Take My Advice I Don't Use It Anyway

By Tammy Haldeman

Whether you are a man or a woman, if you are looking for a girlfriend to chat with here she is in book form.
If you are going through tough stuff, fallen on hard times or just need something to get you going Take My Advice I Don't Use It Anyway is that book that will make you laugh and cry and maybe pull you up by your bootstraps.
If you don't need any of those things then it's just a delightful afternoon read.
Guaranteed to have some parts you will relate to this book is like talking to your best friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tammy Haldeman
• Release date: Dec 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466095939

Tammy Haldeman

I am just a country girl who has been through some stuff and lived to tell about it. I hope that my book touches or helps everyone who reads it even if it's just to make you laugh. Laughter is good for the soul.

Book preview

TAKE MY ADVICE

I DON’T USE IT ANYWAY

by

Tammy Haldeman

Like wildflowers;

you must allow yourself

to grow in all the places

people thought you never would.

E.V.

Copyright © Tammy Haldeman 2020

Second Edition Published

Printed First Edition 48HrBooks 2012

Take My Advice

I don’t use it anyway!

This book is dedicated to my sister, Robin Haldeman Jenkins, who is one of the most amazing women I have ever met. Robin, you are an inspiration to everyone who knows you. Your strength and faith and attitude are incredible and something I wish I could give to everyone.

To Lisa, thank you for your unending support and believing in me even when I didn’t. You are such a special person and friend. Thanks for volunteering your contributions.

To Lynnie, thank you for being my lifetime friend, honorary sister and editor at large.

Thank you to Heather Estay, author of its Never Too Late to Get a Life. Thank you for teaching me that you can write the same way you talk and giving me so much creative license without even knowing it.

A one-sided girlfriend to girlfriend discussion about life and some of the things we encounter along the way.

THE EMPTY NAPKIN

So there I was sitting in the airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota trying to figure out how to eat my meal in a box thingy. Seriously, how does one gracefully, or any other way, do that? You have to rip the sides of the box just to reach the food and then there is still too much box left for it to resemble a plate by any stretch of the imagination. To my left were two young people working a crossword that looked to be very much in love. From my forty-year-old eye they looked to be about twelve.

Although I am sure in real people years they were eighteen or nineteen. In front of me was a chubby Colonel Sanders looking guy in his gold power tie trying to eat his meal in a box while attempting to appear as if eating at the Gordon Ramsay in London.

I am positive I looked like exactly what I was…a forty-year-old in sweats, Tennessee sweatshirt, Life is Good cap and slip on Rocket Dog tennies I bought about a minute and a half before boarding the plane because I forgot mine at home.

You see I do things like that. I buy sweatshirts from the places I visit and I impulse shop for tennies when I realize I have forgotten mine and I will not wear dress shoes with my sweats and I will not wear dress clothes traveling home from business trips. I believe it to be taboo.

I was jotting away on my napkin and taking bites that were a little too big. I was waiting for the plane that would take me a little closer to home; having just attended the year beginning meeting. It was March.

Doesn’t the year still begin in January? Even the WalMart year begins in February. It was about the time that Colonel Sanders got up to throw away his empty box that I realized there were actually places in the airport that sold notebooks and if I were going to continue my thought process I may want to give up on the napkin idea and graduate to honest to goodness writing paper.

I was returning home from a meeting that was supposed to be motivational. It was! As I sat there being inspired by the likes of Gene Kranz, flight director responsible for Apollo 13’s safe return to Earth and entertained by Garth Brooks and motivated by famous, motivational speaker Krish Danham’s protégé, Joel Zeff, it occurred to me that I was actually inspired and motivated! In fact it hit me like a ton of bricks. No wait. Stupid analogy.

It hit me like when you are on vacation and you realize you left the stove on and everyone that might have a key to your house is with you and you have to frantically call your sister to have your brother-in-law break in your house to turn it off. That is how it occurred to me that I was inspired and motivated.

However, it wasn’t inspiration and motivation that would cause me to do more as a leader for the multibillion-dollar company I worked for. It was the kind of motivation and inspiration that makes you want to do it for YOU! It was the kind that makes you say I can do more. I can be more. I can leave my own legacy. And all of a sudden it didn’t matter that I was forty. It didn’t matter that I was divorced. It didn’t matter that I was not from some rich or influential family.

What mattered was that I had that plain white napkin sitting on the table right beside my meal in a box and I had a pen in my purse! I could either sit there and wish I had a lap top with me or I could grab that unused napkin and fill it with the thoughts I had flying around in my head. I could start jotting. I could fill the napkin. I could go buy the notebook. I could do what others had done.

At some point the Zig Ziglars and Krisha Dhanams of the world had sat in a DQ in an airport with their own empty napkin just waiting to be filled with either the remains of their meal in a box or their inspirational thoughts they would later share with the world. Which would I do? At that very point I decided that I was not going to waste this year’s inspiration and motivation on anyone else.

I was going to use it on the person I knew I could be. I was going to be the person who Krisha Dhanam and Joel Zeff told me they knew I already was! Suddenly I knew what my passion was. I couldn’t define it exactly. I could only do the napkin outline, but it was getting clearer and clearer and soon it would be notebook worthy and eventually it would become laptop quality. I would have written on the plane but instead I took all that new found passion and fell soundly asleep!

What Gives Her the Right?

So what do I know? What gives me the right to tell you anything about your life? What are my credentials? Let’s just cut to the chase. I don’t have any. I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a sociologist. I am not a psychologist. I don’t have a B.A. from anywhere. I only know what I have lived through. I only know what I know.

If you are looking for some professional that has lived the perfect life with the same husband for over thirty-five years and has two wonderful children in college and a great career to