This week at church, the homily was about patience and our relentless need to focus on what hasn't been done. The priest talked about "dolce far niente" - the sweetness of doing nothing.

Last week I had a super long day of client calls and teaching CI to a new leadership team.  By the end, I should have been exhausted. Instead, I was amped up (and so were they!)

Last week we were talking about the trait that excels at prioritizing workload and one person (who wasn't super strong in that trait) said "I'm great at prioritizing.  I always get my stuff done."  The person across the table said, "You're great at getting it all done but you overload yourself and work 18 hour days to do it."

Yesterday I joined 45,000 fans to watch the Savannah Bananas play baseball at Citizens Bank Park.  It was fast-paced, choreographed chaos - music, backflips, nonstop energy. (I loved it.)  And beneath the fun was one of the most magnetic, high-performance business models I’ve ever seen.

Back in 2015, I was on a road trip with some of my smartest (and most unfiltered) college friends. After a bottle rolled down a hill, I said, “That bottle has a design flaw.”  Ryan, never one to miss a moment, deadpanned: “Yeah. You are the design flaw, Beka. The design flaw is you.”

The lifetime net worth graph on these calls? Always the same.
Flat. Flat. Flat.  Then boom - hockey stick!

I recently started a course to learn how to develop word-of-mouth referrals.  I know that mastering this skill will dramatically impact my journey.  But learning this skill is super uncomfortable - I hate asking for help.  The first few times, it came out "cringy" (as my kids would say) and I wanted to immediately stop.  

I once heard the definition of insanity was doing the same thing but expecting different results.  It takes me back to my undergraduate lab days—mixing the same ingredients in those tiny adorable beakers and how predictable the reactions were.  It's not magic, it's science!

I’m one of those weirdos who ADORES annual goal setting. By November, I start chipping away at next year’s focus, and over Christmas, I bring it all together in one place.

In my experience, CEOs are well aware of their challenges, but how they handle them makes all the difference—some take control, others let challenges control them. The key difference is making space to act.

"Our minds prefer false certainty to uncertainty.  Faith is living in that place of uncertainty." - Matthew Kelly

"Failure is not embarrassing. It is not a roadblock. It is the road."  -Colin Rosenblum

When he was in his early 50s, Father Tom Mullin was asked to found our church parish.  He started with a handful of people, saying Mass in school gyms, fire halls, and synagogues until the church could be built 6 years later.

Spanx founder Sara Blakely conceived her billion-dollar idea while selling fax machines door to door.  She kept it secret for two years as she built it, sharing only with those critical to its success.  

Balance is a state of equilibrium that creates stability and harmony in a system.  While “balance” is a worthy pursuit, the reality of leadership is tension. Tension is an action-reaction pair of forces that creates a state of stress within a system. The result is either growth or breakdown.

"Chase the heal, not the hurt."  This quote perfectly summarized the root of a few conversations this week, so I'm pondering why we so often chase the hurt.

Christmas to me means music in all shapes and sizes.  

I love December because it's GOAL SETTING TIME!  And my favorite way to do that is by using this worksheet and taking some time to reflect on how this year went before throwing myself blindly into next year's plans.

Since it's Thanksgiving week, I decided to look into the science of a happy life.  Harvard has been conducting a study on happiness for 85 years, and the findings are startling.  The secret is not diet, it's not physical activity, it's not money.