Weekend that Changed My Life

You might be thinking of possibilities that are out of your limit and how would your life change? Thinking let’s escape in this story as there is possible better then how my life is current situation is going. Well, yes, read my story but with a clear understanding that there is a golden road out there you just need to open your mind up for the opportunity to take it!

In April 2019, I was seeing the brutal end of what seemed like an endlessly two-year program at Algonquin College. Brutal more because the course load was pressing us students to accomplish the very best that we could become in Baking Management. Students were so deeply in pressure to accomplish, and the competition to be seen as the star students of the class was so high, that some students take out their venting steam at other students. Raising children and an overnight working husband to help me arrive for the early class wasn’t the easiest piece of cake. Yet, here I was… I graduated from college with a two-year diploma. My mind was like saying “Finally now its over! Possibly now I be recognized?”

I passed out my new resume with mentioning to my brand-new diploma, 12 years kitchen experience and extra volunteering experience. Employees give me hits, asked me to come in for interviews. Yet, there was no real leads and my dreams were being shattered. “Why did I go though all the training and diploma course, if none of its going to amount for anything?” I thought.

A month passed; I was sitting in the black leather coach of my mother’s Living room. My mom was sitting on the coach In front of me over her computer working on her signature program that she been revamping for six plus years. My mom states breaking the silent room with “Your sister has done it to me again! Now she refuses to pay her full portion of the rent, which is nine hundred and demands to only pay me five hundred for the whole house per month. Plus, she has damaged my property!”

My mom owns a four-bedroom house, and my sister wanted the whole house to herself for five hundred dollars per month. My own rent, at this time, per month was for a three-bedroom apartment at the time was on market for one thousand thirty dollars and it considered to be the cheapest price in Ottawa. I thought to myself for a moment.

“Mom, my husband is currently summer vacation with work at the moment, and I am on my college summer break. What if, you and me go down to your house, we kick out my sister from your house. I will even pack up to spend a month at the house, to babysit it until you can resell it to your next tenants.” Eagerly said to my mother thinking it would be a way out of the horrible situation and eventually get the drama at the house to end, so my parents could see a road ahead. My mother and stepfather both looked at each other, talked it over and in about an hour we all agreed. My mom and I would be packing up to take a trip to remove my sister, like the next day.

By this time, it really thought to myself her business was never to take off and if it took her this long to create a program, with the amount of cash that she ‘thought’ she had put towards it. We watched as my mom obtained $100,000 from veteran’s affairs, and in less then two months it was all gone. My husband and I often talked about it in hush voices for years, looked at each other and muttered between ourselves if my mom couldn’t make a functional business at that much money when we are scrapping away in hundreds a paycheck month to month, there is no way we ever be able to have a function business.

So, there I was in the passenger seat of my mother’s SUV driving from Ottawa, Ontario down to London, Ontario. During the trip we were discussing the plans about how we would be removing my sister from my mother’s house, considering what my sister might try to pull over my mother’s head and how that might affect our plans. When I arrived, I had no idea what we were in for. My sister apparently had the only key to the house, so we were forced into an overnight hotel for a week, trying to remove my sister from the house on damaged property.

“Come see your mom get on stage and receive an award!” stated my mother in this week long hotel room, this opening claim opened a revenue of opportunity that changed my life. We drove to Toronto, Ontario the day before the end was to begin, my mother was to test out the stage. Eating lunch at the hotel, just finishing some fish and chips when this man walks around the wall corner wearing jeans and a blue sweat shirt, with short black hair and heavy-set appearance.

You could tell by his demeanor that when he enters the room, no matter what he is wearing, the room wants to get to know this man. “Come meet, my coach!” My mother exclaims now standing beside him. I arose from my chair in aghast open feeling, shocked in amazement. “Hello, my name is Stephine Ricker.” Reaching out to shake his hand being all proper and formal introduction. To my amazement he rejected the handshake, and gave me a hug instead. Instantly, it took me back home to how my father, enters and greets people, including myself. In fact, I felt so much at home at the moment, I almost forget my purse at the table. Ha-ha!

We all went downstairs to see the stage room together. On the way there we were introduced to the Author of ‘101 Ways to Thank a Veteran’.

My mother practiced on stage then asked me, “So how do you think I did?”. In response and out of respect from her coach standing right directly behind my mother, I respond “Why are you asking me, when your coach is right behind you?”. He gives the largest smile ever and nods in my direction. In that instant, I felt the largest pride in my heart thinking I made the right move there.

Then my mother turns to her coach, when he states his wisdom upon us. I believe at that he has become impressed with me. I got the Elite VIP ticket to his event. There I was, a no body just given the red carpet treating to the stars for the event. Wow! Was I ever jumping with a heartfelt of pride at that very moment! He stated to me at that moment “I want you there, enjoy this weekend, and soak in everything you could possibly learn from this event!”

We returned the very next day really early, at least an hour before the event was suppose to begin. The first day everyone showed up in business wear, I think my mother somehow missed the memo as we were there dressed for the red carpet a day early. Ha-ha!

I remember looking for my badge to Elite VIP pass among the others, noticing how one of the Elite VIP tags didn’t have a necklace with it. I wasn’t sure who to tell about it, so I mentioned the problem to the Host. “I have people who take of that for me” He told me; I remember that crystal clear. Thinking about how that would feel to be the person who would correct that problem for someone like the Host, silently wishing I could fix the problem so the honored guest would have their necklace ready for them when they arrived.

It was an inspiring occasion learning everything I could possibly take in with laptop and cell phone ready to take pictures of anything, that would load fast enough to download to Facebook. My mother spoke on stage twice that day, both of which the main guest speaker noticed. In fact, the judges to the completion that my mother took part in.

The judges were renowned motivational speaker's daughter. For more than 15 years, seven-time national award-winning publicist and author who has been a media powerhouse, booking his clients on local and national television and radio shows, in daily local and national newspapers and magazines, and in online news outlets. And lastly a man has over $500 million in sales globally, more than 30,000 commercials.

Second day, there I was preparing for another day of lots of action preparing my electronics, when who would come over to the table to say ‘Hello’ by a TV Star. Standing over the other side of the table, she said “Hello, what is your business?” The look of shock on my face might have scared her, as I wasn’t an entrepreneur at that time, nor did I think I would be. My response was, “I am here with my mother”. You would have seen the smile light up on TV star's smile, then I got the opportunity to take pictures of TV Star and my mother.

The second day was just as amazing and maybe a little more special with the astonishing dresses and awards given out to the Authors. The event was so capturing that the magnetic feeling everyone got that day made it hard not to smile and remember it for a lifetime to come.

There was a special lunch for the Elite VIP to eat with the stars of the event. The event was very giving, the VIPs were allowed to join the Elite VIPs for dinner that night. Not even half way though the line up we were running low on meat, not sure what do, and knowing the stars were at least ten people behind me, I took a chance! I approached the Host’s mother-in-law who was standing among the stars for the event, and said, “I am approaching you, because I don’t know who to speak to. I thought you should know. By the time. you’ll get down the line up there will be no more meat left.” The Host’s mother thanked me for letting her know, and got the Chef right away to correct the issue.

Later after the meal, when the Speaker on stage had finished his high ticket offer to learn from one of the stars. I sit there in despair knowing how much I wished I could take his offer, and how my bank account was sitting in the negative. The Host’s mother-in-law remembered my actions from earlier and approached me directly with the pink slip to the Speaker’s coaching. I was shocked! Not at all something, I would have figured would happen!

Then, it hit me hard. All this wonderful feeling was going to end and I would have to go home to a possible untold future where I didn’t know what would happen. Then I could remember my Nana’s and stepmom’s teachings to me when I was a young child, “Put on your big girl’s panties and go approach the host!” So, I did. I personally told him that after his event is over, could he explain to me, how he went to homeless to millionaire. As I desperately need a way out for my children and myself, and I needed his guidance. The Host said “Don’t you worry, I have you!”

A week passed, I helped my mother remove my sister from the house in London, Ontario. During our time in London, Ontario. The employers from the job interviews finally did reach me. I had been offered an overnight baker job at Tim Horton’s. Two-year program and twelve years of experience in the kitchen, and it all amounted to end up in a job that a high school student could have accepted. Personally, it felt like a huge slap in the face! So, I rejected the paycheck job.

My mother and I left London, Ontario to our way home to Ottawa, Ontario. The Host asked us to make a lunch break from the road to meet him for lunch. My mother was astonished when her coaching session with the Host became a two-part coaching meeting with me also, and he paid for our lunch. “I know how you can become useful.”

The Host began to respond to my question. “Work with your mother for a bit, then come work for me.” My eyes become huge and shocked, really that weekend wouldn’t amount to one opportunity that wouldn’t end? I would be back again? I could hardly believe it! Maybe he had noticed the attention I paid to his event. You see, just prior to the event he had just fired his event organizer and would need to fill the position up with someone better fitted for the position. I had no idea that I just been basically been interviewed for a career!

Life began to change from that moment onward, as the Host became true to his word. The special daughter even noticed me among the crowd with the daily video blogging I was posting on Facebook, that she spoke out my name among the crowd of International Authors. I got voted into the inner circle from support from the daughter, the Host and others, before I even wrote my first chapter.

I worked for my mother unpaid for over a month, when my mother decided she no longer required the Host’s coaching. The Host decided he really liked what I was doing that he offered me a contract to work for him, and still be coached by him. I still remember that day, it was one of the happiest moments that my husband and I shared. My husband really began to understand that I wasn’t just dreaming, that there was a golden road ahead and it led with what I was doing for the Host. The golden road to financial freedom was being paved for us, my husband just needs to learn to trust.

The Host also helped me invest into the best coaches that money could buy to aid me with becoming better fitted for my new career. The public relations provided me with his high scale coaching program for public relations to teach me that best way to address the media relations to put my clients in the best light for media connections. The marketing expert taught and helped me score my first ad to address the public about my company Ricker’s Promotion. I have had the high honor to remain good friends with the daughter. Ricker’s Promotion, named after the weekend that changed my life.

During that 2019, the Host had me help him launch his High-End Mastermind Weekends in September and October, where I learned how to give two min and fifteen minutes speeches about my company. I learned the foundations of a solid business, well as the high impacting efforts that people buy for months, even years, of coaching to receive.

The Host aided me in learning the fast track to success with making me a four times International Bestselling Author and Guinness World Record Holder, who has been in magazines and other productions with the even more world known coaches!

Years later, I have been able to successful able to put my family out of poverty, and now owning our own house. We also now also own a real estate company, and help out other poverty members in our community. This all was thanks to the Host who took the first opportunity chance on me. We really couldn’t have been able to successful do it without his guidance and support!

Next time the opportunity in your life comes a knocking would you take it?