When Scott Mackintosh wore the shorty-shorts we were inundated with interviews, phone calls and emails, the message that stood out and drove us to SPEAK were the many that said,
“I wish someone cared that much about me to do something like that.”
THAT tugged at our hearts and spurred us to talk about issues surrounding self-esteem, self-worth and the confidence to dance the dance, even when others say you can’t.
Scott and I have had many cool, inspiring and motivating experiences in our life, along with lots of hard lessons learned. THIS equipped us with many true life stories that EMPOWER others, Build CONFIDENCE and MOTIVATES real change. It’s rewarding to see someone’s eyes light up when they are able to see themselves as God sees them.
When our son told us he was gay and two years later we decided to go public, the response was mind-bogling, again inundated with hundreds of emails opened our eyes to the GREAT need for us to continue to be open, honest and REAL about our experience and lessons learned. Not everyone wants to be an open book, but everyone I meet desires to feel loved, respected, accepted and valued for who they are and the diversity they bring. We choose to be their voice.
Therefore…
using humor, courage and a whole lot of LOVE, we SPEAK from our heart in an effort to motivate YOU to put the FUN back in LIFE and Relationships.
If you follow my blog or follow me on Facebook, Pintrest or Twitter you know I’m pretty much an open book and I’m comfortable talking about REAL life challenges. What I’ve discovered by being REAL and AUTHENTIC is that others who are going through the same or similar challenges know they are not alone.
I understand it can be scary to be vulnerable, my stomach ached for days before I pushed the publish button to share my story of having a gay son and my motherly plea to the world to reinvest in kindness. Even though my son and I felt it was time and the right thing to do – I was still fearful of how the public would react to my son’s vulnerability. To our surprise we were inundated with positive emails, messages and phone calls along with a long stream of comments beneath the many social media shares. It has been a wonderful experience connecting with people around the world because of that ONE post. It opened the door to being invited to speak at several large LGBT conferences – hundreds have thanked us for helping them see things in a different perspective. It has been rewarding to see hearts healing, families reuniting and lives being saved.
What I have experienced and seen is that when people are real and authentic about their fears and challenges it helps others know they are not alone.
I’m not a blogger that targets a certain audience or has a certain theme. I’m kind of all over the place just as my blog title states,”Becky Mack’s Blog of Mild Chaos” I post about Family, Fun, Travels, Teens and DrEaMs! …..CHAOTIC just like REAL life!
If you follow me you have been exposed to my travels to India, the ups and downs of career changes, my love for God and family, the JOYS and CHALLENGES of parenting, my love for people of all nationalities and religions, the surprise of GOING VIRAL and everything from battling depression, to meeting incredibly inspiring people, to becoming an author and member of the NSA (National Speakers Association) and now SPEAKING. And last, but certainly not least, the wonderful journey of having a gay son and all THAT has taught me about people, compassion, love, empathy, tolerance and intolerance.
I don’t post, follow or support people or organizations who seem to thrive on being rude, bash political or religious beliefs or who pretty much have a NEGATIVE attitude about life. Life is challenging enough on it’s own without having others bring you down.
Life is too fragile and too short to wallow in misery.
I like to look for the rose amidst the thorns, and one thing I’m certain about is that we ALL experience thorns …everyone has challenges! CHEERS to those who in spite of their challenges focus on the ROSE, and CHEERS to those who rally around and support one another, boost one another and love one another. That’s what life is really about… Serving others.
Life’s a roller coaster – CHOOSE to be HaPpY!
Becky Mack’s Life Lesson: Attitude is everything. Be REAL. Be AUTHENTIC and you just may discover that the friend you thought had the perfect life has challenges too.
“It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to – cry if I want to – cry if I want to”. Yes, I know the real lyrics are “It’s my PARTY and I’ll cry if I want to …” If you have no idea what I am talking about – that’s proof I AM old!
Truthfully, if I cry today for turning another year older, it’s tears of JOY, GRATITUDE and APPRECIATION for life’s experiences.
At 51 years “young” I don’t feel much older than I did in high school, it’s only when I pass a mirror that I am reminded of my age. I decided to make a list of all the things I have been fortunate to experience throughout the past half-a-century as a reminder how precious life truly is ….
Born on ranch in Montana to the best family ever!
Rode horses everyday…. okay not everyday, but a lot
Met my future husband at age 8
My mother saw that I was kept busy so I didn’t have time to get into trouble; Dance, Piano, Guitar, Voice Lessons, Gymnastics and played in the Band – alto saxophone
Grew up with 6 living grandparents
Kept busy in High School: Senior Class President, Vice-President of Ski Club, Gymnastics team-Captain, Seminary Council, Choir Secretary – these roles landed me a Leadership Scholarship to BYU!
Skier – favorite resort: Alta
Loved the College life – BYU and BYU-Hawaii
Learned to Surf and Snorkel. (hate snorkeling – claustrophobic)
Married my secret High School crush – Scott Mackintosh
Mother of 7 AMAZING kids
Natural childbirth
One C-Section
Milked goats for 12 years
Community Service “Door Knocker” Award
4H Horsemanship Leader – 17 years
England and Scotland – Twice
I’m a Cruise-a-holic – 8 Cruises
Para-Sailing- Twice (hated it – scared to death of heights)
India – Twice (loved, loved, loved my experience in India and the priceless friendships made)
Dubai
Rode a Camel and an Elephant
Camping with my family – love roasting marshmellows around a camp fire
Worked for two AMAZING Speaker/Authors: Kevin Hall and Chad Hymas which led to meeting….
Inspiring people: Immaculée Ilibagiza, Emmanuel Kelly, Rolanda Watts, Sean Stevenson, Dave Winfield, Mark Sandborn, Bridget Cook, Rebecca Musser, Lisa Nichols, Allison Byrd, Thurl Bailey, Mark Eaton, Jason Hewlett and the master of words Arthur Watkins. ….and so many others through the National Speakers Association.
Wrote a book “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family!”
Met and conversed with the LDS Prophet Thomas S. Monson for 20 minutes – a highlight of my life!
and the BESTEST of all ….I am a GRANDMA!
I am truly indebted to God, my Heavenly Father, who has deeply blessed me, carried me through dark times when I wanted to give up, wiped away my tears when my heart was breaking, allowed me to experience and grow through trials and challenges and has not let a day go by that God didn’t tell me or show me how much He loves me. I see it in my children’s faces, in my husband’s hug, in the flowers, the birds and the many wonderful friends that contribute to who I am. I am a child of God, a wife, mother and friend, what more could a person ask for? I can’t think of a dang thing, except for perhaps a big piece of strawberry short cake. HaPpY Birthday to me!
Not only did I have the amazing privilege of helping orchestrate Emmanuel Kelly’s first concert in the USA …
…..It was Eman’s FIRST concert ever!
The world knows Emmanuel for his inspiring X-Factor Australia audition clip “Imagine” by John Lennon, a clip that is just shy of 8 Million views on YouTube. The story of being born in Iraq under chemical warfare conditions resulting in Emmanuel and his older brother Ahmed born without limbs. The story is told of being found in a shoe box, rescued and placed in Mother Teresa’s orphanage to be raised by nuns. Emmanuel later tells us “being found in a shoe box” is a term used for abandoned. Across the way in Australia, founder of the Children First Foundation, Moira Kelly heard about these two adorable boys in Iraq. Emmanuel describes the first time seeing Moira entering the room; “It was like seeing an angel.” Of course she fell in love with the boys. After two years of red tape, Moira was finally able to bring the boys to her home in Australia and start them on their journey of surgeries, prosthetics and encouragement to follow their DrEaMs.
In October 2012, I was exposed to the inspiring-tear-jerker video clip of Emmanuel Kelly’s X-Factor audition clip on facebook and had to “share” it on my FB wall. I watched it over and over. About a week later, my boss, author/speaker Kevin Hall called me with a new assignment; to tract down the contact info for Emmanuel Kelly. Kevin felt impressed to invite Emmanuel to sing at the upcoming Genshai Life Mastery Retreat in Coronado Island January 5-7 2013. I found this assignment to be a little more difficult than a previous assignment given only five days early which was to connect Kevin with Immaculée Ilibagiza, the survivor of the Rwanda Genocide and author of “Left To Tell”. It took only 3 days to make the connection and get a reply response from Immaculée. (that’s another incredible story for another blog) Finding Emmanuel was a little tougher….not as much to go on since Emmanuel has not written a book, did not have a speaking agent, no place of employment, Facebook page etc …all the leads I used to track down Immaculée – didn’t apply to Emmanuel.
What I did have going for me was that 30 years ago while attending school in Hawaii I met a news reporter, Rick Arden, from Australia who is still a news anchor for Channel 7 Perth. “Perfect” I thought, “If a news reporter was given the assignment to ‘find’ someone …they would act like the world depended on it and get the job done.” I shot Rick an email with my request and waited and waited and waited for a reply. hmmm…..plan B. I then emailed every news station in Australia and FINALLY got a response from ABC News giving me the info to Emmanuel Kelly’s mother Moira Kelly’s charity foundation. Bingo! I emailed Moira, who promptly replied. Kevin was then able to call and speak Moira on the phone for 30 minutes and sealed the deal to fly Emmanuel to the Genshai Life Mastery Retreat. Woot! Woot! Side note: the next day came the reply from Rick…thank you Rick, but one day late. 🙂
Once in Coronado it took only a fraction of a second to fall in love with the boy with the amazing voice, witty sense of humor and maturity beyond his teen years. Emmanuel “hung out” with the six teens at the retreat, five teens had won the opportunity to be there from entering an essay contest “Imagine If….” and the sixth teen was my daughter who was not eligible to enter the contest….just fortunate to come:) My husband and I were the lucky teen chaperones, therefore spent a lot of quality time with Emmanuel.
Little did we know that when we said our good-byes it didn’t really mean good-bye. The following week brought a series of events which lead to Emmanuel Kelly and his assistant Peter staying in our home, and with only a few days notice we were able to facilitate all the details needed to put on a concert. A special thanks to Laurie Olson, industrial film director and my India traveling buddy, for using her magic to book the Scera Theater in Orem, Utah for not one, but TWO concerts.
Emmanuel was a joy to have in our home. Those that were able to see Emmanuel LIVE for his first ever Concert’ were privileged to be entertained by this talented, humorous, can-do-anything young man for 90 minutes.
My life has been forever touched by this amazing young man! My NEXT goal and personal assignment: To meet his AMAZING mother Moira Kelly.
Recent Comments