Happy new year! I hope your 2023 is off and running. I’m using this post as an opportunity to share three offers I have created for the new year. Some of this can get confusing if you don’t live in my brain (be so happy about that, btw!), so I’ll try to explain as carefully as I can what each offer entails. I hope you’ll be as excited by one or more of them as I am. A FREE, virtual, 3-day (re)Discover Your Spark experience Tuesday, January 17—Thursday, January 19 over zoom from 11:45-12:45 CDT. In September, I held my first-ever, free opportunity for people to get a taste of…
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Facebook memories inspired my word for 2023!
It's amazing to realize that on this day, five years ago, I would have hesitated to say why the year had been difficult and heartbreaking. I would have stumbled over the truth behind what made it joyful, surprising and blessed because I wasn't yet, we weren't yet, ready to openly share our story. Perhaps we didn't yet trust that this new phase would last, given how relatively effortlessly the shift from utter despair to absolute joy had arrived at our doorstep. I also know that shame was still part of our lives. It might have downgraded to a baby elephant, but given that they weigh 200+ pounds at birth, that's…
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Be here. Now. Wait, what?
Stop examining your life and comparing it to what others say about theirs. If there are people who can clear their minds and sit in the empty vastness of the universe for minutes on end, good for them. That's not me. They have different gifts than I do. And you have different gifts, too. They might not look like anyone else's—isn't that a blessing? Isn't that what makes you YOU?
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Flip the narrative to find your Spark
More than three years ago, I conceived of a pretty audacious vacation with friends and family to celebrate a big milestone in my life. Dr Marry and I are providing a fabulous opportunity for people to travel and stay in a big, beautiful house that we're renting as our gift to them. But they still have to get themselves there, pay for food and other accommodations beyond the house since it's just for three nights. While some people have decided, for various reasons, that they can't make the trip work, a number of people have enthusiastically said, "We're in!" Just because I plan something doesn't mean it will work for…
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Is dreaming asking too much?
The same way I can't comprehend that the Universe is literally expanding and contracting simultaneously, I can't exactly understand this cosmic paradigm either, but I don't need to understand it to believe it. There's no end, no finite amount of more, particularly when it's asked for and accepted in the right spirit: one of gratitude, grace and generosity.
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What makes your heart sing?
I don't believe we only have one path to take anymore than I believe we only have one soulmate (and truthfully, I don't believe in the concept of a soulmate at all). We have a life to live; our job is to be curious, ask questions, work through our stuff (believe me, we all have stuff!), ask for help, get as brave as we can and take the next first step.
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What’s your true calling?
My desire can not outweigh my reality, however much I might wish it to. That's not a failing on my part. A sadness? Yes, but a failing? No. And the same is true for you, too. Whatever qualities or traits you wish you possessed but don't are not likely things you can adopt, take on or develop in any permanent way because that is not who you were born to be. That's not what your birthright spark is destined to illuminate.
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2021: My year in review
n other ways, COVID has opened up the world because there's been different time to explore people and things online. I've enjoyed developing new relationships with people who are invested moving through the world like I am, and I've rekindled some very old friendships with regularly scheduled zoom calls. *Because of that, I think some of what is dragging on me is that I'm realizing that some of the friendships I thought were rock solid have just not held up very well these last couple of years. People who were once important to me have not felt very supportive of the path I am pursuing. This isn't something that I've…
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The disciplined pursuit of less but better
What I realized in writing this email was that while I love Personal Systems Disruption work and feel like it's a true calling, at this point in time, it's not serving my larger purpose. It's not leading to invited speaking gigs or the opportunity to write more content. Then I remembered Essentialism. McKeown paraphrases Jim Collins' famous idea: "Success becomes a catalyst for failure because it leads to...the undisciplined pursuit of more. The antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less but better." He says you must explore, eliminate and build a platform for execution.
