Internal Drive, Monday's Warm Cocoa, 17 November 2025

“She and her example created my internal drive!” – Carol Silva Moralez

Internal Drive

“Excellerate Foundation and Walton Family Foundation joined leaders from local academic institutions and major employers to connect the region's untapped workforce to skilled positions in high demand industries,” Carol Silva Moralez said as she began to talk about the non-profit she leads.

The Upskill NWA mission is to connect under-employed and under-represented non-traditional students with their dream careers. They provide access to education, offer coaching and mentoring to navigate the educational system, connect individuals with essential “wrap-around services,” and ultimately help them to secure higher-wage jobs with healthcare partners. They change lives!

Since 2022, 373 people have enrolled and 88% percent of enrollees and stayed in the program. 87 participants have graduated since 2022 and 90% of graduates have been placed with employers. But, perhaps the most impressive program result is that graduates have secured 132% percent increase in household income!

Carol’s presentation had ignited inspiration, causing me to wondered after her personal path and its impact on this remarkable professional and community success. So, I sought to have a quiet, personal conversation with her following her formal presentation.

“You seem to have a very personal connection with your work,” I offered.

“Yes,” Carol responded. “For much of my life my mother was single and struggling to provide for us. I watched as she studied each night after a long day of work. Then, I watched her get a new position as a result!”

She went on to say that her mother’s hard work set a valuable example for her and when her mom got that new job, as a result of her extended effort at night, it was a major milestone for the whole family. But, that wasn’t the end of what her mother wrote on Carol’s internal drive.

“My mom kept working to improve her skills,” Carol said with tears starting to build in her eyes. “I watched her walk across the stage to get her bachelor’s degree when she was fifty-five!”

By this time Carol’s tears were running down her face as she re-lived this momentous life-changing experience.

“You’d think that was the biggest moment I shared with my mom, but it isn’t. She never stopped guiding me. She knew me better than anyone. She knew me better than I knew myself.”

Carol’s mom kept telling her she was a teacher every time Carol shared a conquered educational or professional milestone with her.

“I graduated from college. I got my first management position with a major global business. Then, I was hired to run a whole division at that corporation. My mother was proud of me, but she kept saying she knew I was a teacher and she could not be prouder,” Carol explained.

“When I received this position as CEO at Upskill, I knew that this is the teaching and mentoring my mother knew I was meant to do. Even though my mother is no longer with us, I know she’d tell me this is my purpose! After all, she and her example created my internal drive!”

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I’m Lynn Butterfield, Real Estate & Lifestyle Expert and Television Host for American Dream TV. I’ve helped hundreds of Buyers and Sellers, as an Associate Broker with Coldwell Banker, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve what I call Realesation™. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14AsoipiePjMdj7ds-f80BAGFyGWst-em/view?usp=sharing

Goodness Currents, Monday's Warm Cocoa, 1.10.2025

“I just feel like I’m working really hard and nothing is happening.”

Goodness Currents

The conversation started on the telephone. It lasted for more than an hour. I could hear the worry and frustration. I could also feel her pain as my friend described the background of circumstances she faced.

After we ended the call, to my surprise, the conversation shifted to text.

“Do you have some have some time?” 

I responded with a quick, “yes.”

Her next text asked, “You don’t think I’m doing a terrible job, do you?”

“No! I think you’re doing a great job! You have two great kids. They’re happy and health and you’re well respected professionally,” I typed back.

Then her fingers stroked, “I just feel like I’m working really hard and nothing is happening.”

“That’s the way life is. It is, often, as if you’re fighting to stay above water and not making progress. Then, suddenly you find yourself surprised, almost magically, by being pushed along in a stream of amazing progress. When this happens it’s as if you had nothing to do with it. But you do! You’re doing very well. Just keep up doing the small things every day and you’ll find real progress when you least expect it,” were the words tapped by my fingers in response.

When my fingers came to a rest I thought, “how I wish I understood these seemingly invisible currents of life.”

Even though I don’t fully understand them and can’t see these currents with my eyes, or map them on a piece of paper or computer, I see the results of their existence regularly. I see their impact along my own path as well as on the path of others. Just as in the life of this comfort-seeking-friend. 

Life currents seemingly serve as a principal pathway of exchange both individually as well as with groups of people and even cultures. And, these currents are often strongly constrained by individual decisions and actions. They can even be noticeably obstructed when a large group of people decide to alter their offered goodness. Such obstructions show up throughout the history of our world. I’m sure if you take a moment you’ll be able to identify monumentally negative shifts of these currents locally and globally.

Counter balancing positive shifts are often more difficult to identify. But, if you reflect within you’ll be able to identify helping currents throughout your own history. Once recognize them and keep practicing, you’ll find yourself being able to actually feel life’s invisible, helping current pulling you along.

Even when life is not going well at a moment, the practice of identifying goodness currents will provide you with reassurance of their continuous, helping hand. That assurance will propel you along with a knowledge that goodness is on its way.

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I’m Lynn Butterfield, Real Estate & Lifestyle Expert and Television Host for American Dream TV. I’ve helped hundreds of Buyers and Sellers, as an Associate Broker with Coldwell Banker, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve what I call Realesation™. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14AsoipiePjMdj7ds-f80BAGFyGWst-em/view?usp=sharing

Super Hero Help, Monday's Warm Cocoa 11.3.2025

“My wife called me asking for help.” – Chris Hobgood

Super Hero Help

Chris Hobgood just got new neighbors. They’re so new that he and his family don’t really know them yet. They simply haven’t had enough time to get to know them since they recently moved in. But, that didn’t stop them from being great neighbors a couple of days prior to Halloween.

“We’re going to dress as ‘Scooby-Doo Where Are You!’ characters,” Chris said as he described how members of his family, including their three dogs, were going to dress to impersonate characters from the beloved late-sixties and onward cartoon series. The series features a group of “kids” who solve mysteries while helping others.

“Oh, and did I tell you what happened a couple of days ago?” Chris nonchalantly asked, as if foreshadowing his Halloween character “Fred.”

“My wife called asking for help,” Chris recalled, while describing that call received in the middle of the afternoon.

She was calling because she heard a distressed child crying outside, next door. 

“Some people would do nothing, because they didn’t know the child,” Chris continued. “But this small six-year-old girl needed someone to offer her comfort and my wife stepped up immediately.”

Chris put his business on hold and began his drive home so he and his wife could begin to solve “the mystery of the crying child.”

Upon his arrival he found the little girl enjoying treats and adoring dogs. All three of his dogs had surrounded the girl and were offering her wagging tails and comforting kisses. No wonder the dogs had been selected to be members of the family’s Scooby-doo cast for Halloween!

Chris and his wife enlisted a few other friends to come to the rescue as well. They’ve developed deep relationships with members of their community. Even close friends who are local police officers came to help, just because, “that’s what neighbors are for.”

As a result of caring neighbors and dogs the mystery was solved quickly. The girl’s teen-aged sister had simply been delayed at school and was relieved to see all of the support their new neighbors had given her young sibling. They’re not living amongst strangers anymore!

They moved into a neighborhood filled with superheroes. And, last night those heroes dawned their costumes and alter-egos in public. Alter-egos are generally fictional personas or characters used by an author, artist, or public figure to speak for them or represent a hidden side. This is most common when discussing superheroes. But not here in this neighborhood.

The Hobgoods and their neighbors are the real deal! They offer superhero help, disguised as regular people and celebrate their character in costume one night each year.

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I’m Lynn Butterfield, Real Estate & Lifestyle Expert and Television Host for American Dream TV. I’ve helped hundreds of Buyers and Sellers, as an Associate Broker with Coldwell Banker, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve what I call Realesation™. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14AsoipiePjMdj7ds-f80BAGFyGWst-em/view?usp=sharing