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.
I’d like to share a story that took place in 2011 that will live in my heart forever – it’s a story of gratitude from a four year old.
My heart grew larger as I walked the streets that Mother Teresa walked in Kolkata, India. I went to India with the intention of changing the lives of others, only to discover it was my own life that was forever changed.
Never before had I seen such poverty – heart wrenching poverty. But what surprised me the most were the big smiles and the genuine love that oozed from their faces spite their obvious hardships.
It is estimated that over 100,000 children live on the streets of Kolkata. There is an organization in Kolkata that is trying to make a difference – The Towards Life Foundation. This charitable organization has built 8 one-roomed schools called “centers” throughout the slums of Kolkata to provide the street children the opportunity to go to school. Some were lucky enough to have desks, other were not – all were happy just to be in school whatever the conditions.
I was part of the Global LifeVision-Inda team; consisting of 8 women and 1 man. We were eager to volunteer at these centers to help in anyway possible. We arrived prior to the country’s biggest holiday – Diwali. The children at the centers are given new clothes in celebration of the Diwali festival, much like our Christmas – they exchange “sweets”, decorate the streets and dwellings with lights, and parade around in their new clothes.
On this occasion the teachers thought it would be more memorable if the visiting Americans distributed the new clothes to the students. The boys would get a new shirt and new pair of underwear, and the girls a new dress and new pair of underwear.
An unexpected surprise.
On our last day helping at the centers, a big box was delivered with the new clothes. Each item was wrapped in a clear cellophane package with a child’s name printed on it. The clothes were placed on a table in front of the classroom in two piles. The teacher would call out the name written on the package and hand it to one of us to give to the child. Without hesitation the child would say “Namasté ma’am”, and some would bow down to kiss our feet – the ultimate sign of respect and gratitude.
As I was watching this take place and the excitement of each child as they received their new clothes. I noticed a little boy in the middle of the room inching his way to the front and jabbering in his native language, getting louder and louder while tears filled his eyes – he stayed fixated on the table displaying the clothes. I looked at the table to see what could possibly be troubling him and saw there were only a few shirts left, I thought; “He is worried they are not going to call his name.” When the second to last name was called – he lunged forward grabbing his shirt and hugging it tight, then quickly he put it into his backpack and skipped around the room one happy boy.
As I was observing this priceless moment of gratitude for a new shirt, my colleague was observing the youngest girl of the class, over in the far corner of the room. This adorable little 4 year old had removed her new dress from the cellophane wrap and very gently unfolding it, once opened she slowly slid her hands from the top of the dress to the bottom. Then she folded it back up, slid it back into the cellophane and held it to her chest rocking back and forth in delight. As my friend shared what she had just observed my eyes filled with tears. We had witnessed gratitude in it’s purest form.
My perspective changed, leaving me never to be the same. I returned home with a deeper appreciation for the things I often take for granted; my family, my health, and all our basic needs: clothes, shelter, food, and most of all the simple beauty of …everything.
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