Climbing the Mountain to Reach my Goals...

A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of accomplishing one of my first summer goals... climbing to the very top of the mountain that I have looked at every morning out my office window since September when I moved here. I am sure that on the grand scale it would be considered a small mountain; however after hibernating all winter behind a nice warm keyboard, it was a monumental task to say the least.

My husband and I set out on our trek early on the bright sunny Sunday morning. Fashionably dressed in tank top, shorts and hiking boots, I was grateful to head out of site and into the woods. Even though the day prior I had hiked ¼ the way up the same mountain, with a couple of my children, I was determined to see where the rest of the trail would lead us. Since that part of our journey was 95% straight uphill… we decided it would be best to leave the children home.

As Brad and I made it to the point where I had ended the day before, I could not help but feel my body disagree with my current decision to go further. My back started to hurt and my feet felt every degree of incline in our progress up the path to the top of the timbers. Even with spotting a couple of locations where Bears no longer lingered, we kept going…until, my husband said, “Stop.” In fear I ran closer to him wondering if he might have to use the can of bear spray on his hip, all the while thinking about the jokes of how its true purpose was to ‘pepper the meat’ before the bears had their dinner and that bear bells were really just ‘dinner bells.’

My husband very carefully leaned over and moved some ferns from their resting place onside of the mountain. As I was about to ask him what the heck he was looking at, he said, “I don’t believe it!” I was expecting the worst when he pointed to… a frog! A frog ½ way up the side of the mountain with no visible water around. Once my head slowed back to pre-bear-attack thinking, I was able to be shocked as well.

Beyond all reason, there should be no water needing creatures in sight let alone a Frog! Since my mind works in symbols and analogies, I could not help but compare my mountain climbing adventure to that of the adventure of creating Stock Harmony. The mountain that we are on… is the world markets, current business ethics & practices. Every piece of deadfall and root blocking the trail…are the obstacles that we have had to overcome to get to this point in our climb to launch Stock Harmony. The beautiful flowers and foliage along the way… are our friends who are offering kind advice and encouragement. The massive fallen trees that were now visibly becoming one with the earth… symbolized the corporations that once stood mighty and proud, only to be blown over by winds because their values (roots) were not strong enough to hold them in this economy. The bear droppings & stinging nettle… well, you guess that one… The 95% slope that we are climbing to get to the top is the hard work and dedication that it will take in order to achieve our intention.

Two hours, two sunburns, sore knees, scraps, stings and uphill perseverance later, we were standing at
the very top ridge of our mountain overlooking the entire valley and our house. Even though my body was not happy for the majority of our trip, I was extremely grateful that I did not give in…and I achieved what we set out to do. Now I can look out my window every morning and think to myself, I did it, I made it to the very top! (of this peak)

As I sat there in the moment, in wonder of our accomplishment, I took in the majesty around me and again reflected. …even though, we have climbed to the summit and pre-launched Stock Harmony, as I look around, there are even higher mountains to climb…but this trip has helped given me the prospective and strength that I will need, when I climb the other mountains that are waiting for us to get to the top of them as well.

The journey home helped me appreciate the other 5%..the 5% that had now become, my new uphill.
Everything, which was previously uphill, had now become my downhill… and now my knees screamed at me every step of the way. Even though we saw that a bear had crossed our trail we thankfully never did cross his path! We made it home safely even after we misplaced the trail and got to climb over hectares of deadfall. (We even saw another frog!) This just helped reassure me that I was not in spry enough shape but it was also a good idea to withdraw my nomination to be on the television show ‘Man tracker.’

As I gaze out my window this morning looking at the mountains before me, I am not only thankful for the obstacles in my life to that I have had climb up to this point…but for the ones that are yet to come… because I know that I CAN…and so can YOU!

Most Humbly,
Marcia

President, Stock Harmony
www.stockharmony.com
Marcia@stockharmony.com

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Enlightenment with a Shovel

It seems like another lifetime ago, until I put on my boots...

Two and a half years ago, I invested in a gold/silver exploration company. I figured that one of the best ways to keep my eye on that investment would be to start working for the company, so I took on a job in marketing and investor relations. During my time there, stock prices went from .90cents to over $2.60, I truly enjoyed meeting new people and traveling around the country. One week I was in Toronto, Vancouver and then to Chicago. (I never knew Deremiah then or I would have dropped in for a hug.) I touched three different Oceans in a month and met thousands of new and exciting people. Trade show after trade show, I grew my knowledge of what to do and what not to do, not only on the stock market but in life. This was a very expensive education but worth every penny.

When I started working for this company, I was excited about the freedom to create the type of position that I wanted to have. We had open door meetings where everyone in the office learnt all of the happenings of the business, this was key to being transparent and helped us all to support the stock and our investor pool with honest and open information sharing. Each member of the Team was valued for their strengths and encouraged to grow, study and share.
After finishing a tradeshow in New York, 3 of us in the marketing department were sent to help out our field crew. This was a fantastic idea since all of the men and women working onsite were the backbone of the company. They were the ones who drilled, cut, and logged the core to be able to give the office staff the results they needed in order to offer more financing to support more research and all of the marketing we were doing. (Just to give you an idea, the company had about a $1,000,000,000 per month burn rate.)

There is nothing on earth that I know of, that compares to the thrill of riding in the front seat of a helicopter while it flies over the tops of the mountains. Our camp was located on the tip of Alaska in northern British Columbia half way up the side of the mountain. My second trip to camp was one that I will never forget. With around 30 people living in the middle of nowhere, we got to know everyone quite well. Even with showers, washer and dryer, internet, and sat phones, we were very isolated. The occasional mountain goat was the only other life form that would dare to venture to the area. So when something stops working…let me tell you, camp life can turn unpleasant at a moment’s notice.

Brent and Kelvin had been working for hours the night before on unblocking the shower flow to stop it from backing up onto the feet of anyone how hopped in the shower. Picture if you will a pool of gray water, full of scum, grease, hair, etc. I knew that was something that needed to be fixed right away, so I thought that I would give it a go. So picture if you will, me…bucket in hand, scooping out the 4foot x 3foot x 2foot pool of gray water. After removing every drop of gray sludge… I hopped in the hole. I figured that I needed to make it bigger so that the water pipes would not freeze with the upcoming weather. So I began to dig…and dig …and dig. Now keep in mind that this is a mountain, nothing around for hundreds of miles, nothing..so that is why what came next is just sooo crazy.

As I dug down deeper, I began to hit soft, squishy ground that stuck to the shovel, weird I thought being on a mountain; but I kept digging. I dug down until it was about 4.5 feet deep..Then I realized what I was digging in… Somehow, years and years before there were prospectors traveling by pack and mule, probably camped close to the same location. At some point, they must had built..in the very spot where I stood that day…an outhouse! Well, I knew it had to be done, so I never let fear and common sence stop me, so I kept digging.
I unblocked the hoses and did a fix that MacGyver would be proud of. I never found gold that day, but I did find a true friend. I had to undress outside the shower room and leave my cloths there...I was covered from head to toe, and did not smell to pleasant..( I can’t believe that no one took a picture, that could have been great blackmail. ) When I got out of the shower, I was shocked to find, Brent washing my boots and scrubbing my black coat red again.

This event in my life, taught me many things…
1. True Friends are there even when you are covered in Shit and are there to clean you up…
2. When you think that you are in Crap, if you keep digging, you will get covered in it.
3. No matter how shitty things may seem, you can always get cleaned up.

4. Even old crap...splashes.
5. As far as the company goes, as time passed, the deeper I got the more crap I found.