Rita Ricks lives by the mantra: What I do today forms my tomorrow.
“I have to do well today so I can do better tomorrow,” she says. “Be intentional and focused. Stop worrying.”
The 77-year-old, a Jackson, Mississippi native, a mother and grandmother, has finally figured out what she is “supposed to do when she grows up,” she says. This revelation comes at a time when some people are asking Ricks when she will think about retiring.
“There is so much I still have to share,” she says. “There is so much that I am still learning.”
Ricks is a spiritual business coach, inspirational speaker, workshop facilitator, entrepreneur, and the author of two books: Permission Granted! A Journal of Spiritual Epiphanies and #Justfortoday.
Her curiosity about life and living it surfaced when she was young. “I was an Army brat. We traveled from the time I was four,” says Ricks who attended school in the U.S., Taiwan and Germany where she graduated high school. “I was all over Europe, and I loved it.”
She was also passionate about teaching. “I was always teaching somebody. I come from a long line of teachers — aunts, uncle, grandma, and Mom. It came naturally. As I got older, my brother would call me Dear Abby. People and girlfriends would come and talk to me. I didn’t recognize that as something I would be doing later,” she says.
Early Career and Evolution of Rita Ricks
Ricks began her career as a middle school teacher in Hanover. When she left teaching, she became an entrepreneur. She partnered in a fashion boutique before becoming founder and CEO of Mirror Enterprise Inc., a professional and personal development training company that has since closed. In 2005, she started Rita Ricks LLC.
“I thought I wanted to be a life coach. I was exploring that. I liked the idea of one-on-one with people,” she says.
She dabbled in life coaching for a while before deciding that wasn’t the best fit for her. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she says. “I would ask myself, ‘What am I supposed to be doing now?’”
Then she found the answer. In 2009, she enrolled in the RUAH School of Spiritual Direction where she was trained in the ministry of spiritual direction in the context of contemporary urban Christian spirituality.
Part of her training required her to spend twenty-four hours in silence, six times during her two- year training. She learned to listen in the silence. “You had to be with people but not talk, just listen. It calmed me down. I practice and use that today,” she says. “It’s amazing how much it transformed me. That was the primary piece that impacted my life.”
Ricks went in as a life coach and came out as a spiritual coach. As a spiritual coach, she shows women “how to create a worry-free life while living in joy and peace,” she says.
Spiritual Direction for Women
There are three practices that Ricks encourages women to do:
- Journal every morning. “If you have yesterday’s thoughts in your head that prevents you from dealing with today. The only time you have is right now. You should be open, focused and intentional about the present,” she says. “I share with God what I am interested in. I know what we give out, we get back.”
- Read something that motives you.
- Take the positive from your reading into the silence. “Be somewhere comfortable. I suggest wearing an eye mask and simply listen. Write down what you hear. It is in the silence where you find a solution,” she says. “You have to practice it daily.”
Ricks believes that if you don’t have access to a spiritual coach, it’s important to always study and coach yourself and in the process, find out more about yourself.
“This is what I am supposed to do, coaching and helping people align with their spirit,” she says. “That is the legacy I want to leave for my kids and grandkids.”
