A Beginner\u2019s Guide to Changing the World<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\nLosada’s story begins this way: “Sometimes you just have to do something, don’t you? \u00a0Sometimes an injustice comes along and you think, ‘No, this cannot be,’ and\u2014 rather than just sigh, switch off the TV, or throw away the newspaper one more time\u2014you know it’s time to act.”<\/p>\n
Jennie\u2019s story began when she was in college where her major enthusiasm was the work she was doing with Amnesty International. Along the way, she volunteered to organize and manage a benefit concert on their behalf.<\/p>\n
A fair amount of uncertainty, risk and challenge were involved\u00a0in this undertaking. Although the bands were playing for free, the space they were using charged $400. They needed 125 paying attendees in order to break even.<\/p>\n
Lots of phone calls followed as she lined up bands, found a venue and rallied workers.<\/p>\n
One day when I was out of town, I got a panicky phone call. \u201cMom, I\u2019ve got to know all your shoestring marketing tips!\u201d<\/p>\n
She caught me by surprise.\u00a0\u201cFor your concert?\u201d I asked. \u201cDo you have any money at all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we\u2019re going to have $180.\u201d She paused and added, \u201cSome of us are going to sell our blood.\u201d (You may have been that creative when you were 19, too!)<\/p>\n
We discussed how they could best spend the money and talked about sending out press releases. Another long distance call was spent writing the press release followed by directions on sending them to appropriate media people.<\/p>\n
We both held our breath.<\/p>\n
The night before I returned from my trip, I received an excited call. One of the entertainment papers in Minneapolis had written, \u201cThis gig is deserving…The show\u2019s a chance to be socially conscious and musically correct, even without Sting and Springsteen. Amnesty International is the hardest working and most effective crusader.\u201d<\/p>\n
I relaxed a bit.<\/p>\n
The night of the concert, I got another breathless call. The concert was a hit and Jennie was the caretaker of over $1000 in cash which she had to protect until she could bank it on Monday.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t the only reward, however.<\/p>\n
Thanks to taking on the challenge,\u00a0Jennie\u2019s self-confidence got a big boost. In fact, she immediately decided to take on another daunting project.<\/p>\n
“You can’t test courage cautiously,” warned Annie Dillard.<\/p>\n
As Jennie\u2014and Isabel Losada\u2014discovered, courage begins when you are willing to take action on behalf of those things you believe can make a difference in our frequently difficult world.<\/p>\n
Remember, you can have your dreams or you can have your fears. You can’t have both.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week my daughter Jennie had a birthday. \u00a0Not only is she my only child and mother of my adorable grandchildren, she\u2019s also one of the best and wisest teachers I\u2019ve ever had. I thought of something that Jennie did when she was in college as I was reading Isabel Losada\u2019s A Beginner\u2019s Guide to…<\/p>\n
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1167],"tags":[1179,1178,1177,1175,1176],"class_list":["post-5760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catch-the-spirit","tag-a-beginners-guide-to-changing-the-world","tag-amnesty-international","tag-isabel-losada","tag-making-a-difference","tag-taking-a-risk","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5760"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5773,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5760\/revisions\/5773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}