Binding Ties
"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tucked away in the San Fernando Valley, in Southern California, down an unsuspecting cul-de-sac, sits a yellow house that became the center of a family's universe for the past 38 years. I know of it well because it was my parents who purchased that house and then proceeded to make it a home – not only for the ten children they brought together to make a newly blended family back in the early 70's – but also for their grandchildren and great grand children that were to come.
Over the course of this long (yet not long enough) weekend my siblings, niece and nephews, and various spouses that could make it, set to the unwanted, but mandatory task of having to dismantle the items left behind from the life my parents built. The work we had before us gave new understanding to the term blood, sweat and tears. So many memories, so much stuff, holding so much meaning to my parents – and to us.
I want to say a special shout out of gratitude to my family members getting this letter today – thanks to each of you for all that you gave of yourselves over this weekend. From the hard labor of painting, to helping each other let go of the items that packed powerful memories as, "we just can't hold on to all of it" became a recurring theme.
A special pound of thanks for the great deal of love and laughter we shared as we went about this mentally and physically draining work. There seemed to always be someone there with a hug and warm words when the tears were flowing.
Aristotle said, "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." Indeed we found each of these wrapped up in saying goodbye to the home my parents built. While they did not physically build it board by board – they did build it memory by memory.
This Monday morning, Presidents Day, I find myself still here – as I will be in the extra three days I have decided to stay as the lose ends in readying the house to put on the market to sell fall into place. Will another family ever love this home as much as we did? While I have my doubts – I sure hope that it happens. I would love to see it filled with love once again.
Use or Lose
"Every situation properly perceived, becomes an opportunity." – Helen Schucman
Happy Valentine's Day! We've all heard and felt in one form or another, that proverbial saying, "If you don't use it, you will lose it!" This was a reminder that hit home hard for me last week as I was painfully reminded by my big toe. Yes, my big toe on my right foot.
As many of you know I had surgery for a bone spur on that toe in December and have been progressing slower than I would like, but nonetheless gaining more mobility. The result is that I started giving my foot less and less attention. Last Monday, after an over the top busy day in my office I actually completely forgot about my foot needing my attention throughout the entire day.
By Monday night when I got done with my work I finally looked down at my foot. The sight was not a pretty one! My foot was black and blue and very, very swollen. The sight actually took my breath away. After a couple of days of icing and elevating, along with a visit to the doctor, my foot was on the path to recovery once again. It was a huge reminder that my toe is still healing and won't get better if I don't nurture it and give it the love and care that it needs at this point in time.
Which brings me to the topic on this day of Valentines…love. Yes, love that key ingredient to any relationship that we have in our lives, that single element that warms our hearts and soothes our souls. When we forget to nurture our relationships – we can in fact lose them. This runs the gambit from love, to like, to caring.
Choice in Action
"The choice is the main action."
- Marcel Duchamp
So many choices, so little time. That's the thought churning through my brain as I a sit sipping my coffee this morning deciding what to write about in this week's Victory Letter. Acknowledging as I do so, there is a week full of possibilities that lays before me. Being the captain of my own ship I can go where I need to – the key is finding myself come Friday accomplishing all that I could – having made the right choices.
One of the car commercials during the Super Bowl yesterday asked the question,
"What if we would have settled for the first thing that came along?" It made me stop and think about settling and what comes with it when you don't shoot your best shot each and every time, always going for the best that is within you to give. Yet, in the same breath I have to ask, can we really do it all – each and everyday?
Then there was the fortune cookie I got last week during an evening of Chinese take out that read, "Every burden is a blessing." Thinking about that strangely makes me grin because a I realize that no matter what I choose to do – something will be thrown in my path that I did not ask for, let alone would have choosen to have happen.
The choice when a burden, or problem arrives on the scene for us is to either throw in the towel for what we had planned or to see past the challenge of the perceived "burden", and look for the additional opportunity that it may have actually given to us. This is what can make life a bit exciting when the unknown arrives to spice up the day a bit.
Saying these thoughts out loud to you this morning comes with the knowing that what I am thinking and feeling isn't just unique to me. Sure the specifics of my week will be unique to me – but each of us, you and me, as well as a whole heck of a lot of other people will wake up this morning with choices to be made. Our first one is to get out of bed and from there they just keep on coming.
Believe It Or Not
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
- Bobby Kennedy
This morning we say goodbye to the unseasonal balmy 60 degree temperatures of the last few days and look at bundling up for a high of 22 degrees today (tomorrow they are saying the high will be 2 degrees!) – have my focus on the word belief.
In the week gone by, that tiny word belief that carries a big punch, came up quite a bit on several different fronts. I am finding it to be the power mantra moving towards a new week and tomorrow, a new month.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with a group of women who are the rocks behind the Victory Circles – other than our members – it's our Facilitators that make it all happen.
We spent the majority of the day Saturday under the wise and amazing guidance of Laurie Taylor. Laurie guided us through a train-the-trainer program getting us deeper entrenched in her Destination Greatness program, the foundation for our Acceleration Membership Coaching program.
Our program is based on getting around the numbers in your business and fully embracing this key element that most entrepreneurs tend to want to avoid. We spent a powerful day building our business development muscles so that we in turn can assist our varied clients and Victory Circles members.
Vision Unity
The closer you get to greatness the better you become.
- John Gray
A new Monday morning dawns with 7 days ahead of new possibilities. Just like the new year always gives us a fresh perspective – so can each and every Monday morning – our chance to begin again. With a day spent hanging in my jammies yesterday while doing home chores – I am ready to get dressed again and go out there and make things happen. How about you?
Tomorrow, the President of the United States will be sharing his annual address to Congress known as the State of the Union. It is designed to give us insights into what he is seeing and thinking will come to pass in the year ahead from his eyes – as the leader of this country. He will stand before congress, specially invited guests and each of us so we can hear what he has to say on topics from fiscal responsibilities to where we stand on international soils.
This year it will be cool to see if the congress can go the route that Colorado Congressman Mark Udall is promoting and actually shake up a little non-partisan action. The idea is to get congress out of their comfort zone and sit with members of the other party during the speech. It is a small gesture but something that I don't believe has been done before. It is my hope that the President's speech will be energizing to match this mood of working together or as I like to think of it – getting along!
As we embark on the 24th day of this year I don't know about you but I love the idea of having a time, date and place to declare your intentions for the year ahead. We have had a few weeks to fully get our arms around what is possible in the year 2011. It is a time to fully declare our plans of actions and strategies that will make a difference in our business and personal lives.
Blending Perspectives
If I spend time judging other people, then I've lost the opportunity to love them.
- Robyn Balsley
Happy Martin Luther King Day! A day, in my minds eye, for not only remembering the man, but also to honor his ideals as well. His message evolved around respecting the light that each of us brings to the planet without judgment and condemnation when others ideals don't match our own.
Probably one of the most complex human conditions we have to work with is the art of getting along with others – especially those people who are different than we are and don't do what we want or think they should do. Heck it is the thing major wars between countries stems from. Whether in your personal life and/or business life how much stress could be avoided when we quit judging and expecting the worst. It really is where positive thinking towards others comes into play.
Each and every one of us, from myself writing this mornings letter, to you reading it, have a different outlook, opinion, and thought processes about the week ahead as we move forward. Yes, some may be similar, some may be in direct alignment but when the rubber meets the road – each one of us is going to walk a different path today…it is the wonder and amazement of how this thing called life seems to play out. Let's face it if we were all the same it would get a little boring don you think?
Peaceful Endings
We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don't.
- Fortune Cookie
This morning I have so many things I want to say as my heart runneths over!
On Saturday my family and I said the final goodbyes to our parents – not an easy task to do, but something each of us has to do – sooner or later in our lives. As those of you know who have been reading the Victory Letter for some time – we lost my mom 1-½ years ago to Leukemia brought on by chemo for Ovarian Cancer and my dad just a month ago – partly to Parkinson's disease and partly I believe to a broken heart.
Our parents wish was to have their ashes mixed together and then for us, their family of 10 grown children to find a resting spot for them – somewhere special was all the instructions we were given – just as long as it was not in a cemetery or "in" the ocean. Mom and Dad were no more detailed than that – somehow I believe now, they knew they would guide us towards what needed to be done. Being loving and devoted children – we had no choice but to make their final wish the best it could be.
Friday afternoon was my dad's funeral and it was a beautiful tribute to him, which included a tribute from the US Air Force for his time served for his country. It really hit home for me how much I loved this man, who while not my biological father, turned out to be my dad much longer than more meaningfully than the father I was originally given. He was a man who loved his family and really loved my mom – he gave her a wonderful life and they loved each other so much.
Together we became a family of 10 children. Not always perfect times considering when they got married we ranged in age from 10 to 19. But mom, always the consummate planner of a fun life, pursued making this blended family work as well as it could – working full time as well outside the home to support the family.?
Ah but I digress, and of course don't have time here in this letter to share the whole story. So I will only share the peaceful ending…though for myself, my siblings, our spouses, the grandchildren and great grandchildren and so many friends of all of ours, the memories of my parents will live on forever. ?
As mentioned, we were given this task to mix our parents ashes according to their wishes – not knowing that we would have to do it ourselves due to certain rules and regulations about others doing it for us. We did not have a plan on how to do this but seemed to be divinely guided the night after Dad's funeral and reception in creating an impromptu ceremony of putting our parents "back together" outside by my parent's pool, which they loved so much.
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