Let’s get ready to kick ass, take names, and give a little more in 2018…
#StartDriving #HopToIt #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone
I got this sweet surprise from a client today:
I love surprises, but what I love more, is helping people simplify and run their lives and businesses better.
Why do we have to go and make things so complicated?
It’s the holiday season. What better time for us all to admit that this life is one giant beautiful shit show that we all typically make much harder than it has to be. Even shit shows can be managed.
Those Minimalist guys catch a lot of heat for advising that the best way to get organized is to “get rid of most of it.” I couldn’t agree more. “It” or “stuff” isn’t just stuff, stuff…as in physical things, It’s too much on our plates, jobs we don’t feel passionate about, spaces that drive us nuts, systems that aren’t streamlined, and toxic people who make us feel like crap.
Ew.
My favorite gift to give? Permission to say peace out to unmanageable, unproductive, or unwanted people, spaces, and things. If you’re not jamming out to someone, or something that is your total jam, maybe it’s time to kick off 2018 with the volume all the way cranked up on your existence radio. No need to sit in lonely, painful, buried silence watching everyone else dance.
Whaddya say to shaking a little tail feather together? A simple, manageable life can be so rich and juicy.
#LessStuffMoreFreedomHappyLife #StartDriving #LifeUnstuck
*A huge thanks to all my clients for a great year! Watching you fist pump in the air proclaiming how much better and free you feel at the end of our purging and streamlining systems projects, make me as happy as a kid on (ahem…) Christmas.
…and it feels like home:
Yell. Mean it. Defend it. Always say it with love.
So many things are happening around us that need a voice. What are you sticking your neck out for?
#BeADomino #TodayIsTheDay #HopToIt
We all talk. We say we want this and that, we pretend we’re fully committed, we make ourselves feel good by chipping away tiny line items on our never ending to-do lists, years pass, and we never get anywhere, or at least anywhere close to where we actually want to be.
Squirrel!
Am I talking about you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Me too.
We swirl in this purgatory place of half-committed, because life get’s in the way…of life; money, kids, relationships, laundry, rinse and repeat. We ignore the truth, our true desires, we busy and distract ourselves, we worry, we help other people first, and there we are 10 years later.
As in, quite literally, 10 years later.
Blue Lollipop Road kicks off year #10 on October 16th. (TEN YEARS!) When realizing that upcoming birthday during the past few months this summer, along with looking at what my work life had become, (off track from what I’ve really wanted and been trying to do all these years), I decided to call bullshit on myself, and draw my deepest line in the sand yet. I’m a big believer in accountability and willingness to publicly embarrass oneself. Want to light a fire under your own ass even though you know you have the capability of doing “it” on your own? Tell the world you’re going to do something big. Hopefully your world will continue to call you out regularly until you do that thing. (You better believe if you ever tell me you have a burning desire to do something, I will poke you and give you positive grief until you do it. I expect the same in return, so thank you to those of you who always give it right back to me.)
As you can see from the above now empty living space photos, Elvis (Diane) has left the building. Why? To go where? You’ll just have to keep following here to see what’s next.
Would you believe this minimalist, who cares about a space it is only a space and I can make home anywhere! – threw two temper tantrums during her move the other day? Two! As in crying and throwing fists in the air with frustration looking and sounding like that spawn of Satan child in the Target check out line who’s mom said she couldn’t have the M&M’s. It was slightly horrifying. Thank goodness only one person saw, and luckily he still wants to be around me. Who knew I had fallen so much in love with my cozy comfort zone space and habits. All the more reason to jump into a new controlled fire, to keep that light under my ass burning hot. Want to make things happen? Sacrifice, baby.
Crazy how we all like so much, to stay snuggled tight under our warm blankets of complacency, not nearly as alive as we think we are.
As I sit here in my new fire, 110% committed to my one big career goal that maybe should’ve been completed years ago, but probably couldn’t have had the chance to be as great as it will be until now, those annoying little negative, fearful, I must be crazy, worry gnomes are trying their hardest to get a ticket to my party again. Sorry bitches! Ain’t no room for you up in my celebration station anymore! I just took a blow torch to that cozy comfort zone blanket soiree, so I could stand here awkwardly naked, strong and proud, ready to put back on only the layers that fit completely authentically.
Soon I will launch a sparkly new writing project here. I guarantee you’ll dig it, and be able to see a lot of yourself in what’s to come. Happy almost birthday to my sweet baby blue!
I hope you go out today, and get all kinds of naked. Nobody has this life perfectly figured out. All you can do is strip yourself down to your core and hop in the car. Somehow the road is always right there.
#LessPlanningMoreDoing #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #TodayIsTheDay
…to meet this guy:
How are you sharing what you’ve learned?
#LifeSkills #FinancialEducation #LessonsFromBehindBars
I’ve put this video clip in probably no less than 20 blog posts over the years since I started writing. Unfortunately, they all remain in the draft graveyard:
Cheesy as it may be, I am so Jerry McGuire in this scene. I guess it’s just taken me a few years past 35 to write my mission statement. I’m not waiting any longer. I’m not afraid of getting fired.
Once or twice a year when I get SUPER pissed at myself for not writing more, and truly focusing on what I love, this scene pops in my head. Usually I get all fired up, start typing away, get a couple hours into the soap box space I feel so at home in, and then ding goes the phone or email when someone in my life needs something, and off to the archives of drafts, my passionate posts have gone…while my sweet little soul suffers, once again failing at first living for myself.
No more.
This week I had a tipping point moment, standing at an event with some very good friends who know me well and support every bit of me in anything and everything I do and want to do. I had one of the most gut punching moments of my professional life. I felt an enormous furry of anger, sadness, and frustration…and knew it was completely my own damn fault. As we were being introduced around the dreaded and what do you do? circle, every one of them owned and articulated what they “did” perfectly, and then as I described what I did, and they all piped in with their kindness about how good I was at X,Y,Z (which is true, because I have busted my ass to be good at what I’ve been doing to make a living), I couldn’t help but think:
WHAT I’M TELLING THESE PEOPLE AND WHAT THEY KNOW OF ME WORK WISE IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO DO OR WHO I REALLY AM!
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
…AM I DOING?!
How could even my closest friends not describe me/what I really do?! Because I haven’t been owning and presenting it out to the world, myself.
I’m a writer who hasn’t kept my butt in the seat. I’m a storyteller who hasn’t been sharing enough of her stories. I’ve gotten seriously sidetracked. When any client at any time asks me to fix a problem, or wants help running their lives better, I drop everything to jump all over the task, then forget about my own. It’s possible to have healthier balance. I know better, we all do!
I stood at that event and wanted to punch someone in the face: MYSELF! No more blogs unposted, books unwritten, or life experience teachings untaught, I said to myself. I haven’t slept on couches, in my car, and traveled the world for the past 25 years talking to, learning from, loving a zillion interesting amazing humans losing some of them along the way, just to keep all the truths and perspective I’ve learned to myself.
Gas up the car! We have officially started driving down this Blue Lollipop Road together. Hang on tight, because I’ll be sharing the things we think, but do not say. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.
If you’re out there getting sidetracked yourself, might I suggest you make a big ol’ pivot and get your butt back in the seat? None of us are truly helping anyone else unless we’re helping ourselves first.
#LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #LessWaitingMoreDoing #HopToIt
A week ago I road tripped to Charleston with LeaderSurf Founder, Brian Formato for PitchBreakfast:
(Link to video here. Around 11:30 I pop in a two thumbs up testimonial.)
If you’ve been following here this summer, you know I attended the LeaderSurf June class in Nicaragua. Anyone I know has heard about this program and what an amazing, insightful experience I had, about a zillion times at this point. I’ve joked that I’m a walking billboard for Brian’s leadership development + learn to surf program. This single experience feels like it has completely catapulted my personal and professional life into places I never expected. Serious positive impact.
I’ve always been a travel pusher; The person who encourages exploration, trying new things, and the importance living outside the drone zone. I’ve traipsed the globe, and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Of all the fun I’ve had during my travel, the fun hasn’t even come close to comparing to what I’ve learned by stretching myself in foreign environments. I really stretched some muscles that have needed it for a while now during my LeaderSurf time, and saw my fellow participants come alive and become inspired again about work, too. It was awesome.
I think all of us adults have forgotten that we can have fun AND be incredibly productive and responsible. It seems like there’s some kind of rule that we have to sit inside a classroom, boardroom, or conference center to learn anything new about our company, our jobs, or ourselves. Who the heck had that terrible idea? People are uninspired. They lack drive in their everyday because their passions are squashed. They’re not encouraged to keep cultivating their talents and interests and relate them back to their work. They’re bored out of their minds in training situations because they are in cold and vanilla spaces.
Maybe we should shake it up a little around here?
It seems like common sense for any organization to jump at the chance to send their executives to a leadership development program like LeaderSurf; Throw your best and brightest outside of their comfort zones to learn a new skill in a foreign place. They meet other executive peers, learn more about themselves, and have a blast doing it, then come back to your company refreshed and ready to take on the world.
Send your people to step out of the gerbil wheel and let some waves hit them in the face. It will be a challenge, but they will love every minute of it, and then love you for sending them. Who wins? Everybody.
#LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #StepOutside #WorkUnstuck
Tonight I’m having dinner with some of my home base gal pals. A few of my besties/girl tribe/bishes/(insert whatever ridiculous or funny name you call your peeps here.) These are ladies in my life who make up just a small portion of badass women who know my crap, call me out when I need it, and who make me laugh until both my face and stomach hurt. I like to refer to some of our antics as complete jackassery, but really our gatherings are pretty tame; food, drink, and conversation about any and everything- no judgments, secrets, or bs, just love, support, and fun, while lots of hours fly by.
Lucky me to have these people.
We will be celebrating my birthday a week late, because last Tuesday (on my actual birthday), I was playing around at Glacier National Park:
That trip was a gift from another set of ladies who mean the world to me, my BLR Play It Forward alumni crew. They gifted me a “travel scholarship” at our annual event in July. These ladies thanked me for providing travel scholarships to students in our home town during our first 5 events, and this was their give back to me. In reality, they are the very reason I’ve been able to pull off making Play It Forward a thing all these years.
Lucky me to have these people.
More girls? These two, who are the backbone and continued inspiration for everything Blue Lollipop Road:
(Yes, that would be a blue lollipop tongue:)
August 18th marked 23 years of them gone. It still doesn’t seem possible.
Lucky me to have had time I did with them, even if it was far too short.
Yet another girl bestie (can a girl really have too many besties? I don’t think so. Is it permissible to use the term “bestie” for your gal pals when you’re 39 years old? I think so), this one:
Today would be her 39th birthday, too. I wrote this on one of the days in this life where a piece of my heart forever broke.
Lucky me to have had time I did with her, even if it was far too short.
I will celebrate tonight with and for girls I can, and cannot see. I will celebrate tomorrow the same. (And with guys too!) I will continue to celebrate everyday. I will never apologize for laughing too loud, having too much fun. I won’t be worried about telling someone I love them, even if there are a lot of “them” (as in, people- that probably includes many of you reading this), because life is only so long, and the one thing I know for sure is that there’s no reason to wait…or to be afraid.
I hope you will raise a glass of any kind tonight, too with/for yourself, or with the good people around you, celebrating the luck in every healthy minute you have.
Cheers!
#RespectTheClock #TodayIsTheDay #HopToIt
I’m on the last leg of a long birthday weekend adventure. Delta was my flight brand this go around, and I’m pleased to share I’ve had an atypical flying experience this time; a pleasant one! The past few years have been met with a lot of bizarre rude humans and all too often, not so smiley airline staff, but all the Delta employees during my there and now almost back trek have been above and beyond friendly, helpful, and actually seem like they love their jobs.
Yahoo!
I saw this commercial on my way out west:
I high-fived with the sweet cowboy sitting next to me after seeing it. We agreed it’s a fantastic ad.
…because the ones who truly change the world, are the ones who can’t wait to get out in it.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been big on that whole waiting thing.
What are you waiting for?
#WakeUp #StepOutside #HopToIt
In case you’re feeling bummed about the weekend being over:
…let these blue lollipop eating twinsie nuggets make you smile.
I love the continued flow of photos like these that fill my inbox. Thank you to all who send them. Keep ’em coming!
#DontLetMondayRuinYourSunday #CelebrateEveryday #BlueLollipopTribe