Remembering Wendy
Only 1,439 days to go...
I dreamt about Wendy the other night. I hadn’t thought about her in some time.
Wendy was my office manager, when I began a new chapter in my life by becoming a real estate agent. She passed away from cancer almost fifteen years ago, only a couple of months after my mother died. That was a very hard year for me with two of the most dynamic women to have ever graced my life, leaving this earth in rapid succession.
At the time, I wrote about Wendy on my real estate blog:
This week was a particularly difficult time for all my colleagues in our office. Our beloved office manager, Wendy, passed away…
To know Wendy, was to love Wendy. She was larger than life: loving, caring, loyal, tenacious, smart, joyous, enthusiastic, warm, generous -- magical. Wendy did everything in a big way -- even her signature would take up two lines. Once you became part of Wendy's team, you stayed with her. Agents may leave the business or leave the area, but they would never leave Wendy.
…She took great pride when lots of agents had sales -- she didn't think an office with just a few superstars was healthy -- she wanted every agent to be successful. As Stephen Covey would say, she had "an abundance mentality."
In 2006, her real estate office was the highest producing office in all of Lake County. In February of 2007, she left that office to start-up a brand new one with a different brokerage company. It came as a shock to many in her former company and some didn't take the news very well. Having had a corporate background, I didn't find the move particularly shocking or hard to accept. I called Wendy and asked, "When do I start?" It was not difficult for me to change brokerages. For unlike many of the agents, who wanted to affiliate with a sure thing, I didn’t care that there no physical office… I could work from home. I had joined the first brokerage to be on Wendy's team, and that's where I wanted to stay.
When Wendy began the journey of creating the new office, it started with her vision. She was going to create a beautiful space and a loving and supportive atmosphere. She was going to recruit agents who would work hard, play hard and share and support each other. Slowly, lovingly and with amazing tenacity, Wendy created this beautiful place for us to work. For her to make this dream a reality, she had to push through so many obstacles from reluctant landlords, city bureaucrats and commissioners, false rumors, unkind and even vindictive behavior against her. She never wavered. She focused on the vision. She created an amazing office from nothing.
Within three years, she built a team of over 50 agents and we had become the #2 office in town.. Pretty amazing..
…Wendy was often underestimated by her competitors. I'm not sure they realized how really smart she was. While I loved her effusiveness and enthusiasm, it was her intelligence that I really admired. While she was warm and loving and supportive, she was also a brilliant marketer, strategist and business woman. As a consultant, I worked for a lot of different people throughout my career -- some good, some bad and some great. That said, Wendy was one of the best leaders I've ever known. She knew how to surround herself with a wide variety of people and personalities and bring out their very best qualities…
I was talking with a friend recently, whose sister is MAGA. Apparently her sister has multiple luxury homes and lives quite comfortably. I believe my friend said that her sister also receives farm subsidies from the Feds and considers herself a Christian. Apparently, they got into an argument about aid to the impoverished, and her sister said something to the effect of, “I don’t want my tax dollars going to those people.”
I wonder, if the reason I dreamt about Wendy, was because of my friend’s telling me about this exchange with her sister. For Wendy was truly one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. She believed that “more was more.” She was constantly giving her time, talents and treasury to others. She lived the Christian ethic.
"Give, and it will be given to you…" Luke 6:38
Throughout our history, America has grown and become the wealthiest nation in the world while simultaneously being one of the most generous. Abundance creates abundance. I think about Herbert Hoover's American Relief Administration to feed Europe after World War I; or the Marshall Plan which provided economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe; or the Berlin Airlift that supplied West Berlin with food, fuel, and other supplies for 15 months; or more recently George W. Bush’s President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and help save lives from those suffering from the disease. Though the U.S. has been the single-largest aid donor, accounting for more than 40% of all humanitarian aid that the UN tracked in 2024, the amount of aid we have given amounts to less than 1.5% of our annual budget. (I encourage you to watch the included video.)
We have lived large in this amazing country with its remarkable generosity for decades. Now the folks in charge want us to become small and selfish. They want us to “stick it to” our neighbors and take aid away from those, who are in need. “For Donald Trump…the division of the world into those who win and those who lose is of paramount philosophical importance to him, the clearest reflection of his deep, abiding faith that the world is a zero-sum game and you can only gain if someone else is failing.” (Source: Zero-sum Trump)
"Scarcity will not save us. Abundance will." ~Andrew Yang
It’s difficult to build things. It takes vision, courage, intelligence, humility, enthusiasm, commitment, tenacity, generosity and love. Sadly, today we don’t have many builders in Washington… only wrecking balls.
Life is not a zero-sum gain. Despite what Fred Trump drilled into his son, a good life is not about winning. It’s not about acquiring and accumulating. And it’s not about taking, but rather it’s about giving and sharing.
More is more. Abundance creates abundance. Give, and it will be given to you.
I’m sad, that there are so many in our country, who just don’t get it.
We need more Wendys.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“How simple it is to acknowledge that all the worry in the world cannot control the future.” ~Gerald Jampolsky
What I read every day…
Quote of the day:
“Whatever problems exist with American development assistance, there is no excuse for proceeding the way Trump and Musk have.”
~ Matthew Yglesias
What I’m reading today…
The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats
The role of the ultra-wealthy has morphed from one of shared social responsibility and patronage to the freewheeling celebration of selfish opulence. Rather than investing in their society—say, by giving alms to the poor, or funding Caravaggios and cathedrals—many of today’s plutocrats use their wealth to escape to private islands, private Beyoncé concerts, and, above all, extremely private superyachts… Even in Gilded Age America, with all its injustices, and where the pursuit of wealth was hardly condemned as sin, society’s richest members were expected to use their riches to benefit the public in times of crisis.
With Aid Cutoff, Trump Halts Agency’s Legacy of ‘Acting With Humanity’
Global health experts said that the future suddenly looked uncertain, even dystopian, and struggled to articulate alternatives…The damage extends not just to the health of people abroad but to Americans and American businesses. Along with the roughly 100,000 positions cut overseas, an estimated 52,000 Americans in 42 states have lost their jobs.
A DOGE of one’s own: GOP-led states want to guide Musk’s cuts
Republican leaders across the country are embracing DOGE. But they want to make sure their states aren’t harmed by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s cutting spree. Republicans in the states are eager to embrace the cuts that are rocking Washington and are establishing efficiency groups of their own. But they’re also aware that federal money has long filled state coffers, and an abrupt reversal could send state budgets into a tailspin.
Trump’s Wrecking Ball Comes for Foreign Aid
It’s too early to say what the Trump administration ultimately has planned for USAID. But their attempt to shutter the agency has done immeasurable damage—and risks doing even more. USAID is an integral part of the global aid system, upon which millions rely. If it effectively shuts down, the human cost will be catastrophic.
Trump’s Funding Freeze Creates Chaos and Financial Distress for Farmers
It’s unclear exactly how that process is linked to what’s happening at USDA, but farm groups across the country report that the agency has stopped their disbursements and has been silent about when the pause might end.
‘We Are in Disbelief’: Africa Reels as U.S. Aid Agency Is Dismantled
In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development… the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.
The Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate USAID is many things: an unfolding humanitarian nightmare, a rollback of American soft power, the thin end of a wedge meant to reorder the Constitution. But upon closer examination, it is also an outbreak of delusional paranoia that has spread from Elon Musk throughout the Republican Party’s rank and file.
Betrayed: How Trump’s Tariff Threats Tore the U.S.-Canada Bond
President Trump may have paused his plans to impose crushing tariffs on Canada, pulling the two countries back from the brink of a trade war. But evidence abounds of the damage Mr. Trump has inflicted on the relations between the two nations.
Some Head Start programs face confusion, system errors after Trump funding freeze
Head Start programs around the country are experiencing problems accessing funds. “Without the ability to predictably pay the rent, buy the food needed to feed the children, and meet payroll, our entire operation is in jeopardy. And the ones who suffer the most are the children in our care,” Yasmina Vinci, National Head Start Association executive director, said in a statement Friday.
Federal buyouts affect Asheville’s NOAA office
The ruling impacts North Carolina’s 23,000 federal employees, including about 4,000 in Asheville. Among them, 175 work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with most based at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), which houses one of the world’s largest climate and weather data archives. Craig McLean, who spent nearly 40 years at NOAA and led the agency’s research division, told BPR that the interference could disrupt day-to-day life and commerce. He said the Asheville office, a repository of the country’s climate data, is essential.
Abandoned in the Middle of Clinical Trials, Because of a Trump Order
In interviews, scientists — who are forbidden by the terms of the stop-work order to speak with the news media — described agonizing choices: violate the stop-work orders and continue to care for trial volunteers, or leave them alone to face potential side effects and harm.
This Isn’t the Donald Trump America Elected
Trump’s targets do not suggest strength. Picking on Panama and Greenland or threatening trade wars with Canada and Mexico has the feel of a schoolyard bully looking for someone smaller to push around. While these fights may offer immediate political wins, the world does not live and die by the rhythms of American news cycles or the alternative reality of Fox News and OANN. It looks at us from the outside in and sees a president ignoring state sovereignty, which has been the cornerstone of global stability since the World Wars — and doing so at a time when Vladimir Putin is trying to subsume parts of Ukraine, Xi Jinping is committed to asserting control over Taiwan, and some Israeli politicians are pushing for annexation of Gaza and the West Bank, all under the guise of national security.