Ozlilly's musings...

Do it now. I’ve been attending webinars by women for women. I thought I would be motivating women and now I’ve become motivated. They say you need to start and overcome your fears. You need to be visible. You need to forget all the critics. You need to be yourself.

I am not only listening to women. I am also getting all the recommendations of the time-honoured personal trainers and development coaches of our age.
Sure, I have read a couple of those books they recommend. Now you can even listen to them on an audible or watch them on a YouTube video. You can download them from Amazon as an e-book. I’ve done all three.
I get up in the morning and cycle my thirty minutes and listen to Bob Proctor’s video: Born Rich.
I just watched a webinar about money and spirituality by Ute Nimsgarn. Isn’t it funny once you get on a path, you keep getting guided to others who share your values and can help lead you along your path?
Well I continue to be amazed at how much Bob Proctor quotes the bible, how John Canary his assistant sounds like a southern pastor and how much of what they both say, I have already heard from Father Moon.
All the women entrepreneurs are also talking about service and giving and being yourself.
You know the time we joined the Unification Church nobody wanted to know us anymore. Today, one of my colleagues does not want to read any religious stuff on my blog.
I am the one who plodded along in confidence on the one hand, yet secretly feared that they would discover my secret on the other.
Today I am more concerned to encourage and motivate you than I am to proselytize. Sure, our Unification movement has had its fair share of ups and downs. Times today are no easier than they were forty-five years ago, in some sense. Yet today you could google all day and read all the nasty stories that were trashed up over the years. You might even come across some of the truly positive stories. But then, you would have already had to have had your conversion experience, to have an open mind, to seek the positive stories.
You need to have already decided to look for the positive, not focus on the negative. You would see the amazing micro-credit projects that the Women’s Federation for World Peace implemented in Africa. You could watch the breath-taking dialogue between religions and nations taking place under the auspices of the Universal Peace Federation. You could discover the hundreds and thousands of Bridges of Peace that have taken place as ceremonies of reconciliation between warring nations and diverse individuals.
But you could just write them all off as many did over the years, as brainwashed zombies trying to fill the coffers of some oriental millionaire.
Why do I go down this path?

I guess I am still digesting my own history. I was training unemployed young mothers in preparation for re-entry into the workforce more than ten years ago. The irony of the situation did not escape me. They were young mothers of thirty after a maximum of two years maternity leave who felt totally worthless because they could not find employment. I was a fifty-five-year-old foreigner who had spent ten years at home with my five children! Of course, I succeeded! I was so touched by some of my participants enthusiasm after our sessions together. I may have continued as a self-employed trainer then, had I not finally received an offer to work for the United Nations.
You have to have a dream.
You need to have a vision and a goal. You should take a photo of that house that you want or that car and look at it every day.
I wanted to work at the UN. I was already an NGO representative for the Women’s Federation (WFWPI) at the UN in Vienna. I became the secretary of the NGO Committee on Drugs. I attended an executive committee meeting in Italy.

I began teaching a course for unemployed hospitality workers in the Austrian Alps of Kitzbuehel after their winter season. Then the call came from the UN for an interview. I had to decline. My course had another eight weeks to go and the trip to Vienna would take a whole day, two to get there and back.

But my confidence was fired up. They finally called me! I was amused to discover that they really expected me to be sitting at home just waiting for their call. “You are on the roster and supposed to be on stand-by,” I was told reproachfully, by the administrative assistant who was trying to tee up an appointment for my job interview.
The next call resulted in an interview and I was overjoyed! Until I asked the final question: How long before I know? 8-12 weeks.
The wheels grind slowly at the United Nations. I had been applying for so many years. I had once heard something about aptitude tests. It was years before I was finally invited in for one. By then I was already doing my course as a communications trainer. The UN does not have all the Austrian Catholic holidays, so it was just fine that I was invited in for my testing on 6 January which meant my course colleagues all had the day off, and I could go in for my interview and test without suspicion.
The conflict came then when I finally received an offer to work for the IAEA on temporary assistance for three months. I was in the midst of an entrepreneur’s sponsorship to launch my communication training business. It was valid for 12 months. I imagined working the 3 months then returning to the communication training. However, this break meant forfeiting the new business sponsorship. I was responsible for feeding my seven-headed family.
It was my leap of faith, plus my conviction that the UN was where I belonged that carried me through the next ten years of 13 temporary assistance contracts, smattered with nine months of unpaid breaks between each two year period of ongoing employment.
Now, I am on the verge of a relaunch. What do I have to offer? English conversation. Yes, that’s easy. I’m good. I’m experienced. Pity I never asked my clients for a referral, though I know they were very satisfied. What about English as a second language? Tick that box. Did that at WiFi. I was thinking about something like UN-NGO relations. There are other professional courses offered by established institutions based around international relations.

My expertise however is that I have worked for an NGO and for the UN. I was amazed from both sides at the ignorance of my colleagues of what the others really did. What about proof reading? Yes, done that too, though it was really a labour of love. My name is on the two books and I am proud of them. Not to mention the other books I have published which never even got my name on them. At least the DVD of the Multilingual Dictionary got my name in it.
So, I am still figuring out what my focus will be. I am being courageous, being myself and getting ready to face the flack, so I can know what steps to take next.
Let me tell you about my secret dream another time.