Sometimes it feels like I’m leading a double life. When I’m on the road, my associates need to remind me not to help the bellmen carry my luggage; it’s their job. I still cringe as I hand over my bags. It goes against every single way I was raised – to let someone do what I can do for myself. Maybe that’s why I tip so generously. But that makes matters worse. The better I tip, the harder they work. The more I tip and …. just like that my profits decline faster than Baskin-Robbins on ice cream Sunday. Ridiculous.

Then the dinners … it’s hard for me not to utter at least one hundred ‘thank you’s’ when wait staff goes above and beyond. More than once, my associates have had to lean over and remind me that “it’s their job” or “I think they know you appreciate it dear”. Whatever. I was once a waitress and few, if any, of my associates ever were. So, I say thank you.

My car is humble. My home is humble. Why? Because I grew up humble and I know how seeing folks with “look at me” type things made me feel as a kid. I don’t ever want to make anyone else feel like that ever. I have what I need and even my humble possessions are more than I deserve.

I guess my frustration began about a year ago and came and went in waves until I started taking an honest look at myself. I’ll be 34 in November and am just now discovering what’s most important to me. What I like. What I don’t like. Which company I prefer to keep. I am allowing myself the only opportunity I never sought before – the opportunity to learn, and more importantly, to love who I am.

When I had very little, I always wondered if people treated me well or badly because of my circumstances. As I acquired more professionally, I found myself wondering the same thing just in a mirror image. Did people treat me one way or another because I had built something great? Now, I’m at a stage where I know that how people treat me is not about me at all. It’s 100 percent about them. So, I’m learning to relax.

Recently, I accepted a ‘normal’ job. I will still speak and consult because I LOVE it. But I’m also learning that I really love my ‘normal’ job, too. The people I’m meeting are real and genuine. They work hard and they do good work. They are kind. I’m reconnecting with the very people I started speaking to encourage in the first place and that’s incredibly important to me. I love seeing how God works things together and I pray that I won’t waste any of it.

I’ve been reminded of a few cornerstone principles over the past two months. I’ve been reminded that humble is good, every job is important, and a bad attitude will never make a bad situation better. I’ve even experienced a renewed sense of how prosperity is achieved in the first place and it’s simple:

If you want to be good, make up your mind to show up. If you want to be great, show up and make up your mind to work the hardest. If you want to be the best; show up, work the hardest, and make up your mind to smile about it.

We can all be unstoppable.