I know how much money I have. (Well, sort of, given market swings!) I don't know how much time I have. Looking at time as my most valuable resource is not a new idea to me. However, it popped up somewhere in my social media feed in the last week, just as I was having an opportunity to put it into practice in context of launching Dancing the Tightrope. Ironically, I'm going all the way back to my first book The Delicate Art, Learn to Say No and Unleash Your Performance.

This week, the progression of my flying lessons began with more advanced maneuvers. The first one in this phase was "steep turns". As we took off from the Asheville Airport and headed for the practice area just west of Lake Lure, I was feeling moderately confident that steep turns would be no big deal. However, as it came time to level off and begin configuring the plane, I noticed that I was having a difficult time maintaining straight and level flight. That's when my brain started firing some not-so-useful thoughts at me. "If you can't fly straight, what makes you think you can do a steep turn?" What I failed to remind my oh-so-ever-helpful brain in the back seat was that it was an especially hot and bumpy day. It's always more challenging to fly on days with thermals (pockets of hot air) everywhere.

I started flying lessons this week. It's not a brand-new hobby. In the mid-80's I spent several years learning to fly and went as far as the final check ride. When Jen and I moved to Charlotte, we lived too far from the airport for me to stay current. In my prior life, flying was easily accessible and fun, so I embraced it. All these years later, my husband Russ and I have decided to take it up again. We will have fun doing it together, but that's not the only reason, at least for me.

I was recently asked by a dear friend to write a letter to his granddaughter, who is graduating from college this semester. He's asked several of her friends and mentors to do the same, which I thought was a brilliant idea. What a powerful way to collect the wisdom of those that have gone before. For my blog this week, I'm sharing my letter. Congratulations on this incredible milestone. College graduation represents much more than a diploma. The achievement, while admirable, was never the point. What matters most is who you are becoming as you work through the problems put before you. While our education system centers on testing your knowledge - with points taken off for mistakes - life teaches that mistakes are the stepping-stones that shape us. When you see them as essential, rather than something to be avoided, they become the catalyst to your personal growth.

It happened again. The blank sheet of beautiful, white watercolor paper stared me in the face, daring me to transform it into a masterpiece. After going to the Celebration of the Arts in Scottsdale last month, I've been looking forward to transitioning my art studio from the winter work of pottery to the summer work of painting.

A lot of my coaching conversations come around to some form of breakdown. Whether it's a broken promise, an unexpected decision or correcting a mistake, breakdowns seem like impediments to achieving our goals. Even the word breakdown indicates a breakdown is a problem. It makes me think about being stuck on the side of the road with no tools and no way to call for help. However, when we peel back the layers of the types of "breakdowns" I mentioned above, we can almost always find the place where a conversation was avoided, a step was missed, or the end goal became the primary focus. In other words, the breakdown could have been avoided if the steps had been broken down into smaller pieces.

NOTE: A lot of my writing energy these days is going into finishing Dancing The Tightrope. The book is coming together in its own time. This week, I'm sharing another excerpt from the book. After one of my sessions in a multi-day leadership program, one of the men in the room pulled me aside and asked me about a dilemma he was facing. Everything in his body language said he was facing a crisis of his conscience. As James story unfolded, it became clear that he had been living with the awareness for some time that he had been accepting otherwise unacceptable behavior. He had been making trade-offs to please his bosses that he knew in his heart were wrong. He had been compromising his personal values and it was eating him alive from the inside out.  Furthermore, he knew the right thing to do. He had known it for a long time. Maybe even years. So, I asked him the obvious question: "Why haven't you done it (the right thing) yet?" 

Two years ago this week, we started going into the first lockdowns of the COVID 19 pandemic. In the ensuing two years, we've had plenty of rough waters. I'm reposting the blog I wrote then, because it seems like a good time to reflect. Where are you stronger today than you were because of the "rough seas you have sailed"? I would love to hear from you. In what feels like a single moment, the world has completely changed. The slow fires of a virus started spreading months ago. By now, we've all been impacted in some way. My world also changed in February 28 when my Dad, surrounded by his four children and wife Jane, left the plane of this Earth.