I’ve been listening to Tom Petty tributes  this week coming after his sudden death from cardiac arrest just after the conclusion of his 40th Anniversary tour.*  His song “Runnin’ Down a Dream” never fails to trigger days in California spent doing just that in the ’90s, when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers seemed always at the top of the charts.  Petty’s songs are often called the “soundtrack for our lives” by many generations, including mine.   It really took leaps of faith to keep up with the twists and turns in my career.  I ultimately called those California years “living life ahead of the curve,” since that’s how much you had to leap to keep up with the changes in Silicon Valley then.

Fast-forward: Last year I got involved in a series of BNI (Business Networking International) chapters in Michigan with inspiring entrepreneurs, currently the Business Referrals Chapter in Clinton Township  —  and we are constantly asked to share our business goals.  Mine is to continue those leaps of faith in my life to find the new career paths in both communications and meditation that will keep me energized and productive.

We now live in a time of political division when many newsmakers charge that America’s innovation is losing out to China and other rising countries in the East.  Yet I’ve been  meeting a new generation of inspiring students both in the South as part of the Scholarship program for my late husband Tim Robinson at Samford University’s journalism department in Birmingham, Al – and in Detroit  as an alumna of Wayne State University, with the opportunity to spend time with young Honors College students.   I’m also proud of the soaring ambitions of the most recent high school graduate in my family, my great niece Julia Graham, who will be pursuing photography as a major at the College for Creative Studies on the Wayne State University Campus.  Yes, I believe both in America’s current entrepreneurs and in the next generation.  Dream on and maybe try listening to Tom Petty.

http://www.legacy.com/ns/tom-petty-obituary/186827469

http://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-genaro-molina-tom-petty20171004-htmlstory.html