Day 17: Mary Ann Pine
“… if you actually look for it and you focus on the things that are right about them, people will always live up to your expectation. So when you look for and you pay attention to their wonderful ideas, their imagination, the good decisions, the positive personality traits, it really boosts them up to a higher level.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so very much for agreeing to be interviewed for this project, Mary Ann, and before I ask you the four questions, can you introduce yourself?
Mary Ann Pine: Oh, I’m happy to, and I want to thank you for allowing me to be interviewed; I’m excited to participate in this amazing project. It’s an amazing thing that you’re doing. I have so much admiration for you in taking this on, because I think now more than ever inspiration is so needed and wanted in this day and time, so congratulations to you!
Toni: Why thank you very much!
Mary Ann: Well, my name is Mary Ann Pine, and I am just so many different things it’s kind of interesting to think about how I would even introduce myself. Career-wise, I am a personal life coach but between all of that I do a lot of other things like speaking. I’m a speaker, and I’m an author, and I’m a mother and a grandmother and a wife and so my family is very important to me. Those are the most important things that I would like to share with everyone for now, as far as myself goes.
Toni: Well thank you very much, and that is a nice lead-in to the first question, which is: When you think about either the work that you do or the people that are around you, who do you think you inspire, and how do you go about that?
Mary Ann: Well, I’d like to think I inspire my children; that would be very important to me. That is important to me — to be an inspiration to my children — but also I love inspiring others who may have either given up on their dreams or they are so discouraged that perhaps they are close to giving up on their dreams. I’ve been through ups and downs just like you have, and I’m sure everyone listening. We’ve all had lots of ups and downs — some worse than others — but even just a couple of years ago, I was in just a really deep depression because I had a lot of debt that I was responsible for after a business failure, and I floundered for months, and finally I made the decision to take charge of my situation and get the debt paid off. Four months later, I had eliminated $10,000 in debt, and now I like to make an effort … I really try to inspire others to live debt-free and to get out of debt. So many people are suffering now, and there is a way out. You don’t think that there is, but there is a way out, and so I like to let people know that. So that’s one of the main things that I like to do as far as inspiring others just to not give up, and also to live up to their very best by getting out of debt.
Toni: Now when you go to that, and you help and inspire others to never give up based on your own life experiences and to be debt-free, are there tools or resources that you use? How do you do that?
Mary Ann: Well, I learned so much whenever I was in that particular situation. Bankruptcy was not an option for me, so I had to figure it out for myself, and when I made the decision … More than anything, I would like for people to understand that, anyone that’s listening, if you’ve got something you’re dealing with, make a decision that you’re going to resolve it, and then you start looking for solutions. That’s how I live my life. That’s how I’ve learned to live it — through that situation. I began looking for solutions, and all kinds of things came to me, different things. I listened to a course on how to get out of debt. My husband helped me work out a budget. I started working a lot, 7 days a week, things like that. Eventually I learned so much about the credit industry and everything, I did write a book on how to get out of debt. There are specific steps. But there’s lots and lots of tools out there. The main thing that I see, Toni, is that people will hear about something or read something, pick up a book or a course and they think it’s great, but they don’t apply it; and I have done that so many times. I’ve got courses on my shelf of things that I purchased and I didn’t do anything with them. So that’s what you have to do – it’s like take the bull by the horns and do something about it.
Toni: With that spirit in mind, that’s one approach that you use as far as inspiring others and how you do that, and then what do you do to help them explore their potential?
Mary Ann: Well, you know, what I found is that so many of us tend to feel badly about ourselves. We’ve made mistakes and we have a poor self-image, and one of the best ways that I find is to look for the potential in others; talking about exploring the potential, well if you actually look for it and you focus on the things that are right about them, people will always live up to your expectation. So when you look for and you pay attention to their wonderful ideas, their imagination, the good decisions, the positive personality traits, it really boosts them up to a higher level. An example of that was, years ago, I worked for a grocery store chain, and I had one manager that was mean as could be. He would yell at us in front of customers and berate us, and you didn’t want to do anything for him. And then I had another manager who was kind and thoughtful, and he wanted the best for us, and we all bent over backwards to be good employees for him and to support him; we had his back. But it’s the same thing.
Toni: So it’s the recognition of the gifts that are already there that will encourage the gifts that are to come.
Mary Ann: Yes, yes … and what happens, as they become happier or even myself, even if I recognize my own qualities or I recognize a quality in my husband or anyone, what happens is they immediately get a little boost. It makes them feel good, and they become happier. Toni, that causes a ripple effect. It affects their family, it affects then their friends and then into the community. So just imagine if we all did that what a difference it would make now.
Toni: Absolutely. Let me ask you, Mary Ann, what do you look for, for inspiration? When you’re seeking inspiration, where do you go? What do you need?
Mary Ann: I have a very strong faith in God, and I look to Him for guidance in my life, and I pray to be tuned in with God and ask that He show me each day how to live the best day that I can. And then I just love to talk about spirituality. That’s what really revs me up. And when I’m with my friends or my sister — I have a great friendship with my sister — but anytime I can sit with friends and we talk about spirituality, it seems to take me to a whole new level. And when I say spirituality, I just mean there are so many discussions and topics about how we can improve ourselves or just lots of different topics on spirituality. I apologize for not being too clear on that. It gives me an opportunity to take myself to a whole new level, and I have realizations. I have personal realizations which help me improve myself and also helps me have understandings and realizations about how I want to live my life. It gives me a whole different perspective. So I always want to be moving upwards spiritually, and that’s what really speaks to my soul. And also, I love hearing stories about an older person or older people who have had a major success later in their life, because I’m getting older and this inspires me to keep going and keep moving and keep going.
Toni: What do you do when … You’ve spoken very passionately about your spirituality and that that is where you find your inspiration and then also mentioning that looking for older people that have also had the successes late in life. What do you do to explore your own potential, to take yourself to that next level?
Mary Ann: I really like to challenge myself to learn new things. I think the tendency sometimes when you get older is to start slowing down, and I never want to slow down. So I feel like if I challenge myself all the time, then it’s like renewing myself all the time. And I saw recently, Toni, that my dreams are way too small. I have lived my life playing too small.
Toni: How do you know?
Mary Ann: Well, I guess in talking with other people and hearing what their dreams are or what they’ve accomplished, and then I look at my own life and I think that I lived probably more fearfully or lived in a manner that I felt like I … of unworthiness, or it could never happen to me, or other people that’s great for them to be wealthy or travel or things like that, and I’ve changed my attitude. I don’t want to settle anymore. I want to live big. I want to live large, I just want to live bigger and have more excitement. As I get older and older, I want to travel more; I just want to live a bigger life. I don’t want to start living small and paring down. So that is what I believe inspires me to keep going and to be, I guess, living more up to my potential. I just don’t think I ever really lived up to my potential when I really looked at other people’s dreams, what they accomplished. And, you know, mine was fine. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with it; I just feel that I lived small, and I want to live bigger.
Toni: How do you think, Mary Ann, that correlates back to how you inspire others? I’m listening to you say that, you know, that you’ve just realized that you’re dreaming too small and that it’s time for you to … you know, you won’t settle, and that you’ve got to … I heard you earlier say when I asked you about exploring other people’s potential you said that you don’t necessarily explore, but you have them define what they are about now and what positive attributes that they have in recognizing those. So how does how you explore your own potential and learning that you’re not going to settle and dreaming bigger, how does that help you inspire others?
Mary Ann: Well, I think I can be a great example for others. I think particularly, not just women, but I think as women we tend to put everyone else ahead of ourselves. We tend to take on so much responsibility that we forget about ourselves and our dreams. Not always; men can do it, too. We all take on a responsibility as an adult, and sometimes I think we get trapped in just the way things are. You know, you get into the routine, you get married or even if you’re single, you have your job, you have your responsibilities, and eventually we forget about living. And so one of the things I’ve been talking about lately is to not get into that. To go into an awareness and not get caught up in the routine of just living and just existing, because what happens, Toni — this is what I tell people — you’re going to look back. When I hit 50, Toni, I went “Well, wait a minute. This isn’t where I thought I would be. I thought I would be rich, famous, and thin.”
Toni: Oh my gosh! Mary Ann, I have to tell you, listening to what you’re saying, what I’m hearing is that you basically are using your own life experiences and that is providing the inspiration and the vehicle within yourself and probably most likely your spirituality is guiding you to inspire others so that they don’t settle, so that they do not deal with mountains of debt and if they are close to giving up, to not. Based on what you’ve told me, why you are exploring your own potential over and over again and the things you need to inspire, and they are so closely related with what you have said.
Mary Ann: Yes, exactly, you’ve hit it exactly right. It’s not just about debt, it just about our life in general as well.
Toni: I think it’s fantastic, and I think that you have absolutely given the readers and people who are listening to the audio sound bites and information that they can learn from and that they can benefit by, and I so appreciate the fact that you were willing to be part of this project and the information that you have shared here; and I so appreciate that.
Mary Ann: Oh, thank you so very much for sharing this experience with me. It was a pleasure being with you today.
Toni: Thank you very much, Mary Ann; take care of yourself and I hope we speak again soon.
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For more information about Mary Ann Pine: www.maryannpine.com
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