These three words might be the best advice I can ever give you to address difficult and uncomfortable situations.
As I am writing this, it is a spectacular day here in New Hampshire. The sun is absolutely brilliant and I’m watching my solar panels app trace a perfect sinusoidal curve that means we will soon be back to generating more than enough electricity to supply our home and a good portion of the energy needed for our electric car. Long before spring makes itself felt in our bones, that smooth, broadening curve alerts us to the rising trajectory of the sun. We blink into the glare and guess how many more days until the afternoon rays completely clear the tall pines to the southwest so that the generation curve can continue its perfect arc.
It’s Leap Day. A whole extra bonus day! And, yet, it doesn’t feel that way. Here I am finishing my newsletter instead of doing something unusual on this gift we receive only once every four years. Why? Because I didn’t recognize the gift, protect it, and plan ahead to savor it. I could have made this a celebratory day shared with good friends. I didn’t. There is an important lesson in this.
I have received many newsletters from colleagues filled with predictions for 2020 so I decided to do the same! In my own way, of course!
Out of all the books I read this year, four stood out as definitely the most memorable. All four opened my eyes to perspectives and facts that were new to me.
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. This is not a partisan article. This article is about process. I’m very much a process person and if there is one process I care about, perhaps more than any other, it is our democratic system of government that has kept us safe and prosperous for an impressive number of years.
I love New Year’s Day because that’s when my husband and I consider all the travel and vacation ideas we’ve conjured over the past year and transform them into decisions. The difference between a decision and an idea is specificity and commitment.
I had a wonderful time with clients in California recently. We were working on anticipating and preventing problems, a frequently neglected skill that can save companies millions and millions.
Wow! Here we go. Rolling right into the last month of the year already. Not only is this the hurry-up-and-nail-your-goals time of year, it’s also a giving time of year. Ironically, giving often becomes stressful. How sad is that?! Giving should be joyful! Have we gotten caught up in the process and lost track of the meaning? (Kind of like we do with our business and health goals?) Want some new gift ideas that provide real value instead of more cards, calories, and ‘stuff’? Here’s one!