My little sister and her husband completed their first (will there be more?) ironman this past Sunday. She and her husband followed a rigorous training program for most of the past year and they were already runners/bikers/swimmers before they started. An ironman course is 2.5 miles of swimming, 100 miles of biking and then a 26.2 mile run (a marathon) to finish it all off. They start at 7am and have till midnight to finish. Yikes! How can I […]
❝Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.❞ – Steve Jobs This is from the commencement […]
“Sometimes we have to walk away from everything that has meant security for us in order to reach our dreams” – Stacy Allison–The first American woman to summit Mt. Everest Several years ago, I ended a long marriage that had become miserable and then a couple years ago, I walked away from my big paycheck, big corporate office, and big title to follow my dream. But this was not everything. I still had my big luxurious house. I’m in […]
What? One of my most popular speeches is called, “Using your internalGPS to Stay Positive & Productive in Difficult Times.” Yet, I strongly believe positive thinking and affirmations are dangerous and can keep you stuck in denial for a long time. It did for me. I was unhappy in my marriage and in my career and kept driving forward with a smile pasted on my face and positive affirmations that I would repeat as a mantra in my head; […]
In my last post I explained that at the National Speaker’s Association (NSA) convention, two themes emerged for me: Be true to who you are and Take a Stand. Taking a stand means that some people will not like you, they may even hate you. For me, this is scary. One of my strengths is harmony and I would love if everyone loved and respected everyone else and tolerated their differences. Unfortunately, this is not reality and in fact […]
A couple weeks ago, I went to the National Speakers Association (NSA) annual convention in California (nice to get out of the AZ heat). Two key themes emerged for me: – Be true to who you are – Take a stand and don’t be in the “middle” (watch for more on this in the next post) The most successful speakers are the same on and off of the platform. They are not actors or putting on a show, they […]
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” – Charles R. Swindoll In the past couple months; I have had the great opportunity to coach two different teams using the amazing Team Advantage (linked) process. It has been a great experience on many different levels. But, last week, I realized that I had left out an important piece of the team plan for one of the teams. I can still see the […]
“The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust How you see things or your beliefs in the certain ways of things can hinder your feelings of freedom and choice and then these feelings limit your actions and it becomes a cycle of reality that justifies your beliefs and limits your discoveries. “The current housing market is limiting my choices. The current unemployment statistics limit my opportunities or are making […]
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” – Unknown I carried this quote around with me several years ago as a reminder. A couple weeks ago I had a harsh reminder of it. I was sound asleep in my comfortable hotel bed when the loud hotel alarm sounded, an obnoxious siren followed by a recording to “immediately evacuate, take the stairs, not the elevators.” In a daze, I threw on some clothes, grabbed my phone (no explanation for why just […]
I loved learning about this concept from Amanda Owen’s book, “The Power of Receiving.” (her website linked). She explains that if you are in the doing and taking process then you are feeling resentful and greedy or frustrated and entitled. Contrast this with the feelings of gratitude and generosity if you are in the giving and receiving mode. Over the past few weeks I have taken on a project with a large company here in the Phoenix area that is […]
