Advantage Taken

By Frania G. Gutierrez

After getting divorced at a very young age, a single mother of three children found the courage to bring her kids to the United States on her own in search for a better future. Even while having to face many challenges, she never lost her focus to see life from a positive perspective by taking advantage of every situation, overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams.

Her strong faith in God enabled her to tap into a powerful truth; “Yes, you can. Feel the fear, and do it anyways!”

As a mother, entrepreneur, and business development coach, she now shares her treasured story to motivate other people to take action and transform their lives to accomplish their dreams!

Frania is the founder of Resourceful Mindset LLC and a Non-Profit called Beauty in Power Corporation, which helps to empower women as well as single parents with kids through the knowledge of information, to overcome obstacles that will help them achieve another new level of success, and living a better life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638143406

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Early Stage of Exploration

A Resourceful Young Woman

Discovering Stage

The Rainbow Group

The First Love

Losing Her Trust

God Transform Lives

The Turning Point

A New Beginning

Fear Makes You Feel Trapped but Gives You Courage

Courage and Determination

Seeing the Light During Challenging Moment

A New Journey of a Single Mom

The Epiphany Moment

Proximity and Confidence

The Comeback Season

Achievement Is Joy

Restauration Is a New Change

The Power of Taking Action Is Courage

Going to the USA Requires Discipline

The Execution

Overcoming Fear

Discipline and Persistence

The Breakthrough

The Miracle

Exponential Growth

Discovering Season

A New Journey

The New Schedule

Retrospective

Counting Some of Many Blessings

Their New Start

Approval to Get More Busy

Believe and Take Action

Doing the Right Thing

The Unexpected Date

Growing Together as a Family

What Success Really Means

Discovering Your Power

Believing the Unpredictable

Giving an Act of Faith

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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Advantage Taken

Frania G. Gutierrez

ISBN 978-1-63814-339-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63814-340-6 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Frania G. Gutiérrez

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

To my three angels, Jason, Jhonathan, and Diana. You three have been the greatest gift of my life. And to Elias who has been the fruit of my blessings.

Accreditation

A special thanks to my beloved nephew, graphic designer and artist Evan Gutierrez, who took the time to illustrate the message in this book. Each drawing beautifully communicates the message of each chapter.

Keep going! Dream big; I believe in you!

Introduction

There's a gap between who we actually are and who we want to become. From a young age, I discovered the power of proximity. I used to observe how meaningful it was to listen to other people's stories, such as where they came from, how they grew up, their past stories, or any meaningful journey that was important to them. I didn't know anything about living a life with a purpose that people usually mention over and over either in church or from those clever individuals that talk about how to live a healthy life and the power of the here and now. I only knew that there was a lot to learn in life that people called life . It was a long journey, and I didn't know either where to start or who I wanted to become.

Time passed by, and I must remember being a clever young girl. Back in the day, my parents used to call me the Bible because I used to know everything. That's what my dad said. He used to ask for anything he wanted, especially about math. Once I provided the answer, he would say, Of course she knows. You see, she is the Bible. I was barely five years old. I used to feel inflated on my own knowledge. As a child, I was more worried about not making a mistake than focusing on my childhood.

I actually did not know anything about pride until my thirties when I found out that this is the way, in some of our cultures, our parents raise narcissistic children. I think I was one of them though. I am fortunate to never repeat the same behaviors with my three, then five wonderful children. Three because of my own and two that I helped raise from my marriage.

In life, things start changing when we discover that there is something more than what we can see. We become more susceptible to seeing things from the top, and we must understand what the purpose is in order to appreciate the process. We create self-awareness and recognize that there is something bigger than us that allows us to see transformation and growth in other human beings. We learn how to put a seed underground and wait till it grows because we know that one day it will turn into something marvelous.

As parents, sometimes we say things to our children that we have no idea how that should be uncoded in their brain. Let's be used as an example: When sometimes we see something wrong happen, and we need to tell that person how to prevent these things from happening again, my question is do we consider the time, the place, the tone of our voice, the environment, feelings, and so many factors before we communicate, or do we just tell it the way it is? The same thing happens to our children—I would say even worse—especially in cultures where parents are not well educated, and their priority is just feeding their kids to race them until they reach a certain age where they are able to become productive to help their parents or other siblings. I know that many of us that are reading this book can relate to that—for example, people that had to find their own way by themselves: fathers, mothers, sons, or daughters of someone that did a lot for them, but finally they were able to make the decisions and make it happen on their own. I am talking about resourceful and resilient people.

I would like to take action by asking, if you consider yourself a resourceful queen or king in any area of your life, please take this time and pat yourself by saying, I don't know how. But heck yes to me, I did it!

Resourceful people are different. They have the virtue to open doors. It is the result of a tremendous effort to accomplish what they want to achieve.

I hope you enjoy this book. It is a journey of a real human being with all the ups and downs in life from a young age until she finally was able to face herself and discover what success really means by being resourceful at every stage of her life.

Early Stage of Exploration

We only have what we give.

—Isabel Allende

Now the Bible girl was a teenager. She became an explorer and practiced the art of speaking and persuading people by discovering the power within herself. Now she was capable of singing her dreams, dancing, and express herself with confidence. She could also approach people with no hesitation. She knew the power of words, how to be kind, and always behaved the best as possible to achieve her desires. On occasion, she used to defend herself from others that could possibly influence negatively her thoughts. She knew the importance of protecting her thoughts and her clever opinions from others. And most of all, she was a talented and educated young girl.

One upon a time, during her walk to school, there was this big house that had a lot of kids hanging around in front of their big patio, wearing uniforms. They used to stand at the garage door and look at her with sticky eyes while she passed by their place with another kind of uniform and her happy face. This place was huge, and it was called an orphanage. She had no idea what that was and nor the meaning of that word. Nevertheless, it was a huge house, a huge family with a lot of kids. The only difference was that they were always sad, and she didn't know why. The only thing she wanted was to share some knowledge and to see them happy.

One day, she had the opportunity to visit the huge house. She needed to wait until someone came with a lot of keys in his hands to open the door for her. Of course, she should provide her full name before entering the big gate with her bicycle, her skating, and so many dolls to play with them. She was excited to share with them all she had by playing the way she used to play every day at her house.

Walking through their big patio to meet the kids, it was fascinating to be getting together and play with them. The only concern was, why were they so happy during her visit? But she enjoyed all the time they spent together, especially when she used to tell the stories she invented. It was amazing to see the kids' eyes glow and the smile on their faces. The happiest they were, the better the story flowed. It was a moment full of creativity, happiness, and dreams that came true, which became reality in their life. She felt, at that moment, that she wasn't speaking. It was something bigger than her that made her speak, making their dreams come true. It was easy for them to dream like they were at Disney World. That was when she learned how to be compassionate and have empathy for others.

Fifteen years later, she found out that the place she visited, where she shared all she had learned and everything she had, was a place where kids with no parents are placed until they turn eighteen years old and are later able to live on their own and make the best of their life.

It was sad to know that something naive turned into such a learning experience. But later on, she was able to understand that their magnificent smile and happy faces were a symbol of gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation from something bigger than themselves. That moment meant the entire world to her.

Her dreams were big. She used to dream of traveling, flying in an airplane with her briefcase to go to other countries to do business. Sometimes while she was taking a public bus with her mother, she would be observing independent women's life and the way that they used to behave and drive their own luxury cars to work. That was the life that she pictured for herself. She made the conclusion that everyone is capable of achieving what they want if they work for it by becoming resourceful.

A Resourceful Young Woman

Obstacles, of course, are developmentally necessary: They teach kids strategy, patience, critical thinking, resilience, and resourcefulness.

—Naomi Wolf

Now she was fourteen years old, going to school. And here came summertime when students either stayed home for vacation or took the time to do extracurricular careers or courses. She was privileged to take courses during summertime. Nevertheless, that particular summer, she had a productive idea! She asked her mother if she could help her to make bags with some leftover materials she saw in the room. At that time, her mother had a sewing machine that she used to make dresses for her and clothes for her siblings. Then she asked her mother if she would be able to help her buy some other materials to decorate the bags and finish six different designs that she created in order to take them to the capital to sell them. Her mother did not hesitate to help her. They picked the day to buy the materials together and plan the idea. After several days of sewing and matching colors, they proceeded to finish up the six different designs in order for her