I love to dance. When the opportunity arises, I’m in. It doesn’t matter whether I’m tired, it’s been a long day, or I have the time – music, specifically the high energy kind – changes my mood and redirects everything to action for me. Time disappears, friends on the dance floor are made easily, joy and laughter flow. It’s like…
What if we all lived each day the way we want to be remembered? What choices would you make differently? Who would you include? What would you do? Where would you go? How would you approach situations differently? What would you focus on and how would you approach each situation? Reminder: life isn’t a dress rehearsal.
Discipline. It’s not a popular subject. It often gets confused with punishment. It’s not at all the same. Discipline is closest in my mind to commitment. The kind you make to do something even when it’s challenging; when it’s not convenient; when it’s unpopular; when you’d rather not. It’s a rare thing to witness discipline in action. Ask anyone who’s…
Patience is a virtue most people I know sincerely struggle with. It’s something results oriented, fast-paced, get it done, “I’m filling my calendar to the max,” people find hard to conceive of. And yet it’s the place where a majority of the “good stuff” in life finds you. When you’re not pushing, hustling, efforting, and “making it happen.” It’s in…
We are blessed. We work to maintain a chosen family and all of us contribute to the success of how we connect, spend time and care for each other. Every gathering moves us more deeply into a connected and unified space. Some days are better than others, yet we succeed or fail together. As we pass another celebration, we are…
Unplug. It’s vacation for me this week. Though I intend to unplug, I don’t always succeed. As a small business owner, it’s rough to let go, unplug and truly let go. There are few of us and the demands are many. What I realize is the more I let go, the more my team steps up. It’s counter intuitive for…
Time to think. It feels like a luxury, and yet, it’s where you can solve the toughest of situations. When you create space, the space reveals what you need to create. When searching for a resolution to “too many” great opportunities, clarity on what to say “no” to, and what aligns with my vision for the future, I needed to…
When you enter into a conversation with strongly opposing views, how do you stay neutral? For me, it means I need to suspend what I know and believe during that conversation. The process of suspension means I hold my assumptions, beliefs and opinions out for examination with a willingness to be influenced. The critical words above are “willingness to be…
Questions are a leader’s most powerful tool. When you lead well, you learn to ask more than tell. There’s a distinction between teaching and leading. For the team, they can become blurred when the leader blurs those lines. Teaching means showing, telling, correcting, learning, and generating. Leading is involved, but the outcome is clear: transition competencies and accountability. For many…
Benjamin Franklin said, “tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” How many times do we as leaders tell or teach people and land in frustration when those we’ve told or taught don’t execute in the way we’d expected? If I was a betting person, I’d say it’s better than 80% of the…