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Copeland Rebounds with Advice to Others
By Lesli R. Forbes
The State Journal

 

A Charleston consultant is publishing a book based on the philosophy that attitude is how you react to what is happening to you.

Deborah Copeland, president and CEO of Work Smart Business Consultants, wrote the self-help book “Attitude Therapy.” She advises readers to make a goal to overcome personal challenges, she said.

“For me, it started as a business support book to my seminars,” she said. “As life went on and different things occurred, suddenly there was a way to share and to validate the teachings I had and put it to the test.”

Throughout her life, Copeland, 52, has suffered many setbacks: decades battling illness, including an immune system disorder and a brain tumor, and the loss of her mother as a teenager.

“I started writing this book 16 years ago,” she said. “But it has evolved into more than a workbook. There are chapters of personal tragedy, not just illnesses but childhood as well.”

Copeland said she wants to share with readers that they can survive personal challenges if they realize the importance of a positive attitude.

“I didn’t know what a lifetime of disappoints it had been,” she said. “I am not wired that way. If I was somebody listening to this story, I would say, ‘Oh, my gosh, it can’t be. There is no way somebody has that kind of life.’

“For me, it is survival. If this book encourages one person sitting on a sofa one night who was just diagnosed with a disease or dealing with the loss of a close friend and this motivates them and illustrates that there is survival, my job is done.”

At 13, her father left the family, her sister went off to college and she was left at home to deal with her mother’s cancer diagnosis. As a teenager, she was her mother’s primary caregiver, driver her to doctor’s appointments at 14. Her mother died when she was 17.

“I had tunnel vision,” she said. “No matter what happened, I never believed that she would ultimately die.”

By 25, Copeland was raising a young son after a failed marriage. During the same period, she was diagnosed with lupus, a disease that suppressed her white blood cells and made her more susceptible to illnesses. For years, Copland was continuously in and out of hospitals, battling health problems.

“Over the years, especially early on, there were a lot of hospitalizations,” she said. “I got used to being a patient. In the early days, I would always go to the hospital, but then got conditioned and realized, ‘I can fight some of this on my own.’ So I meditated, prayed and sucked it up so I wouldn’t have to be hospitalized so much.”

Copeland received her GED and attended Morris Harvey College, now the University of Charleston, where she later became a P.A. To support her young son, Copeland worked three jobs for several years to pay the bills.

“But at the days’ end, I just wanted to be the best mom I could be,” she said.

Despite her medical ailments, Copeland’s hard work flourished into multiple career ventures. With an entrepreneurial spirit, she acquired Smart Personnel in 1981, which later evolved into Smart Temporary Services. Nearly a decade later, the staffing company had grown from one employee to 4,000 providing staffers for businesses in seven states.

In 1994, she sold the staffing firm, allowing her to concentrate on training, professional development and attitude therapy with individuals and businesses. Today, Copeland speaks to small businesses and Fortune 500 companies around the country about her setbacks through life and her thoughts on how she survived.

Meanwhile, Copeland met and married Don Lucci, a Charleston businessman. They now have been married 23 years. Lucci also had a young child, and they had another child together. The couple also has adopted three children.

Copeland said her large family has been a source of constant support as she went in and out of the hospital with health problems.

“They were always there for me,” she said. “They are sweeter people and more concerned about the world because of everything they went through with me.”
Nearly six years ago, Copeland had a seizure and doctors found a non-malignant brain tumor. She said they also found that she had suffered several mini strokes as well.

For a year, she couldn’t drive herself because of the chance she may have another seizure. Copeland has been in remission for almost three years, while doctors continue to measure the brain tumor to ensure it doesn’t become a problem.

“I brought out the book and worked on it a lot that solid year that I couldn’t drive and go out and do things. I got a lot of work done,” she said.

At the same time, her original lupus diagnosis was changed to the mixed connective tissue disorder, a disorder of the immune system that has the symptoms of multiple autoimmune diseases, including lupus.

During her more than two decades battling illness, Copeland said she found that a positive mindset allowed her to maintain control.

“I would go to the doctor’s office in my running clothes after running, and my doctors would be amazed that a woman with my problems could do the physical activity,” she said.

She said with any setback, you have to have the hunger and desire to rise above it.

“Through my book writings, I want to show them that there are people who have overcome challenges and teach them that they need to focus, as they would on their golf game or if they had a heart attack and were in rehab, on their attitude, their soul, their needs and realize they can do it.