answers: “No.  No, Thank you, or Hell, no.”

“Perhaps the most important thing that has changed in my life is to rethink my decision that I would forever go through life as a single woman.  That was clearly to protect my heart.  Last April I saw my ex-husband at a wedding and I was still badly shaken after that.  For about a year, I have been going out every Wednesday night with two girlfriends to a Karaoke bar to support them in their singing.  It was pure light-hearted entertainment and we pretty much stuck to ourselves.   One night, after I had gotten brave enough to sing myself, we were just sitting there listening to the music, and I had an awareness of someone standing beside me.  I looked up and saw this handsome guy –6 foot 4—smiling down at me. His name is Ernie.  He’s fifty-five, and a singer and guitar player.  He’s worked for the postal service for thirty-two years, but music is his passion. We’re both very creative people in different areas.
“He said he had been wanting to ask me to dance for a long time, but he was always playing in the band.  He had noticed me and my two friends, and wanted to make sure that I was single. He’s been single for six years. After three weeks, he and his friends were waiting for us at their table when we came in. He and I started dating after that.  I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in my entire life.  My kids think it’s the greatest thing in the world for me to be having fun and not working all the time.

“The three most powerful things I learned throughout this transition is that anything is possible, and to remain open to possibility and pay attention to my intuition.”

You can contact Sue at (520) 444-1615 or email her at schristensen@comcast.net (please  reference this article in the subject line.)
Happy April!
Carol Adrienne