The best moms are perfectly imperfect. And yes, I’m talking about you. Not your mother. Not the other mom around the corner who always has her kids out the door on time for everything. Not the mom you see on Pinterest who is totally awesome all the time. I’m talking to you. Hi there. Being a mom is a journey. Moms stumble and they get back up. Moms try one technique, then another, give up, then try again. Moms love…
Her words repeatedly chug through my soul like a freight train steadily plugging up a mountain pass. “How dare I…” A beautiful story of vision and effort seemed to take on a poetic pattern of repetition continually etching her words of counsel deep into my thinking. “How dare I be anything…” It wasn’t luck that brought her to this point, she emphasized to the graduates, but the vision of her mother whose shoulders she rode upon. “How dare I be…
“The Columbia River Gorge is one of a kind, all right, with the mighty river flowing between towering cliffs, and plunging waterfalls replenishing the flow. But never mind the natural uniqueness, they’ve even made it official: the Columbia River Gorge is the only designated National Scenic Area in the United States.” — JR Allred Words such as these, rich and full of picturesque details, first introduced me to JR Allred, a man who would later become a neighbor, close friend and…
Welcome to your unplanned out, not according to schedule, oops there goes another mishap, beautifully crazy, full of sadness and joy and who knows what I’m feeling at the moment, perfectly imperfect life! No destination. Just a journey. No agenda. Just an experience. The race is won each time we get back up when we fall down, screw up, or simply run out of gas. We walk. We run. We swim. We rise. We live. We love. That’s life. Life…
Tucked away on the 3rd level “down under” of Pike Place Market on Seattle’s waterfront, J.B. Johnson stands quietly reading a book behind a counter stuffed high with stacks and stacks of even more books. With his interest drawn deep into his book, J.B. silently split his attention between the pages in his hand and the handful of customers browsing the overflowing aisles of BLMF, a “Second Hand Bookstore and Literary Saloon.” Large stacks of books lined the inside of the shop’s…
Think about two or three conversations you had over the last week. Were they enjoyable? Or as painful as a visit to the dentist? What about those conversations kept your interest? What entertained you, engaged you, made you smile, or made you laugh? What caused you to listen intently? Now ask yourself the opposite questions. What about those conversations put you to sleep? What was boring, disengaging, uninteresting? What caused you to tune out? 13 STEPS TO MORE MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS…
We often view the success others experience, especially successful people of any type, through rose-colored glasses that make their life look easy and truly perfect. “If only we could have it easy like them,” we think to ourselves. This is a fallacy. Most successful people, from every walk of life, have walked a challenging journey to get where they are. They have overcome obstacles and, in most cases, continue to overcome obstacles. Just because we do not see the challenges does…
Who is the ghost walking the halls? Did he die falling down the stairs? Was he shot and killed? Or is she a prostitute who was murdered in cold blood? The 101-year-old Enders Hotel in Soda Springs, Idaho, stayed silent, giving up no secrets when we visited this past Saturday. Even the ancient stairs refused to live up to their age, their creaking floorboards remaining hushed as we ascended. The pipes of the ancient boiler system did proffer forth a weak…
The world does not need another writer. That’s exactly what I thought when I started writing the “Monday Morning Boost” 8 years ago. I’m having the same thought now as I’m starting to write a book. The crazy thing is, I am right! The world does not need another blog, nor does the world need another book. So why do I keep writing? Maybe, like Roald Dahl suggests, I’m foolish, chasing after the compensation of “absolute freedom” with no master…
Do vision boards work? I’ve been asked this question a handful of times since sharing last week’s Monday Morning Boost: Creating Vision to Rise. Some people over the years have suggested vision boards are just a bunch of hogwash. Their explanations may have been much longer and more detailed than just saying “hogwash,” but that was the collective point. Maybe they are hogwash. And who am I to say. As I told you last week I haven’t really used a vision…