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I recently lost a friend and mentor, John Lovorn, owner of  The PACE Group. Over the years, John freely shared a lot of wisdom with me in hopes that it would be helpful to me and my business. He even had a short book published called “Wit and Wisdom” with inspirational quotes and lessons that he often gave away. There are certain pieces of his advice that I have adapted into my business and life that have helped shape me into the businesswoman I am today. To honor his legacy, I’d like to share some of these with you today. Do everything with humility. John had many things he could have boasted, but never did. But he did share many wonderful things his customers were doing. He challenged me to put the customer first on an even higher level than anyone else ever had. There was a quote in his

Back to school time is such an exciting time of the year. I LOVE school supplies shopping. (Yes, I realize this is totally nerdy) Really good writing pens, planners, mechanical pencils, highlighters. I get excited just thinking about it. And there’s so much more to be excited about. Finding where your desk is, learning who your teacher and classmates are, your outfit for the first day of school – EVERYTHING! I get to relive this excitement year after year through the eyes of my girls and I cherish seeing their excitement. But it’s been many years since I’ve felt the thrill first-hand. However, there is a similar excitement with a new job. Maybe no new backpack, but new friends, new planner, new excitement. Hopefully, I’ll never experience that again, for myself, ever as well. So how do you keep the “romance” alive in your job without the excitement of newness?

Inspired by something found on YouTube, my now 11 year old daughter, Vivienne, loves to do what she calls “24 hour challenges”. She finds a single location and commits to stay there for,  you guessed it, 24 hours without leaving. She prepares with snacks and entertainment. She takes great pride in her challenge accomplishments. She’s completed a challenge in a bathroom, several in a bedroom, once in my closet, once in a tent, etc. I don’t particularly enjoy these challenges and try my best to convince her that it’s a bigger accomplishment if she completes these without me. But I promised I’d do one with her for her birthday. So, last year I completed a 24 hour challenge with Vivienne in her bedroom. (Yes, we can take super quick potty breaks – I know you were wondering.) So this year, as Vivienne’s birthday rolled around, she began asking me when

This past Monday night, I did something that comes exceptionally unnatural for me. I accepted the invitation of a friend and took both of my girls to a dance class. I knew my youngest would love it, and thought my oldest would tolerate it, so off we went. We all learned a beginning version of the hustle. (No, don’t ask, I won’t demonstrate it for you-even if you persist.) And even though the steps were simple and clearly defined and demonstrated, I felt like a fish out of water. Totally self-conscious. Our instructor made the statement that there are 2 kinds of dancers: experienced and inexperienced. Not good or bad. Natural or unnatural. And it made me think: it is so comfortable to do the things you’re experienced at, and often extremely uncomfortable doing the new. As a business owner, I think we all need to think thru this on

I know it’s true, but it always seems crazy that a great way to get rid of water weight is to drink more water. And sharp knives are safer than dull knives – another thing that seems just wrong. When successful people buy stocks, they usually buy them when the price drops, not when it’s climbing. The goal is to buy low and sell high – yet many do just the opposite. In business, marketing is an important component of a revenue strategy. Yet I’ve heard many “not now” reasons that baffle me. “I just started up and want to wait until I have money coming in.” “My business is struggling right now, I want to wait until it’s doing better.” “We’re going to let word of mouth be our marketing.” Sometimes, it may feel counterintuitive, but marketing is actually the thing that helps solve these issues for you. Marketing,

It’s no secret that I’m married to Vitality South’s VP of Technology, Chris Elkins, and we have 2 beautiful girls, Vivienne (10) and Layla (8). This past Sunday at church I asked them to walk ahead into the building where I would join them momentarily. While extroverted little girls might have ran in without looking back, after all they have been attending this same church regularly since infancy, my little girls looked at me like deer in headlights at this request. After seeing their shocked little expressions, I suggested they hold hands and go together. They firmly grasped each others hands and resolutely marched in together without looking back. While I know that both Vivienne and Layla were independently afraid, collectively they were very, very brave. They borrowed each other’s strength. They motivated the other to move forward.  I think good team members do that very same thing for each

A couple of weeks ago, my 8 year old, Layla, pulled and gave me a dandelion as she has hundreds of times. She gave it proudly and with love, but then recalled its descriptor as a “weed” and sheepishly apologized and said “but you may not love it – it’s a weed”. We had a lesson on the meaning of weeds as something that was unwanted, and we decided that dandelions are not weeds to us because we love them. We were both happy gifting and receiving dandelions as they are beautiful flowers for us. This morning I was mowing my yard. As many of you know, this is when I do my deep thinking. I discovered a plant that I had wanted and planted growing somewhere unintended. This beautiful, carefully selected flower is now a weed to me. There is nothing wrong with it, it’s just located in the

Several years ago, I watched a faith-based movie called Facing the Giants. I have forgotten most of the movie at this point, but there are two parts that I do remember. The first is a story that a coach told the team. It was about two farmers. They both desperately needed rain for their fields and both prayed for rain, but only one went out and prepared the fields to receive the rain. As a business owner, it’s sometimes easy to know what we need, but the “doing it part” isn’t always so easy. For Vitality South, we are in a season of growth. The number of projects that we are working on would have been overwhelming for our previous team and likely disappointing for our customers if we didn’t make some adjustments. So far in 2021, we have hired 7 new quality employees, which more than doubles our headcount.

Our oldest daughter, Vivienne, was working on her 4th grade vocabulary and one of her words was technology. The definition she was given was a beautiful way of explaining the word in the way that we see it. The definition was “using information to solve problems.” A lot of times we tend to overcomplicate the idea of using technology and either our eyes glaze over in trepidation or we envision some sci-fi television scene. But the truth is, much of the best technology is incredibly simple. I feel that some companies have totally missed the boat; good technology makes your processes easier, not harder. Vitality South has mentioned on multiple occasions that we have custom software development solutions and that we handle IT, but we’ve never completely explained on this platform exactly what we do. But I do feel that the simple definition sums much of it up. Yes, we

We are very excited to welcome our new VP of Technology, Chris Elkins, to the team. Chris brings so much to the table, and with him, we are rolling out all kinds of technology services to help the community. He is an expert in IT, cybersecurity, and software development.    Chris has a wealth of experience in technology. He has been working on computers since he was a teenager. After working in IT companies in various states, he moved back to Tupelo to work at Journal, Inc. (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Mississippi Business Journal, and various local newspapers) where he served as IT Director for 5 years. There, he was head of the technology infrastructure, programming, and development teams, and in charge of the deployment of ad technology for web and mobile across many high-traffic websites and mobile apps. He developed the premiere, real-time election reporting technology and dashboards for

I have a friend named Richard Allen. I got to know him and his beautiful wife, Caleigh, when my sister and I visited with them in Rome, Italy. They were missionaries there for a couple of years and did many amazing things. Richard partially funded their relocation to Italy selling t-shirts that read “Do Smart People Things”. That’s an unusual sentiment for such an encouraging guy, so I had to ask about it. He worked in an alternative school before his missionary days; advising wayward youth to walk the straight line and make something of their life. This phrase became his motto in answering many questions or life choices he heard in his time such as “I’m going to a party tonight.” or “How can I make a lot of money when I grow up?”. This is the phrase that came out of his mouth again and again. So, of

Having a physical office location is a significant expense for most newer businesses. In the old way of thinking, a business isn’t a business without a storefront. Some businesses can’t function without it, but for some, I can’t seem to justify the expense of it. Let’s dig in deeper. Need it! Some businesses MUST have a physical location. A business that sells impulse physical products MUST have a physical location. For example, a coffee shop that sells ready-made drinks can’t operate effectively without a building. Also, businesses that depend upon walk-in traffic require a storefront. Don’t Need it! There are many service businesses that absolutely do not need a physical location. Pest control services, electrical contractors, plumbers, etc where the customer never comes into the facility likely do not need traditional physical office space. They may WANT a physical space, but needing it is a different thing. (As the business