"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."
Confucius
For Pegi, "going with all your heart" is a way of life, impressed upon her from childhood, in an era when local two lane roads were being replaced by four-lane, limited-access roads referred to as super highways. At that time only a handful of contractors were building them. Her Dad was one.
"We moved along the future routes of the new roads...about every 60 miles to keep Dad's commutes to a minimum" Pegi recalls. One year she attended three schools in three different states. "It wasn't until later I realized some folks felt sorry for me because of this lifestyle. Yet I'd felt sorry for my friends, who were stuck in the same place, not adventuring to new places or making new friends. Happiness is just a perception."
Pegi relies on a positive attitude. "The way you feel now creates your future. Being happy and positive brought me many opportunities I might otherwise not have noticed," she said. Such as the rare chance to be tutored by Normal Rockwell. "No tangent lines! No tangent lines! Walk the eye into your drawing. And keep your story intimate," Rockwell once wrote her.
Pegi notched out a career in marketing and graphics, working with national accounts and winning 18 Addy Awards for Excellence in Advertising. "If you're not feeling happy, do something quirky to raise your spirits. Little things work. I used to hide fake frog in client's photos. I imagined the frog was magical. It must have worked, my business soared!"
Believing in life's magic paid off again in 1984 when Pegi left advertising to begin a ladies clothing line. Soon her appliqued jogging suits were in the hands of Mary Kay and Tupperware reps, she had her own branded section at JC Penney and was shipping to Japan and Germany. She produced exclusive private label designs for Hallmark and Cracker Barrel. "But I let the workload get to me. I forgot my own rules about staying happy - so tragedy stuck."
An accident left her near death. "Well, it seemed like tragedy at the time," Pegi recalls "but it was what I attracted." A year went by before she could return to work, only to find her business in ruins and a quarter million in debt. It was time to put on a positive attitude, get happy and dig out" she says.
Ten magical years later, Pegi sold a once-again thriving business. "Nothing is more important than how you feel. Even when they tell you you're dying. It's how you live."
"The next most important thing you can do is imagine. If you feel lousy, imagine you feel good. It works! Imagine fully, like a child, be happy and watch life become a magical adventure."
"Imagination is the true magic carpet." Norman Vincent Peale