About three years ago, I heard about a state certification for Minority, Women, and Emerging small businesses. Many of the states processes were still very new and there seems to always be more questions than answers. I remember sitting for 14 hours 8:00am to 10:00pm one day working to complete the processes. Uncertain if I had answered all the questions correctly, I hit the damn send button anyway. I few weeks later I received a notice that I had received my certification. Now what, I asked. A year ago's by and nothing. March 9th, 2015, I was reviewing the letter and email stating that it was time to renew. Reflecting on what felt like a big waste of time, I thought about it for the rest of that week. On Friday March 13, 2015, I received a call and an email from a representative of the City of Portland. The messages was, "Hi Naim, this is K....... from the City of Portland and I saw your name on the MWESB list and we're wondering if you'd be interested in working with the City of Portland. Please give us a call."  Shocked and surprised, I called her back and gathered details and about what was required by the City, which was the most frustrating and rewarding process all in one. Like, needing General Commercial Liability Insurance with coverage unto One Million dollars. 1,000,000.00. I'm thinking Holy Sh......., I'm just taking photos, not doing demolition.  So, I called my agent and explained the situation and he basically said, "Sure, that $540.00 for the year." Shocked by that answer, I asked him to explain,  because I'm thinking to myself, this is going to cost me a fortune.  Yes, he reassured me that it was only $540.00 per year and emailed both parties a Certificate of Insurance. Within two weeks, I had my first contract. Fast forward to 2018 and several small contracts later, we just signed a 5 year agreement $100K on-call agreement, with Bureau of Environmental Services , Ba  separate contracts Parks and Recreation (5 Year $50K) and Bureau of Transportation (5 year $100K) and Procurement Services. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be doing this work with the City. Let alone with four (4) different bureau. Truly a wonderful blessing.

So, the moral to my story is, don't get overwhelmed by the perceived difficulty in whatever work is required. We have to do our part to prepare ourselves. Then let go and let God, the universe, Buddha, or whatever you call that force working in our lives, connect the dots.  It reminds me of a question I heard once. How many seeds are in and apple? and How many apples in a seed?  Just plant your seeds.