Month: February 2021

(2 minute read time)

I started the Love Dare three years ago as a Valentine’s Day post to encourage leaders to bring love into the workplace.  In my career I’ve seen countless organizational cultures and most do not have an abundance of love in them.  Considering that most of us tend to reserve “love” for our personal lives it makes sense that this gap exists.    

Sure we hear some people say things like “I love my job”.  However, that’s often followed with “But, I really can’t stand ____”, which diminishes, if not negates, the love piece of the statement.  

In addition, we often use the word “love” rather flippantly.  It’s a catch-all term used to describe how we feel about our spouse or kids but we also use that same term to describe how we feel about our favorite ice cream or pair of jeans.  

Some languages have multiple words to help differentiate the kind of “love” being referenced.  English isn’t one of them.  So, if we want to be clear we need to find another way. 

The unique thing about the Love Dare is that it doesn’t involve words at all.  

Here’s how it works… Throughout your day practice feeling love for those around you – all of them, and especially the challenging people.  With most people, it will be pretty easy to find something you genuinely appreciate about them. Start with them – find something you appreciate and let your mind marinate on only that for a moment.  For those that feel more challenging, challenge yourself to find just one small thing you can embrace about who they are.  You don’t even have to say a word.  Just try it in your mind for one whole day.  

If you haven’t done the Love Dare with me before you may be asking yourself – WHY??  Why would I bother doing this? Here are excerpts from past years Love Dare to help answer that very question.  

• 2019 Love Dare – Love feels awesome.  It’s amazing. Why wouldn’t we want to feel it as frequently as possible???

• 2020 Love Dare – What you will find is that even if nothing else changes – you’ll feel a whole lot better.  Because love just feels better than what you were thinking and feeling before you took this dare.     

I promise you’ve got nothing to lose here, and oh so much to gain.  If you could use a hand, I can definitely help.  Click here to chat!  

As someone who calls Tampa Bay home – wow, what a Super Bowl!!! I like football but if I’m honest, really it’s mostly about the food and the commercials. But not this year – what a game, way to go Bucs!! Not to mention the Super Bowl ads were not as entertaining as usual. Although, the ad offering an opportunity to be on board the first all-civilian MISSION TO OUTER SPACE caught my attention.  Did you see it?  It’s not that it was all that entertaining, but there’s something far more valuable hidden in there.  

How did you react to the offer to go to outer space? Or, in case you didn’t see it – how WOULD react to such an offer? My reaction was super fast, like a reflex, and it surprised me.  It sounded something like “There’s no way, I don’t have what it takes”.  Before ever looking up any details, I disqualified myself.  Turns out I actually could qualify.  And while I do think a journey to space would be pretty cool – it doesn’t sing to my heart’s desire enough to pursue.  

What about you?  Maybe your reflex thoughts sound like mine.  But, let me ask you something… Could you accidentally be saying “No way” to a dream you actually do want?   Might you be accepting a knee-jerk belief that says you’re not enough?  That you can’t really have the kind of future you want in a certain area of your life?   

Maybe it’s not a dream about outer space but one closer to home.  Perhaps it’s a dream for your health, your relationships, finances, or career.  Getting to the results you really want may require you to see the future with a different lens.  

Getting to the BIG dreams in life means believing the best about your future, believing in your success, before you have the evidence to support that belief.  It may sound ridiculous, to believe something without evidence, but the alternative isn’t very inspiring.  Plus, it’s way more fun to envision success and makes taking the next tiny step a whole lot easier.  For a quick read about how this could work in your life, just click here.  #20TwentyWon.

(3 minute read time)

It seems like bad news has been rampant in the lives of those I care about lately.  Every few days or so there’s a new health issue, a relationship in turmoil, a loved one passed, financial troubles, problems at work, or challenges with the kids.  Maybe you’ve seen the storms too, in the lives of those you love, or perhaps you’re dealing with your very own storm.   

When we think about handling all that keeps getting thrown at us, often it feels huge and weighty.  Like it’s all just too much.    

The problem is our internal “zoom lens”.  We misuse our imagination to zoom out into the future just far enough to be a problem.  We envision the difficulties of our circumstances.  We envision the challenges, the obstacles, and all the effort it’s going to take to overcome them.  

And then we stop right there.  

We don’t zoom out past those hard parts and envision ourselves actually overcoming them.  Rising to the challenge and succeeding.  We stop just short of that image.      

Such short-sightedness is what often stops us from growth, change, and creating intentional results.  It keeps us recycling the same life, enduring it – not enjoying it.  

Here’s a workaround… 

Zoom OUT bigger than you have been & also zoom IN much smaller.

Zoom out – look at the bigger picture, beyond the effort.  Think about WHY you’re even doing the things you do…  Why do you go to work every day?  Why do you help a friend in need?  Why do you pay the bills?  Why do you take care of the kids?  Why do you stay with your partner?  

These may seem like silly questions and you may feel tempted to answer “Because I have to”.  While that may feel true (it’s not, but that’s another post 😉), challenge yourself to come up with other reasons too.  Reminding ourselves of our why can reignite motivation – if it’s a good reason.  Then, further that motivation by zooming out far enough to envision your future self actually achieving these things you’re putting time & energy into.     

Next, we go to the other extreme and we zoom in, sometimes WAY in. 

Ask yourself; “What’s most important today?”.  Sometimes it helps to zoom in even further and ask “What’s the most important right now?”.  Of course “important” is defined differently by different people and can vary from day-to-day.  The point is to narrow your focus down to just what you can actually handle in a discrete amount of time.  Maybe it’s sending one email, scheduling one appointment, organizing one drawer, applying to one job, paying one bill, signing up for one work out, declining one dessert… You get the idea.  Make the chaos manageable by choosing and committing to one small step towards where you want to be.  These tiny, consistent actions compound much faster than you think.      

When I open the camera on my phone it automatically offers just 2x the zoom.  If I want to go bigger or smaller than that, I have to do it manually – intentionally.  The same is true in our lives.  Could you use a hand with your zoom lens? I can definitely help.  Click here to chat!