Sparkplug

“There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.” 

  — Celia Thaxter, 

 Notes from a traveler afar

Recently a recruiter gave a friend of mine a battery of tests to assess, using just one word, both the essence of her personality and her career.

The recruiter defined her as “sparkplug.” The recruiter could not have assessed her better. My self-starter is great at contract work and helping companies find out what they are good at. She ignites passion in people and “sparks” them to start – and complete -their projects. She’s made a lot of companies a lot of money.

As I look back on my life, I’ve had sparkplugs — people who have in some form or another — helped ignite, confirm and direct me down the writing path. As I’ve said previously in this space that one of those people was Pat Fatchett, my seventh grade English teacher at Portland Junior High School in Bloomington, Minnesota. In her class we wrote stories and kept a daily journal.

For decades, I have saved those stories and the diary. More than once I used Pat’s blue Flair felt-tipped grades and comments to keep me in pursuit of my dream.

That dream has now become a published reality. In February 2012, BlessBack: Thank Those Who Shaped Your Life released.

After all these years, BlessBack seems fitting to be my first book in print. For the book is filled with stories of sparkplugs — people who helped another become the person he or she is today.

The point of BlessBack is for you to see how people have chosen to thank their sparkplugs and just how life-changing giving thanks is, both for the giver and receiver.

Wherever you are in life, I hope the stories in BlessBack cause you to think about your sparkplugs and to take the time to thank them for their part in your journey.

Learn how I chose to give a BlessBack to Pat Fatchett, as well as other BlessBack stories and how they have changed thousands of lives — in BlessBack: Thank Those Who Shaped Your Life, available at Amazon.com.

Give a BlessBack.

Change your Life.

Change the World.