The Magic Recipe

So much of my day is spent talking about, reading about, thinking about what is the magic recipe that makes a human successful, a leader, someone worth investing in so they can one day head up one of the great Canadian financial institutions. What combinations of capabilities, behaviours, attributes makes someone a great leader of business? How do we know if we have picked the right ones, identified the right high potential folks, decided on the right vendors, programs or an innumerable combinations of other factors?

It is a science and an art to define what success is, how to get there and who might be harbouring that potential. When asked for the definition of leadership I am guessing there are very few answers that will be identical. The process of trying to get it right is starting to feel a bit clinical. It's really made me think that maybe at the end of the day we all want the same thing. To be happy, to feel like we're making an impact, to be progressing in something we care about. Cultural fit, family, partner, experience, community, they all define what it means for someone to be successful and to be a leader. I don't want someone defining my potential, career path or what I need to do to make myself enough.  I am happy to do all of that on my own, with the input of those who I respect and know care about me, those who give feedback from a place of love. Perhaps it is my "don't tell me what to do" attitude but I think that empowering and engaging might just be the key to creating leaders in everyone an organization touches. 

The Road Back Home

It came in the mail today. Like every other book this one could be the one that changes it all. Or just changes one tiny thing that I'll never forget.

For a while I gave up on books, originally it was just physical copies and I would fill my iPad with e-books like it was my job. Mind you I was travelling a lot more, packing light and all that. Then I just stopped buying them all together, they were a luxury I couldn't fit into my budget. But in the last few weeks it's back. While most of my library lives across the country, a byproduct of the whole 4 cities in 5 years thing, I want to build a new one here and got back at it. The first of the dozen new books came tonight and it's a juicy one. The Desire Map by Danielle LaPort is something I've wanted to pick up for a while. A fresh take on goal setting.

Funny enough a lot of the person who I was is showing up again. The person I was when it was really good. When I was ballsy and felt like a rock star. When I made choices and stuck to them, as long as the felt right. When I did things that aligned with my values, not because someone said I should, because someone said it would be good for my career, a good grown up decision. I am sick of feeling like a fraud, like I have to work so hard at being someone else everyday that when I get home I am exhausted. I am finally breaking and it is amazing.

Like building a library I am also reaching to set new goals, to hit my mat, to laugh and drink wine and take chances, I am beginning to see that the universe is conspiring in my favour but it's not going to wait around forever. Now is the time to get back to being the girl who inspired others, who led with integrity, who had so much damn fun that sometimes she was hungover on a weekday.

So I won't say here's to new beginnings because I don't need to go somewhere else or find something out there, I will say, here's to taking the road back home, to where I know I've been before. 

Luon is my power suit

My downdogs are so strong. Like shockingly so. I am bouncy on my mat. My practice has a playfulness I was surprised by.  It's rad.

Being back on a mat in a hot room and outside of my restorative & yin practice was a wonderful chance to glimpse who I've been and who I am becoming come together.  My day started much like it used to. Get up, no makeup, hair in a top knot. Stretchy pants pulled over bare heels, racer back over sports bra, loopy scarf and flip flops. Grab a coffee from a cute independent cafe. Read something about leadership or personal development. Check some emails. Same old and I loooove the way it felt. My power suit definitely involved luon and, sometimes, denim. No high heels. But what perhaps surprised me more is that this deeply rooted feeling of "home" coupled nicely with the new strength I've been building over the past 8 months. Lifting at the gym has given me something new, a power that let the little things I used I struggle with in yoga drip away and a new confidence in my ability to get it done that let me truly play in class today.

It's funny to me how these simple things actually illuminate how I am struggling with change these days, I am not quite ready to admit that for me, constant change is my normal. Today helped. I am reminded that my values and what serves me are crucially important in my success and ability to inspire and impact others. Sometimes all it takes is marrying the new with the old.

Stop.

It's hard to say when I stopped noticing. Everything had changed. I had become used to trying to fit a mold that, best as I try, I will never fit. It's happened before when being put down and shut down for what I know to be strengths of mine overshadowed my self awareness and I became complacent, started to believe I'm not enough. Then, as always someone or something from the real world comes knocks on the door and me out of my stupor and I can see clearly that the quirks that make me up, the random assortment of experiences are not only valuable but a differentiator in a tough market. For some reason I can fall prey to listening to the voice of one, how ever strong, over the voice of many, including my own. Well this has to stop. 

Just an Ordinary Week

This week has been very ordinary. I went to the gym, worked at the office, had no evening plans and didn't get out of the city. But sitting on the couch this evening after the third or so hour of Netflix I realized it's been the best week in a long time. Spontaneous date nights with my man, strong showings at the gym, taking the power back in my relationship with my career, meeting wonderful folks. It's been an exceptional week in it's normality.

I think, if nothing else, the difference is gratitude and letting go of some of the small things. I am sure someday, when my superpowers reach full force, that I will be able to control everything, including all reactions, but in the mean time giving less of a shit has given me more free time to go on gluten free ice cream sandwich dates with my man  and take the dog to brunch (and the PR agency).  Being grateful for these opportunities lets them shine and the more I am aware of how lucky (a combination of timing, skill, handwork and intuition) I am the better my days seem to go.

So ordinary is just fine with me!

After a Good Nap

Another long day but another good one. The power in authenticity is huge. Sometimes I forget this, forget what it feels like to not put on a costume and go into the world acting the part of someone else. For me I find when there's nothing to lose, that's when I am most able to have the courage to show up as I truly am and not as the person others expect me to be, hope me to be. Solving real problems and seeing the pieces come together in front of my eyes is like nothing else and it's so easy to forget how quickly that happens when you are not wasting your time on what others think, or even what you think you should be doing.

As I weigh the options in front of me I can feel the strengths that have been hibernating shake off the dust like a great bear in the first light of spring. I had forgotten my slight edge in favour of trying to get better at something that will never be my differentiator. The muscle memory is still there. That which lights me up is chomping at the bit ready to get down to it.

All of this comes down to intuition. I've let her rest on the shelf for a while now, it's been just too long looking around and making choices with just my mind and what little information I have on hand. I've made some decisions my gut strongly disagreed with and ended up exhausted and unable to replenish. The last few days everything has started to change. Being in nature and out of the constant hum of the city gave me the boost I needed. That coupled with a week of inspiration and practice in authenticity has left me feeling anything but vulnerable. I'm ready to take on the uncertainty ahead, after a good nap perhaps.

Crossing the Tree Line

It's been an uphill journey lately. I am not unfamiliar with climbing mountains, I know it's hardest before you reach the top, before experiencing vistas you can't quite be sure are real they are so beautiful and before you forget that you just dragged your ass up a rocky Stair Master for hours on end with seemingly all your worldly possessions on your back. Before being literally on top of the world there is the other part. The part that is filled with moments of doubt, in the dark before crossing over through the tree line. Those are the minutes or hours when legs are fatigued, after the first three quarters of the climb, sweat gets in your eyes (or is it tears) and since you can't quite be sure how far away the end is the thought of turning around is still a possibility. This is where I am right now, only years growing up out west learning to judge the distance to the top, or where at the end of the lake the portage take out must be, haven't prepared me for this. It's been four cities in five years, approaching my third job hunt in two and change, I can't seem to get my footing or figure out my next step. I can't see the top, judge the distance and not to over do the metaphor, my pack is getting heavy. Fortunately for me the universe has a tendency of being on my side, especially when I need it the most. I forget that when I look, when inspiration can find me working,  the people, things and opportunities I need come into my life.

I am not sure what the next six months hold for me, or even the next six weeks but over the past little while the inspiration I've been long looking for is trickling in. Soon the pressure will be too much, the dam will break and all at once I will figure out the next step on the path, I will turn the corner, see the summit is here and look out over the journey I've just made. Clarity and possibility is just up the path, how many switch backs can be left? So in this moment of foggy uncertainly I must thank those around me, new acquaintances (members of the same tribe of feisty women), family, best friends and those I will be meeting next. I am grateful for the camera I picked up last weekend, the stars I gazed at and the otters we saw playing in the pond after the rain stopped. I am grateful that I can come back to my yoga mat, blacker than Alberta soil and just as grounding, and this blog, writing here brings me home.

Neon is not Business Casual

I've been aching for a day like today for a long time. These are the moments of seeming insignificance that mark growth, hope and unbridled possibility. They used to show up for me as a handful of seconds when the voice inside would say "this is going to be ok" and a rush of hope and belief would fill me. Lucky enough, these sparks would often come when the chips were down, on grey days or days filled with only the new and nothing of the familiar, at those seconds when I needed them most. When I lived alone in Calgary in the quasi-limbo between my final days selling stretchy pants and the start of my MBA I would have these days often. Instead of just moments this feeling would fill weeks and instead of being a fleeting bust of reassurance it grew into authenticity, abundance and freedom.  I've been aching for this. For the feeling like I'm taking my life into my own two hands and that the universe is firmly on my side.

It has been a long few years of growing up. It has taken a toll on who I know myself to me. Yesterday, so much like the day that I said "this is next" when I left the security of lulu and risked it all on a mediocre understanding of basic calculus was a turning point when I went from what I thought I knew about the next 3-5 years and to having no idea what 6 months or a year could hold. When provided with one option that you refuse to take you are suddenly forced to stand in nothing and pick from everything what it is you truly want, who it is you truly are. Yesterday I got the news that I was likely going to have to play big at some point in the next six months or so. There would be a chance I wouldn't have a steady income, or at least that steady income would be "significantly less" than what I have worked hard for. Instead of accept that as fact I reacted yesterday. Not as quickly as I had the last big time but enough that when I called my parents I had a game plan, I had moxie. It is terrifying to be on the knife's edge, knowing that on one side is what you won't accept and on the other is the great unknown. I would be lying if I told you I didn't freak out a bit last night, perhaps even feel a little sorry for myself, asking myself "when will all this just settle". But this morning, I felt like me again, my 2011 self if we are going to get specific. The one who took risks, bet on herself and did exactly what the fuck she really wanted. So today I worked from home, turns out our condo is really nice during the day with the sun streaming in the 17 foot windows and the breeze coming in through the open patio doors. I listened to the music I wanted to listen to, the kind that lights me up and gets my brain churning out the good stuff, not the hum of the quiet office. I wore what makes me feel confident, the fact is that is just not business casual, and definitly not  "Business".  Instead of feeling wiped at the end of the day, like i'd been living someone else's life for nine hours I felt like myself. With stuff quickly getting figured out, shit getting taken on and great things on the precipice.

So here's the good news: Even though I am not sure what my financials will look like in the fall I booked a ticket home to Vancouver for May long. I will travel this summer and try and get as much life living and skill building in as I can before the next big career move. At the end of the day this is where my life is best lived. I am a much more productive and exciting human being to be around when I am forced to chose what and who I really want to be.

And it Begins

I can't keep it together. My heart is too full of humbling inspiration. Those who know me well, know that I live for the Winter Olympics. I have friends who have, and are, competing in these games but my love affair started long before that. Athletics has always been the thing that makes my heart sing. I have always found that great personal strength comes from being part of a team working towards a common goal, it also comes from the lonely nights on the ice, the long cold days on the slopes, solo paddles on a lake. Hard work, perseverance, doing more than was expected of you. Humility, victorious joy, deep and persistent national pride.

The 2010 Olympics lit my heart on fire. Having been an athlete in many of the sports I watched on TV I felt a common bond with the heart ache and exuberant celebrations I saw. I was glued to any coverage I could get my hands on. Every story, every win, every fall or slip, every measure of 10ths of a second that separated the winners from those who almost won. I, like I imagine so many Canadians, remember exactly where I was when our hockey players won their golds. I remember the first gold won on Canadian soil. I remember Jon Montgomery and his pitcher of beer. I felt so Canadian. I felt so much a part of something bigger than myself. Even now, as I patiently wait for the opening ceremonies to start I tear up (read: full on sob) at the images of Olympics past. Those images are imprinted deeply on my mind.

Sochi is different. I get that. I am disgusted at the treatment of people by those in charge and those who follow their lead. People in general because I believe it is so much more than the issues getting face time on TV. Discrimination and mistreatment is degrading to everyone and I hope, in not too many years, that the world will look back with disgust and disbelief on the behaviour of those who clearly have so much time on their hands and so little creativity that they have to take it out on who ever they possibly can. They aren't fooling the rest of us. That being said, I am electric with anticipation for the stories of redemption, victory and underdogs winning gold. I can't wait for the sport.

My passion for the Olympics started when I watched Eddie the Eagle fly above Calgary, when I met the Jamaican bobsled team, when I took my first ski run that winter. Not a bad place to start. Now it's more. Though SO much of it is political at the end of the day it is a wonderful reason to see good in the world. To see those who set the example of dedication, of spirit and who represent their countries with something greater than pride. They are teammates and let us be part of the team as well. Perhaps I am biased but I believe that sport is a great unifier and the Olympics bring something special.

I guess all that is left to do is get the Kleenex box and Canada gear out and get ready to cheer for the red and while!

Our Young Lives

Each one is different and we have survived another year. This time as I reflect on all that's changed since the last Feb 1st and since the first one, I can look back at the healing that has happened. We will never forget. Those cold days eleven years ago will be marked about our souls and minds like constellations imprinted across the sky, seven stars, even in the daylight they are there, just harder to see, but always there.

While we will likely never forgot what happened, how it felt, the bonds that formed over the loss, I see it in the faces of those I survived with, we are all finding ways to heal. What I lost when I was 17 was my willingness to let others in. I gained an unwavering need to always be strong, never be anything else. This marked my relationships, or lack there of, for almost 10 years. My heart lay only with the mountains that both gave and took life at their will. They provided me strength, a source of passion and creativity as well as a deep humility in the face of the realities of life.

In the past few years I have let a little of my toughness go. I have slowly started to let others in, beyond my walls of strength that were as much there to keep me in as to keep others out. It hasn't been the easiest or softest process but it has helped me to fill in some of the space that was torn open by the snow and rocks. I have been lucky enough to find someone who has let me become more more whole. Someone who has given me the space to heal and supported me when it was all too much.

With all the healing that has and will happen we will always remember those who and what we lost and the moments after that will bond us together forever.  So as I sit here, across the country, flung far from the mountains that acted as the pillars supporting my young life, I remember the moments of my youth. With fondness, growing up on the prairies and in the Rockies, and with sadness in the corner of my heart for what we lost. For what changed us in our young lives.

Pronoia: I choose chocolate

What got you here is not what will get you there. It's a phrase I hear over and over again at work and have heard at school, in past roles and in other aspects of my life. While this is critically true in most cases there are others where what got me there did not get me here and maybe I need to pick up behaviours, ways of thinking that used to permeate who I was.

Over the past few days I've put a lot of time into what was different then, when risk taking and unbridled potential filled my life. What was so different then that is no longer part of who I am? Through deep scientific process I have pinpointed at least one piece of the puzzle. I used to have a deep belief in pronoia. Pronoia is the belief that the world is conspiring in your favour. It was a phrase that I picked up when I sold stretchy pants and practiced yoga daily. Pronoia was how I lived my life in my early twenties and I am not exactly sure when I stopped believing.

I am the luckiest person I know and I understood this to my core at one time. Though I have never won the lottery I grew up with a solid understanding that things work out for me, that the universe is letting things unfold because that is what is meant to be, there will be no failure, no one will let me fall too far. I lived with an unseen safety net that let me grow bold. I lived in many cities between the age of 16 and 28. I've taken and quit jobs on a gut feeling and have yet to be betrayed by my decisions. I've done things that on paper seem foolish but that my intuition was certain about. Somewhere in the last few years I've lost this belief. I have become wrapped up in worry, about not being able to afford a house or a wedding when I am happily renting and not at all engaged. I have lost sleep over if one job will work out or not because I need to start building tenure on my resume. While these things are important they are all about the end and not at all about the journey. Worrying about them is not practicing the trust that brings freedom, that kind of worry causes stress and sadness and pain.

Life is never going to be just as you planned or just what we see on TV. Life is messy and scary and we wake up to have the choice every second of the day whether to trust that it will all work out or to live in fear that it might not.  I choose chocolate.

The 20 Project

Twenty is an age of blue sky possibility. Rarely is twenty old enough to have screwed up your life and often it is a time that any choice you make can be a formative one. It is exciting and tough all at once.

I remember thinking I had it all figured out at twenty. I was getting educated, I was young enough to  not be worried about what career I would have, I just knew I would have a good one, what ever I ended up doing. I wasn't worried about buying a house or how I would pay my mortgage, when I would get married or to who, though I was really interested in having a boyfriend and not getting anywhere quickly with that. I made job choices for the love of the work, not for where it would might take me, and never for the money, they took me amazing places.

My youth, wanderlust and encouraging parents made the world a place full of curiosity and possibility. I stood in nothing and everything was was available to me.

The 20 Project was founded by someone who has been a huge part of my journey. She was my first camp counsellor, a time in my life that had a huge affect on who I would become. She was also there for me when I decided to leave the first career I loved, but no longer served me, to go back to school. Of her many projects I feel so lucky to be a part of this one. The main page of the website reads "Advice from the other side of 20... a collection of memoirs, journeys and wisdom from around the world".  Collaborators from all over the globe of varying ages providing their thoughts on what it meant to be 20 and what they would tell those embarking on their third decade of life.

This might get you thinking about a simpler time, or a time when it was hard to make ends meet, or a when the challenges of life included getting up for 8:30am archeology class on a friday. It might make you remember what drove you before life became strangely more complicated and that may start to trickle back into how you make decisions. Whatever it does, I hope you will check out The 20 Project. Hilary is still looking for contributors for 11 more short days and we are all looking for a little sold wisdom and a few tales of adventure.

Scars and Milestones

Years later and I'm still moved to inaction by this time of year, still unable to shake it from my bones. My heart senses the shift in time and reminds my soul that once again, it's here.

The deaths of those amongst us are marks upon our lives. We still wear the imprint of young death, heavy in our eyes and in our voices, even for a few moments a year. It taught all of us who bore witness that life is fragile and our legacies are much more of a present, rather than future, matter.

It is often this time of year, a few weeks into January that I am reminded. I am listless, fatigued without reason. I am quick to cry and fall ill, if only in my heart. It creeps up before my mind even puts the pieces together. My body, scarred with the memory, reverts before I catch on. Eleven years later I am still haunted by the images of those weeks, tear stains on green blazers, the grey carpet of my classmates floor, how cold the ground was through my leather shoes in February.

It's taken work to get from there to here. Where trust was hard to muster and keeping a stoic exterior my suit of armour,  I have slowly learned to let the light in through the chinks, along with the people. I'm not close to being good at it but I've found someone who's strong enough to trust that I can only get better. What I'm looking for is not pity, I am no victim. What this time of year reminds me is that everyone is marked by some tragedy, it is what makes us human. It can't be covered up or fixed. Scars heal with time but never leave the body in their entirety. Be gentle with yourself and others, you never know what's lurking in the shadows of another's eyes and know that the events that mark our lives as milestones along a road they always do so for some good, never just bad. 

Back to the Mat

It may sound selfish or immature but I've really felt like I needed to see some positive change for the minimal work I've been putting into getting back to me, back in shape, and generally working off some of that brie and turkey I ate while at home in the bosom of my family.

Luckily I've been reminded of why I loved practicing yoga in the first place. Over the past few weeks I've taken to practicing to my yoga DVDs, in my sweat pants, in my "living room" (yes, the only room in our place is the "living room") while my boyfriend/roommate is at the gym. The magic of yoga is, while each practice is different, the difference are perceivable. It's instant gratification. I have noticed I am stronger through my vinyasas, my heels almost touch the floor in down dog, I'm sleeping better and it's not so hard to roll out my mat and get down to business. I've practiced maybe 5 times. Now, I know from experience not everyday is going to feel better and those days are the ones I am going to learn lessons on the mat, but in the meantime it's inspiring to remember what a yoga high feels like and that getting a bit of exercise, me time, and peace is not the hardest part of my day.

Old Julia

It's been a long time. Since a lot of things.

As cliche as it sounds change has been one of the only constants in my life over the past few years. The handful of organizations I've worked for, the three different cities in three years, different homes, different friends, countless different roles I've played. Trying to cope with this change along the way has left me sick a lot, I am not as svelte as back in my stretchy pant days by any means, a lot has had to slide to keep from floundering and I've been trying to stay ahead of the curve without taking care of myself.

The tide is starting to shift, I can feel it. Being home, out west, by the lake and in the mountains, recharged my batteries and now I am here, ready to take on what I hadn't felt strong enough to do while I was trying to manage everything else.

So this is not a list of goals, intentions or resolutions. I simply want words on paper stating that I will get back to being who I am, hitting the reset button makes the process sound far easier than I know it will be. Getting back to my yoga practice, on my mat (the one that feels like home), to my books, to writing and photography, that is what lights me up and brings me back to who I am.

So 2014 is not the year of anything new, it is the year of "old Julia".