Spontaneity is an under-valued trait. There's a lot of upside to not knowing how something's going to go and saying yes anyway. I'm not saying to be insane—there are certainly places to stop, take a breath and consider the options, weigh the pros and cons and seek advice from others. But mostly, saying yes is about trusting your own instincts, getting quiet and listening to that inner voice that's guiding you, trying to help direct your inner traffic if you'll only stop and pay attention.
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Embrace Easter: Find Resurrection in Personal Renewal
Consider how feminine the sunrise is. The colors, pale pink, yellow, orange, purple and blue slowly emerge and give birth to the glorious orb that appears as if from nowhere. Where there was dark, there is now light. When the sun breaks the horizon line, it’s as if the entire Earth takes a collective inhale and light and life begins again. Rebirth. Resurrection. Its Latin root, surgere, means “to rise.”
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Syncing with the seasons: a mindful approach to life, work and personal growth
Rest is vital for everything in nature. Whether that's hibernation, shedding leaves, low tide or early sunsets, nature understands that immense value of taking a break, slowing down, getting quiet and preparing to gear back up again.
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Navigating a silent battle: chronicling the creative journey
How do ideas and Sparks appear to you? I get asked often where all the words live in me. Truthfully, I don't know. They make themselves known to me, most often as a quiet but serious voice inside, and almost always from seemingly out of nowhere. My entire life, all my best writing has arrived like this and fallen out of me, like cool, clear water from a simple glass pitcher. Because I don't really think it comes from me. It's much more accurate to say my writing comes through me.
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Shame and isolation be damned
Shame at what's weighing you down breeds an almost frenzied desire to isolate. Mustn’t be discovered by everyone else, by anyone else–no one will understand what you’re going through; shame convinces you that you are the only person who has “failed” in this way, fallen down or been dragged down by someone else. Isolation, in turn, feeds fully off the stories you continue telling yourself as the shame piles higher and higher, burying you under its massive, crushing layers.
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What do you miss when _________ masks _________?
One more piece of back story: I am not a joiner. Of anything. I can't say why exactly, but I've always been that way. Actually, that's a lie. I can say why: it's rooted in absolute insecurity. If I join and fail, how will I be perceived? If I join and don't belong, what will I do? If I join and do belong, am I not all that special after all?
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Wrap up 2023 like a clock
Taking stock of a year is no easy feat. Twelve months, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes...sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Shouldn't we easily be able to accomplish all we need and want to in all those minutes, hours, days and months? Turns out, often not so much.
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You’re being audited (and that’s a very good thing!)
I was primed to do this work from a lifetime of dreaming about, practicing and doing various tasks and jobs that I thought were for other reasons so that in this moment, I was ready to step into this opportunity and say, "YES."
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What’s in your rear view mirror?
Last year, I joined a paid online group called Oprah Daily. It was low priced and included a number of things I was interested in. I read many of the emails I got throughout the year and enjoyed the quarterly magazines. But when I got the notice to renew, I was in a pretty serious slump about the stalled building of my Spark Empire. I considered letting the subscription go. As with nearly everything related to my professional life over the summer, my first thought was, “What has this subscription done for me this year anyway? I’m no better off for having said yes to it.” But for some reason,…
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When networking feels transactional, what’s next?
I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of networking since leaving my previous job in the spring and going full time as the Founder & CEO of Dayna Del Val. Many of the conversations have been fantastic, but the worst ones, the ones that made me want to give up entirely, are the ones that are purely transactional. Let me “re-enact” one of those openings for you: New Person: “Hi. I’m Bill. What can I do for you? Who in my network do you want to meet?” DDV: “Ummmm, I’m not sure yet.” New Person: “Well, I have a very robust network, so you look through it and let me know…
