Pick up.

I sit here, a few glasses of red wine later, at the end of a great day. Possibilities abound, in new friendships, career possibilities or extra curricular. Though the beginning was less than than engaging the rest was exceptional. Common ground. Connection. 

It certainly makes a difference to this one.

Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, and then straightens to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea. He lightly mocks her: “There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?” Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely, “It certainly makes a difference to this one.”
—Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander,
The Art of Possibility (2000) 


This is how my day started. The way so many staff trainings, goal coachings, camp chapel talks and campfires had started years past.  A story that brought tears to my eyes sitting in a room with 111 other MBA Candidates. Tears that I was way to concerned with hiding so that no one could see, no one would think I was weak, no one would think I was soft. Surprisingly enough a day that started with talk of openness, possibility and contributing to others turned out to be my biggest ego battle yet. A good friend once told me, while life coaching the crap out of me, pushing through my thick walls to start a very necessary breakdown, that when things change all our defence mechanisms, our 'strong suits' and 'acts' as Landmark would call them, rise up. Today this was me in full force. 


 My greatest joy in life is to connect with others, inspire them, motivate them to greatness and support them along the way. My goal in life is to always be the coach, helping the game be played better and better. Today I pretty much threw those ideas out, those integral core values, and focussed on my obsession with looking good. Now I know you might all be thinking "What does she mean? Did she take a hair straightener and eyelash extensions to school? Did she wear the newest designers? Has she been fake tanning again?" The answer is no, and somedays I wish I had that time and energy. It is a different kind of looking good that I am referring to. The kind that looks like acting in different and inauthentic ways to make people like you, encourage them to have a different perspective of you than might be real. When I am put into new and stressful situations I default to humour and a little shock value. Instead of connecting I tease. Instead of listening and being patient I frantically worry about trying to seem less vulnerable, to avoid showing weakness in any way. Today was a case in point. I spent much of last night and a good part of today stressing about having to do a high ropes course, something I avoided with great skill as a camp counsellor. As much as I tried to focus on everything else I just couldn't get it out my head. I freeze when faced with heights. It is totally illogical and no matter what else I can talk myself through, skiing off cliffs, clinging to the back of a motorcycle, moving and changing place time after time heights still get me. Make my knees lock. Make me freeze. 


To make matters worse my freezing wasn't just embarrassing or scary, it added another whole dimension. I was acutely aware at what everyone else was thinking. Would this impact who would want to work with me in groups? Would they simply see me as a scared little girl? Could I be a leader if I couldn't even get off a ladder? Totally irrational. A better version of me would have let it go. A better version would have understood that it was one moment and that at the end of the day it mattered less than I could have imagined but I am tired and I am unsure and I don't know what to expect and so that best version of me decided to spend the day in bed and I got the now version. The real version. And so the lessons are greater as they always are when they are harder. Those of us who may not realize it likely have egos too. I know mine gets right up in my grill any chance it has. At the end of the day it is remembering that all we have is what we can be for others. Tomorrow is a new day, thank god, and all I have, all we have, is to let go of the fear and insecurity and all that looking good and simply be. Ask those best versions of ourselves to come join us and be the now versions we require.


And the starfish, the starfish that started my day off so right. Had that been what I held onto. Had that been what I let fill my day oh what possibilities could have been created. Well, on to tomorrow. 

And I built a home for you for me.

Talking about values is something I am used to coming from my background of stretchy pants and smiling girls and goal coaching and endless talk of inspiration. It is something I relate to in class when we talk about the core values of a company or when I read business articles about empowering employees to be more productive, or how to effectively delegate. I have toyed with a list of my own core values for a long time. Today I realized in full force that when it comes down to it I have one that stands out, one that encompasses all others. It is my Core value. Connection.

Integrity, leadership, family, courage, love, learning, entrepreneurship, these all follow a common thread of connectedness to place, people and ideas.

There is something to be said about instant connection. Sometimes it happens to us out of nowhere, like seeing a pod of killer whales from the side of the ferry before everyone else does, it is both extremely rare and extremely precious, a sign that the world is still working in mysterious and exciting ways. There are those of us who see this everywhere, deem every chance meeting as an otherworldly sign of great and significant long-term connection. I don’t doubt that we can learn from and interact with all those that we encounter but those true friendships don’t come with every introduction, in my mind. On the other extreme I have come across those who don’t believe in instant connection, love at first sight, best friends in a matter of minutes or even hours.

I do. I have a dearest friend. My golden girl, I met her in just such a way. There was no reason for us to inspire each other, to connect so deeply, to ‘get it’ right off the bat. But we did. It happens to me from time to time and just kind of know, this is going to be good. This is going to be someone I can call in the middle of the night when my boyfriend breaks my heart, this is someone I can call at work to celebrate even the smallest accomplishments. Distance hasn’t posed a problem for my golden girl and I even with an entire expanse of mountain, prairie and Canadian Shield flung out between us. It is a bond that lasts longer than weeks of telephone and text message tag. We are kindred spirits.

Often my biggest challenge is being patient and open to waiting for these connections and appreciating what comes between. It is easy to be optimistic, to grasp at straws and what ifs. Making what just isn’t there into more than it is. It is easy to crave this connection more than it is available to us.  I find it happens all the time and that is fine. If we were deeply connected to everyone around us life might be exhausting. I find these days with so much excitement, so many new people to meet, I have to stop and take a breath sometimes. I have to try to let it all flow more naturally instead of forcing things where they are not. In the end there are people that it just clicks with immediately and those who will likely be friends and acquaintances for a long time going forward but maybe nothing more. And that’s ok. That is important too.

Luckily I have had a few instant connections lately. It was bound to happen with the sheer volume of people I have been meeting. Some are old connections that were always there but are newly renewed, across mountains and provinces. As ever I am blessed that my life is filled with so many amazing and inspiring people. People who are brave enough to say what’s really going on and who ultimately are brave enough to create a space where I will, often grudgingly, do the same. I am not sure what I am hoping to get out of this basic explanation of what moves me. I feel a little worn down at the end of this long day and my head keeps telling me this is just going to get worse and worse. I am excited for what is to come but also nervous. What will get us through, what will make this a year that we wont soon forget, is the connections we make.

Days like this.

It is with a full heart I write this. I am back. Back to the place and time where I was happiest I think, where I was the most inspired. It was a transition going from living with my bustling family to living on my own, going from a 50+ hour work week to studying in coffee shops, selling photography, and making friendships over punk rock bingo on Tuesday nights. At first it was both incredibly exciting and simultaneously scared the crap out of me. I felt up in the air, a little off center, not sure what was going on or where I was going. Then it all fell into place. Living on my own filled me with joy and authenticity. My life was more my own than I had ever expected. I felt saturated, inspired. I laughed and cried spontaneously and daily, finally ok to just feel how I felt. I felt deeply connected to my community and also totally ok to spend much of each day on my own. I learned never to be bored and always to be curious, always seeking a little mystery in my days. It was a few perfect months spent living the life I had been dreaming of for so long.

Then I did what I usually do. I changed it all up. I packed my life in my Volvo station wagon, drove west, my heart like a magnet drawing me ever towards ocean and mountains. Trading endless sky and plains and Rockies for tall buildings and bridges and trees and water. Once again my life was upside down, I couldn’t get to grips, found anxiety more present than peace. A tightness in my chest that wouldn’t go away.  A wall up, a disenchantment with what I had found, clinging too tightly to what I had left behind. Finally, after a summer of trying to figure it all out, I have found my stride. It feels like it did, same same but different. I am grateful for this, for the lightness, for the excitement, for the peace. Vancouver is becoming home. Another place of connection.  And the beauty of it all it that life is never really as you expected. We can make plans all we want and then suddenly it all changes again and that is where we learn. That is where we grow. That is how we get back to those 'Happiest months ever'.

Do what you love, Love what you do.

When it comes down to it, it is all about the choices we make. It is all about the clarity to see the bigger picture. It is all about looking at the world with a little bit of wonder, a little bit of mystery.

Being in a program with about 100 people from all different continents, backgrounds, of all different ages and experiences is a most unique and astounding experience. Even more astounding is that at the end of the day we are all here for the same reason. To do what we love. To love what we do. The common bond makes the upcoming 4 months of stress bearable. Each class, each challenge, each endlessly late night all in the pursuit of achieving the big goals. The ones that mean something.

This morning I woke up, 6 hours later than normal, to Jack Layton's state funeral. Not being incredibly knowledgeable of politics, or even reasonably so, all I knew about Jack and the NDP I learned from my sister and limited watching of the news. All I knew for sure was that he seemed like a good guy, incredibly interesting, endlessly compassionate and tireless in the pursuit of what he believed was right. I think we can learn a lot about from this. He is our shining example of  someone who truly did what he loved and loved what he did. Hearing other speak of him, seeing the reaction of the crowds in Toronto and becoming moved and inspired myself, it is evident that he was a different kind of leader. He was someone who I will go so far as to say, boldly lead the trend of learning the rules of the game then systematically breaking them. He has left a legacy that I hope will not be soon forgotten and that will be actively embraced by those left behind.

No matter who it is, it all comes down to choices. Sometimes it is hard to choose a road that hasn't been tread before but looking at these challenges, this trail breaking, as an adventure, as a tool to get the end result can make all the difference. A few days ago I decided that I was intrigued by accounting. Yes, accounting. Going into each class and learning more about something that will make me successful at owning my own business, seeing each uncomfortable lack of knowledge as an exciting chance to learn more. I could choose to make these discouraging, get bogged down in the overwhelming volume of things I don't know, haven't yet learned but why? Yes, there will be days when I am sure this will happen but isn't it more fun, more productive, to see it all as one great challenge that has an equally great reward?

Perspective, choice, do what you love. Choose what you do.

Molly.

Jack would like these MBA students.

Doing what we love.

Heart in hand.

I seem to have been updating every electronic device I own over the last few days. Pretty much just lap top and phone but that is likely beside the point. Anyway I was picking through some tunes while shuffling the goods around my beloved phone and came across Jann Arden. She is kind of hilarious, kind of a rock star, kind of a big deal. Ok not kind of. This hit home hard. Got me up, got me singing along... into my hairbrush. Yes, I do own a hairbrush and yes, it's primary purpose is microphone duty.


Take a peek, sing a long. Be yourself.

I've got money in my pocket,
I like the color of my hair.
I've got a friend who loves me,
Got a house, I've got a car.
I've got a good mother,
and her voice is what keeps me here.

Feet on ground,
Heart in hand,
Facing forward,
Be yourself.
I've never wanted anything.
No I've, no I've, I've never wanted anything,
so bad...

Cardboard masks of all the people I've been
Thrown out, with all the rusted, tangled
dented God Damned miseries!!
You could say I'm hard to hold,
But if you knew me you'd know,
I've got a good father,
And his strength is what makes me cry.

Feet on ground,
Heart in hand,
Facing forward,
Be yourself.
I've never wanted anything,
No I've, no I've, I've never
wanted anything so bad...

I've got money in my pockets,
I like the color of my hair.
I've got a friend who loves me,
Got a house, I've got a car.
I've got a good mother,
and her voice is what keeps me here.

Feet on ground,
Heart in hand,
Facing forward,
Be yourself.

Heart in hand,
Feet on ground,
Facing forward,
Be yourself.
just be yourself.
just be yourself.

Feet on ground,
Heart in hand,
Feet on ground,
Heart in hand....

When your love is safe

Expectations. We all have them. In spades.

I was casually/narcissistically rereading old blog posts and the ones from late January and early February struck a cord. My focus was firmly on my own inauthenticity and a desire to let that go. I was also obsessed with the idea of finally moving to Vancouver and starting the life I so desired. It's funny looking back at the expectations I held for where I'd be, who I was becoming, what all this newness would hold. I had an idealistic view of what life in Vancouver would entail. I saw long sunny jogs through Stanley Park, seeing all of my old summer camp friends all the time, beach days and sweet summer jobs. I expected myself to be thinner and for some reason taller. I had a large disposable income and was always happy. Simply for a change of place. It's amazing how when reality doesn't align with these expectations the disappointment that is felt and strangely we, as humans, have a tendency to continue to have expectations anyway.

Happily my expectations have not been met. Life is not as I pictured it but I never would have been able to predict where I am now. The more I let go of expectations for what is to come the more I seem to be acting in accordance with who I aspire to be and the more I am able to stay present. Each day seems to be a happy surprise. This being said life isn't perfect but I sure seems like less of a fall when it is not constantly built up and placed on a pedistal.