For those of you who are used to my middle-of-the-week interview postings, either you figured it out or already knew from my previous article, “How I will Lose 20 lbs. in 30 Days,” that I was postponing this week’s interview because of a server problem on Monday.  As a result, I lost the original weight-loss experiment article, which forced me to rewrite and post it again, pushing everything back a day or two.

I’m extremely excited to introduce you to a wonderful person by the name of Sharmaine Hobbs, a lady who is destined to rock the women’s world.  It started out between us writing back and forth and her signing up as a subscriber to Adversity University.  It’s almost hard to believe but we’ve been supporting one another via email for at least a year or more (I’m guessing it’s two years because she signed up right when I first started blogging).   As usual, every time I try to remember how I “met” someone online, I can’t seem to recall how our paths crossed.

But I will tell you this:  it was no accident we met.  One time last year we were supposed to meet in person when I went to visit my brother in VA but somehow that fell through.  I know you’re going to enjoy getting to know this special lady who has the heart of an angel, the energy of the universe and God-like wisdom.

Shall we call out to her?

Alright, let’s do it.  SHARMAINE, EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR YOU!  COME ON OUT FROM BACKSTAGE NOW!

1. One of my favorite questions when I want to learn about someone is by asking them to give me their 5 second introduction when I pose the question: “What do you do for a living?”

I earn a living as owner of “Your Homebuying Coach” my real estate company dedicated exclusively to homebuyers.  However, I am summoning up my courage to take the leap of faith to devote my heart and my life full time to my calling and love of my life … inspiring and empowering women to become who they were born to be.

Stephen’s Response:  That indeed takes a lot of courage Sharmaine.  After years of working in the same industry, it isn’t easy to make the switch to something else entirely.  Based on our correspondences over the last few years, I witnessed you take small but powerful steps in the right direction.  You’re going to touch the lives of millions of women!

2.   Tell me in 3 to 5 sentences something we can’t read in your biography or at the “About Page” at your website, whenwomenawaken.com.

Something you won’t read there about me is how much I love spending time with my beautiful granddaughter, Jaiden, who lights up my life; that I yearn to go back to Paris this year; I love touring the older mansions (like the Biltmore Estate) and I’d love to learn to roller blade (yikes!)

Stephen’s Response:  Roller blade!?!?  Yikes!  LOL.  Imagine that - Grandma rollerblading with her granddaughter.  She’ll love you for that! (if she hasn’t already)

3.  How long have you been working with  whenwomenawaken.com?

I’m a newbie and just learning my way around tech-land.  I don’t have a true blog yet, but look for one soon! I put together my website myself with the encouragement of my 11 year old nephew (he asked if I could run a business, why couldn’t a build a website).  Like me, my website is also in the process of becoming the website “it” was born to be (help!)   The site has been up for about 18 months now.

I’ve learned a lot of good blogging tips from reading your blog and from all the seasoned members of the community who rock and roll with blogging.  Some day…I’ll join you, but right now, my strength and joy is in the writing!

Stephen’s Response:  Like you, I was a tech newbie when I first started blogging in April 2006.  Gradually I learned my way around but still have a long way to go.    As for the last thing you said, it’s important to nourish what you know to be your strength and joy.  I’ve been privileged to read some of your stories and they were awesome!

4.  What is the real reason you started whenwomenawaken.com?

The real reason I started whenwomenawaken.com was because all my life I wanted to do something to empower women, but I never did.  The first spark came in 1983.   I had a vision to one day open a spa called ‘Metamorphosis’ that would specialize in transforming the body and spirit of women.  I wrote out a detailed plan in a red notebook that I managed to hold on to during the many twists and turns, ups and downs of my life, but I didn’t do anything with it.

When I turned 50, I took a much needed pause in my life to go within.  On the outside everything looked fine, but underneath, there was a “low rumbling of discomfort and discontent with my life and myself.”  What started out as two weeks off to move into my new home turned into six months.    Those six months turned into a process or what I call my “Metamorphosis”, where I journaled, prayed, drew and read.   I took the journey within and received some much needed inner healing. I reconnected with myself.   This time off transformed my thinking and my life. I found my true and authentic self and took off the mask. I sensed it was time to do something for womankind.

One day, while in my attic, I found that red notebook from 1983 (22 years later) and I knew it was time… and I felt ready, to begin my journey of reaching out to encourage, inspire and mentor women. It felt as though my whole life’s journey had been leading me to this point in my life.

I felt full to the brim and overflowing with womanhood, life lessons, inspiration, and words of encouragement and had a burning desire to “short cut” the journey for other women using what I had learned in my own life.  I wanted to put my voice and my message into the world.  So all of this led to me starting the site.  I felt I just “had to”  to inspire other women who may be ready to throw in the towel, women who have lost their way, women who need to be restored and renewed, women who are heartbroken.

I want to encourage women to draw a line in the sand and say “no more”. The site is a platform for my message…  ”You can be the woman you were born to be” the woman you know yourself to be deep down in your heart.    You can create the life you’ve imagined, things can turn around for you, you are beautiful and precious, smart and savvy and you have a divine recipe that no one but you has.  For all of these reasons, I started a website.

It has been a double blessing as I myself became the greatest beneficiary of it.

Stephen’s Response:  To put it very simply, you went through something similiar to what I experienced in responding to God’s call to do something.  Some people respond to that inner calling almost immediately and take action right then and there while others let it fall by the wayside only to pick it up again.  Sounds like that’s what happened to you.  The interesting thing about that is everything has it time and place.  The universe knows when it’s “perfect” to carry out something.  Since we all have free will, if we can’t take inspired action when we’re prompted to, the universe will bring it back to us in some other way, form or shape, and try to get our fractured attention.

Brilliant journey!  I love how it’s evolved for you.  What happened to you can serve as a lesson for others to truly be open to hearing God’s call.  They say God calls everybody but not everyone chooses to “listen” or “heed the call.”  Congrats Sharmaine, you’ve heeded the most precious call of your life!

5.  One of the reasons why you’re being interviewed, Sharmaine, is because you come across as someone who I’d like to meet in person.  Your writings reflect a source of honesty and inner wisdom.  That means I perceive you as an authentic writer, an important prerequisite for this interview.  How did you become like this?

Thank you.  My life journey has honed me into the woman I am today… my faith, the setbacks, the bounce backs, the disappointments, the despair, the triumphs, the victories and the breakthroughs all carried valuable lessons within them.

About 12 years ago I began connecting the dots to my life, something I had not been able to do up until that point.  A crack of light came through and I received a revelation!    Suddenly life made sense! Before that there was a lot of struggle, a lot of lack, a lot of frustration and a lot of tears.  What I had to embrace is that everyone is going through something and many people are going through much more than I was.

I’d always felt that I had such a tough life until I heard the stories of women in my  Sisterfriends group…one who had survived cancer eight different times and lost both her children before they were 20!  Another who lost her brother, mother, father and her husband by the time she was 50. My own daughter-in-law lost both her parents before she was 12. Things like that helped to put my own pain or problems into perspective and to see it’s not so bad after all…someone is always worse off than we are.

With the help of a mentor I was able to find the thread that unraveled my life and use the very same thread to weave it back together again, which made it all the more precious and beautiful because of my rich experiences which I was able to embrace instead of resist.  This is my Life University.     They were part and parcel of what made me the person I am.    So my wisdom came from what I suffered and then what I learned.

My mother has also been a great and wise mentor in my life.  She started molding me early on, teaching me right from wrong and shaped me by telling me always listen to the voice inside,  to use my own mind and not be a follower.  She put the emphasis on the right things when I was growing up, character, integrity, honesty and that was instilled in me as a child.   She gave me a strong sense of self as a little girl.  We had very modest means growing up so I didn’t have a lot, but this taught me to be grateful and fully appreciate whatever we had.

As I grew, matured and “awakened,” life started making sense to me.  I figured out that I was “in training” or boot camp, being prepared for my life’s work and that I was not being “punished”.  Life was “prequalifying me” like in the real estate business.  I had to be able to “qualify” before I could have what I wanted or do what I wanted to do with my life.   I started “getting the lessons” from each experience.   My walk with God and my strong faith kept me sane and strong, and gave me the resiliency to keep getting back up and to keep on trying on the gray days of life especially on those days when I thought I couldn’t take one more thing or one more disappointment.   That hope, that faith or “inner” knowing…that strength within me, kept me going until one day the tables finally turned!  Life is just an endurance race.

My writing is an heirloom or legacy of writing from the heart from my father and grandmother.  They had only grade school educations, but were powerful writers and orators.    They had a way with words that came to them easily and effortlessly.  I am thankful for the gift of writing and I am grateful for the ability to say exactly what is in my heart and of course it always helps to write about what you know.

Stephen’s Response:  I’m simply stunned by the power of these words.  They mirror exactly my own philosophy of life.  In “20 Ways of Looking at Life from a Different Perspective“, I mentioned how all of us are life’s perpetual trainees.  You’ve taken that a step further and added that we’re being “pre-qualified” for the future.  Everything we do today is in preparation for the future and that goes for all the hardships, adversities, experiences and whatnot.

Yes, life is an endurance race, indeed.  Except it’s not really a “race” because I perceive it as a journey to be experienced and enjoyed with the various twists and turns that you speak of.

6.  If I were to ask you to dig a little further, how would you define who you really are from a spiritual sense?

I am a Christian, a faith-filled woman on my spiritual journey, committed to yielding my life for a higher purpose.  I view myself as an instrument for God to work through.  Whether it is through the gift of encouragement, or the gift to inspire, or the gift to empower, I will use my God-given gifts to help the people on my pathway.  I want my life and how I live it to be my testimony, to “be the message.”

To get to this place I had a lot of growing to do within my own self.  I had to “lay myself on the altar” so to speak to allow God to chisel on me.  I always wanted the “other person” to get it together until I found out that “I” was the one who had to make the changes.   Some of the hardships I experienced also chiseled on me.  When I took the look within and saw my  own frailties and shortcomings, it became so much easier to have compassion for others because I realized  how much I needed it myself.    Finally I am happy being who I was born to be and feel full and even an overflow of joy in my life.  There is no one else like me!  I love that!  I know that God has my back, he is with me, and he directs me and empowers me to do what I do.  If it wasn’t for God I don’t know where or who I’d be today.  Developing a direct connection with him is the cornerstone for the woman that I became.

Stephen’s Response:  In other words, you’re a spiritual being having a human experience.  I totally get that.  Yes, we are all instruments of God to carry out whatever mission we came here to do.  Yours is to empower women.  Mine is to empower people in general.  We’ve all been given a divine gift.  The biggest secret, I’ve found, is to discover what you’re passionate about - chances are that has something to do with your life’s mission.

The beautiful thing about this discussion is that I don’t feel in any way form or shape we’re talking “religion” here.  We’re talking about our inner spiritual journey.  I know from my own experiences that there’s something larger than life guiding and supporting us.  I’ve had too many so-called coincidences (which in my view are not really coincidences, they’re part of the divine plan) and other “miracles” to support the view that there is something “larger than life power surrounding us.”

I’m fond of saying the best direct connection to God is through prayer, faith and trust.

7.  What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?  Given?

There’s lots of good advice I’ve received:

• My mother telling me to follow my own heart always was great advice and that I could use my life to be an instrument.
• My mentor asking me “What’s the lesson?” It was a life changing question for me and it revolutionized my life.
• My grandmother telling me to “go back and hold my head up high” after an incident happened at work with two of my co-workers. I thought I couldn’t face it, but then and there I learned to face things and not run away from them.
• The quote “in every adversity there is a seed of equivalent benefit or opportunity” is another “mantra” that changed my life.

The best advice I’ve given:

*Don’t give up.  Life is an endurance race and if you can just stay in the race and keep taking steps, you’ll get there.  Remove failure as an option.

*It’s not about “them.”  Run your own race.   Your life is a journey that you alone must take.

*You have to pay a price either way, pay it and get what you really want from life.  Don’t settle and don’t quit.  You’ll never know what is on the other side of the adversity if you don’t pay the price.  You never know who you could be if you stop now.    Pay the price, keep taking steps toward your future and win.  Your adversity or your challenge is the only thing that stands between you and your destiny.  Go over it, go under it or go through it, but get the prize!

*Accept responsibility for your life and your choices.  Become awake and aware.  The good news is if you make choices that mess up your life, you are equally empowered to make choices to transform your life.  Your knight on the white horse is in the mirror.

*Love who you are.  You are an original, priceless, a masterpiece!  When we come to that awareness about ourselves something marvelous happens.  There is an inner peace and an inner light that comes over us and our countenance changes.

*March to the beat of your own drum.  If everyone is going right, go left!

Stephen’s Response:  Your mother was a WISE woman.  You’re wise too!  Love your life quotes.  I like in particular what you said about paying the price.  It’s true.  We have to pay the price on the way to our dreams.  They don’t necessarily have to be horrible experiences but more like life lessons designed to prepare us to take responsibility.  I actually wrote an article about this subject.  Let me see if I can find it in the archives.

Ah yes, here it is - ever dreamt or fantasized about being rich and famous?  Well, here’s why you’re not rich and famous yet!  “Why It Takes Longer to Manifest Your Dreams via Visualizations“

8. What do you consider the proudest achievement in life?

The questions seem so easy when I read the interviews, but are harder when you are the one answering them.  I beat the odds.  I refused to be a statistic.  I was a single mother at the early age of 17 and I raised a son who is a prince, a great son, father, husband and a man of great character and integrity, handsome and full of humility.   I did not finish college, but I have excelled in my life anyway.    I’ve been able to follow my own heart, my dreams and use “compensating factors” to bring out the best in myself and create the life I wanted and am now encouraging women to do the same with their lives.  I bounced back and found a way to make a living after losing everything.

I beat the odds is my greatest achievement. I used what I had and didn’t think I was “lacking something”. My greatest achievement…I didn’t quit. I believed in myself no matter how bad things looked. I knew in the end I would make it, somehow with God’s help.

Stephen’s Response:  I love “I refuse to be a statistic.”  Wow!!!  Yeah, I’m pumped about that one.  There’s such raw power in those words.  You sure did bounce back.  Maybe that ought to be the title of your next book, article or manifesto.

(Turning to the audience):

Let’s give Sharmaine a round of thunderous applause here.   Thank you Sharmaine for sharing a piece of yourself with us today.  It is because of interesting people like yourself who come on the show that this interview series continues to be a strong part of Adversity University.

Until next time, enjoy!  Continue to Part II with this amazing woman!

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