Unstoppable by Gigi Stetler (Review + Guest Post)

When I first heard about this book, I was instantly intrigued. Since I'm a business student, stories of women succeeding in business, especially in male-dominated fields, are the inspiring boosts that I love reading about. At first, I thought I was going to be reading a part-advice, part-memoir book, but as it turns out, I was wrong.

Unbreakable is a memoir by Gigi Stetler, and she has been through really tough stuff. Her home life has never been good, and every time she becomes close to success, someone betrays her, and she has to start from scratch. I don't know about you, but if that happened to me, I think after two, maybe three times, I'd just give up. But even though Gigi encounters setback after setback, she never gives up.

To be honest, there's very little business-related advice in here. Yes, Gigi does talk about her various ventures, and how she seizes on opportunities, but if you're looking for broad guidelines, well you're out of luck.

Overall, this was a riveting memoir written in a conversational, easy to read style. It's an inspirational read, and a reminder for us not to give up. Today, Gigi has written a guest post on her philosophy, "Work to Learn, Don't Work to Earn". I hope you enjoy it!

Work to Learn, Don’t Work to Earn

By Gigi Stetler

Graduation season in full swing, which means thousands of new grads will be turning in their caps and gowns for suits and ties—if they’re lucky. But whether they have a job lined up or are still on the hunt, my top piece of advice for success: work to LEARN. Don't work to EARN. This way, you can get everything you need to be successful in a business of your own.

As an unfortunate 10^th grade dropout I needed to navigate my own path to success, and that did not come easy. But the key ingredient that led me to success was my determination to be successful at any cost.

The first and most important skill I learned at a young age was sales. I learned to sell anything and everything from school candy to time shares, and everything in between. Looking back, it wasn’t how much money I was making that made a difference. It was the experience that I gained from dealing with so many different kinds of people, learning how to satisfy their needs and creating good customer relations skills that I still use today.

Moving into my mid-teens, I jumped into the world of retail, soaking up every bit of knowledge that an entrepreneur needs to be successful. That meant taking a job as a cashier at K-Mart and earning minimum wage. After just a few weeks—and a lot of hours—I found myself filling in shifts in all departments, because other employees weren’t showing up. I wasn’t trying to make this a career for myself, but I knew it was an opportunity to gain experience in the real world, and that’s something you don’t learn at school.

It’s significant to note that when you obtain a degree, you pay thousands of dollars for very little on-the-job experience. Most likely, you still have to intern or work for minimum wage. Whatever your career aspirations, you have to understand that when you start out in the job market, you’re not going to be earning much anyway. But, if you’re smart, you’ll be learning—a lot. Take full advantage of these early years and soak up every piece of knowledge you can find. Get as close as possible to high ranking individuals. Stay late. Ask questions. And most importantly, learn from all the mistakes that others make, so that when you move forward, you’ll know what NOT to do—and how to do it better. It may be difficult, and it may take time, but eventually, you’ll earn from what you’ve learned.  

Gigi Stetler is an accomplished businesswoman, entrepreneur, and single mother. The owner of RV Sales of Broward in south Florida, she built the business from the ground up to become queen of a male-dominated industry and entirely redefine its business climate by establishing an all-new RV timeshare program, the RV Fun Club. As an accomplished equestrian, Stetler has turned her love of horseback riding into a business venture by creating Riding in Style. She has also developed her own all natural supplement line, Solongpain. Stetler continues to rewrite the rules…while writing another book.

Victoria Rebels by Carolyn Meyer (Mod Podge Book Tours)

Today is the first time I've ever taken part in a book tour by Mod Podge book tours. It's a blog post from the author this time, and I think it's really interesting. 

The book is called Victoria Rebels and about the life of Queen Victoria. Sounds like a fascinating book doesn't it? (Hidden history nerd alert!)

Enjoy the guest post!

Why Did You Choose A Diary Format For Victoria Rebels? 

In fact, VICTORIA REBELS is not written as a diary; it's written in first person. That may not seem much different to the reader, but it made a huge difference in the way I conceived the story. When the story is told in the form of diary entries, the narrator, the "I" of the story, has no foreknowledge of what's going to happen down the road--years in the future or even the next day. She can only record what is happening in the present, or reflect on what has happened in the past. The challenge to the author is to set up the foreshadowing that leads the reader along. Several years ago I wrote three books for Scholastic's Royal Diaries series and discovered just how tricky that can be. In ANASTASIA: THE LAST GRAND DUCHESS, the young Russian princess enjoys her privileged life as storm clouds gather, with no inkling of the tragic end she faces. It's a much more confining storytelling format, and I struggled with it. In CLEOPATRA CONFESSES, I chose to write in present tense, which gives the narration a much different feel, and I considered doing the same with Victoria. But after experimenting with that for a while, I abandoned the idea and went back to the more conventional past tense. Somehow it seemed to suit her voice better.

In VICTORIA REBELS, Victoria is looking back at her early years as an unhappy young princess dominated by a man she hated, at the changes brought about when she became queen at the age of eighteen and was finally free of his domination, at her struggles to adjust to her new role, and at the arrival of love in her life. She tells her story from the vantage point of knowing the outcome in terms of her relationship with Sir John Conroy, her mother, and the man she marries. Chapter titles with the place and sometimes a date help to keep the reader oriented.

All the books in this post sound interesting don't they? Well, hopefully this is the start of more tours from Mod Podge stopping by here!

Also, there's a tour wide giveaway! Make sure to enter!

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Blog Tour: Maven Fairy Godmother - Guest Post

Hi everyone! I'm here with another blog tour! Today, I'm really pleased to give you a guest post by Charlotte Henley Babb, the author of Maven Fairy Godmother. I'm going to be posting a review of this book later this week, so I won't say too much about it (lest I end up giving a review), but you really should give it a read. So without further ado....

Wonky Knowing

Typos are very instructive. I sometimes type letters in reverse order when my ideas get ahead of my fingers. Have you ever noticed that "wonk" is the opposite of "know"?

The first time I heard the word "wonky" was in the remake of The Fugitive with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. One of Jones' fellow marshals said that something was "wonky" about the Kimball case, and Jones complained about the use of words he didn't know. Yet he too knew that something was wrong, and he knew it in a way that he could not explain.

That's wonk.

My main character, Maven Morrigan, calls that kind of knowing her Bump of Direction, which does not so much orient her as to north and south, but gives her wonk--the knowing that comes from nowhere. Where is the place of knowing? Know-where? There is a collective unconscious, a oneness of All That Is, of which each of us is a node, a part, a connection, a neuron. Just as our brains are networks of neurons and synapses, and our thoughts are electrical charges that make repeated patterns across these networks, we ourselves are synapses in the consciousness of the Universe. We have our educated intelligence, that which we have learned from our shared reality, and we have wonk, that backflow of information that comes, not from the space outside our skin, but from the inner connection to the Universe, the Inner Being, the Higher Power...pick the name that works for you.

Wonk is the muse. Wonk is the information from the still small voice. Wonk is the knowing that passes understanding, but is nevertheless true. The information that comes intuitively is often hard to understand and apply, yet its truth is undeniable. A collection of information seems wonky when a piece or two is missing, or where the mental image of the puzzle box does not match the picture that the puzzle pieces make.

Making use of wonk is more difficult, unless you trust yourself and are not paranoid about getting intuitive information. Following a hunch, making some space for allowing wonky information to come is a new habit I intend to pursue. Kurt Goedel proved that you can't make a closed and internally consistent mathematical model that will explain everything. Some things just don't add up...and that's where the wonk comes in. Pay attention to it, because that's how you find the corners of the puzzle.

Charlotte Henley Babb is the author of Maven Fairy Godmother, a fractured fairy tale for women "of a certain age" and their younger sisters.

Want Guest Post (Blog Tour)

Hello, sorry for (another) late post. The only defence I have is Kendo... But anyway, here's the second part of the Want Blog Tour! You can read my review here if you haven't already. And without further ado, here's a guest post by the author of Want, Stephanie Lawton:

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Isaac’s playlist

I hear about so many writers who need to listen to music while writing to get in the groove. I can’t do that. I wind up singing the lyrics or humming along—and staring at a blank page.

However, I compile a playlist for each book and listen to it while I’m not writing—in the car, while cooking dinner, in the shower (TMI? Sorry). I often wake up with one of the songs in my head.

Below is poor Isaac Laroche’s list. The guy’s caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place with no clear solution, and his playlist reflects that struggle, as well as his training in classical piano.

·        “Back Against the Wall” by Cage the Elephant

·        “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park

·        “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon

·        “Save a Prayer” by Duran Duran (it’s an oldie but a goodie)

·        “Undisclosed Desires” by Muse

·        “Add it Up” by Violent Femmes

·        “All the Right Moves” by One Republic

·        “Not Strong Enough” by Apocalyptica (featuring Brent Smith)

·        “Dirty Little Secret” by All American Rejects

·        Etude-Tableau no. 5 in D Minor by Rachmaninoff (Chapters 5 and 9)

·        Moments Musicaux Op.16 - No.4 E Minor Presto by Rachmaninoff (Chapter 7)

·        Morceaux de fantasie, Op. 3 - IV: Polichinelle, Allegro vivace by Rachmaninoff (Chapter 7)

·        Piano Concerto no. 23 in A by Mozart (Chapters 7 and 9)

·        Piano Concerto no. 1 in F# Minor by Rachmaninoff (Chapter 9)

·        Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini XX. Variation 18: Andante cantabile (D flat major) by Rachmaninoff (Chapter 16)