Posts

Trust at 125 mph

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When you tell people that you are going skydiving – you will get an opinion. The good. The bad. And even the ugly. The best part is the expression on each person’s face when you say you are going skydiving. It is almost comical.  First you see the absolutely stunned expression, then the immediate response. “You’re what?!?” Or, “I have always wanted to do that!” Another common one, “I would never, ever jump out of a plane.” As my husband says, “I would never jump out of a perfectly good plane.” Someone even told me that they always wanted to go skydiving, but their significant other wouldn’t let them because it is an act of ultimate selfishness (in case something goes wrong). Let me back up a bit. My son just turned 18. For his birthday, he wanted to go skydiving. My mom said, “Yeah, me too. Let’s go.” My niece said, “You’re going skydiving? I want to go too.” Skydiving is not something I would have ever done, but this was different. I am not in any way a thrill-seeker or adren
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Passengers

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I like to read books and I like to watch movies. I recently came across the movie, Passengers , about a journey through space to a new home. The heart of the drama is about two passengers asleep in suspended animation who wake up 90 years too early when their ship malfunctions. As they face living the rest of their lives on board, with the lives of 5,000 sleeping passengers at stake, they navigate heart - wrenching decisions about life, death, and the will to survive . Life, as it turns out, doesn’t look exactly like they think . At the end of the movie, Aurora Lane, played by Jennifer Lawrence, said, “ You can’t get so hung up on where you’d rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are.” This is profound. I am someone who likes to strive for something better. For the StrengthsFinder 2.0 gurus like myself, this is all about my Maximizer Strength. I can get so stuck on wanting something better for me, my family, my friends, and my clients, that I lose sight of w
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Purpose-Driven Work

It was the end of the week and I was feeling tired, a little overwhelmed with all of the work yet to do and the new work coming into the pipeline. I mean, it is all good in the bigger scheme of things. But when you are in business for yourself, there is no one to take the extra load. I know I am not alone in this – I hear it often from my clients as well. In last week’s post Checkmarks , I talked about connecting with the bigger purpose of our work in order to minimize checkmarks for the sake of checkmarks. This week’s post builds on this concept of purpose-driven work. I had the opportunity to write an article for the Maple Grove Voice , a website that brings local news, events, and happenings in Maple Grove and the surrounding communities Maple Grove Voice . I am hoping the words I wrote will find their way into the newsletter, but even more important to me is the experience I had while answering questions about my business. The energy and passion that came through was amazi
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Checkmarks

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It feels good to check off the items on the list. The more checkmarks, the more progress. I mean, that's what it is all about, right?  But days go by, then weeks, then months, then years and you ask yourself, "Why?" What is the reason for the flurry of activity, for all of the checkmarks? I just had a revelation recently about checkmarks - quite literally. It started when I lined up all of my tasks in the OneNote app in the Microsoft Office Suite. I love OneNote. It feels so organized and I can see progress when I click the box and a checkmark appears. Yet I could feel myself getting pulled into a flurry of activity and organized chaos that was leading me down so far into the weeds that I lost sight of why I do the work that I do in the first place. Awareness is a good thing. So is the choice to move forward differently. I still make checkmarks in boxes, but now I ask myself, "What does this progress mean and how can I relish the experience even more?" So I
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