The Key to Success in Business and Life...WOMEN?

This stat blew my mind:

Collective intelligence increases in proportion to the number of women on a team.

Note what does NOT increase Collective intelligence:

• IQ

• Group Satisfaction

• Group Cohesion

  Group Motivation

Surpised? Me too!

But I’m not surprised that women make teams better.

I’ve always thought that diverse perspectives and life experiences add value to any group gathering. Gender, race, education, religion, and geography add richness to even the smallest gatherings. But collective intelligence—that’s a new one!

Women make teams work smarter.

I find this fascinating because even though we live in a day and age when women truly can do anything, it hasn’t always been that way.

For many years, women were barred from many professions. The first professionally trained woman doctor didn’t start practicing medicine until 1849. That might seem like a long time ago, but considering the fact that women didn’t start entering medical school in larger numbers until the 1970s, progress has been slow at best. In some states, women were forbidden to own businesses or property. It wasn’t until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 that employers were expressly forbidden from discriminating based on sex (in addition to religion, race, color, and national origin.) And believe it or not, a woman couldn’t even get a credit card without a male co-signer until the mid 1970s.

Fun Fact:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt may have been ahead of his time when he appointed Frances Perkins as the Secretary of Labor. In 1933, she became the first woman to hold a Cabinet position in a U.S. president's administration. (Currently, women make up more than half of President Biden’s cabinet.)

The researcher in the Harvard study points out that this increase in collective intelligence may be because women score higher on tests of social sensitivity than men do. “What do you hear about great groups?” Anita Woolley asks. “Not that the members are all really smart but that they listen to each other. They share criticism constructively. They have open minds. They’re not autocratic. And in our study we saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent groups.”

These findings correlate with Duhigg’s research in his book, Supercommunicators. Though he doesn’t specifically delineate between men and women, he does note that “supercommunicators,” the people who have the best ability to bring about connectivity within groups, are the people who listen closely to what’s said and unsaid, ask the right questions, match the mood of the room, and make their own feelings easy to perceive. I don’t know about you, but I find that many of the women I know often complain that their husbands are emotionally unavailable or uninterested in what their wives are thinking and feeling. (Honey, if you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you!)

Of course, we all want to believe that we are modern thinkers, that we value diversity in every setting, but the reality is that what we believe and how we act don’t always align.

Fourteen percent of the most influential companies in the world don’t have a single female board member. One surprising finding was in the area of fashion. Women, who spend nearly twice the annual amount on clothing every year than men, are notoriously underrepresented across the world in this industry. Just one third of apparel companies assessed publicly commit to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. Of these, just 16% set specific targets. One of my daughter’s favorite stores, Brandy Melville, is notoriously misogynistic. For years, I thought Ms. Melville was the brains behind the brand, but in reality, the founder is a man named Silvio Marsan and his son, Stefan, and Brandy Melville herself is actually the fictional tale of two people – Brandy, an American girl, and Melville, an English guy who met in Rome and fell in love and inspired the brand’s name and logo.

Some careers are equally filled by both men and women (marketing, human resources, and education). In recent years, some traditionally male-dominated industries are including more females.. Parity in both work and pay is on the rise! We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that equality is finally happening in industries like law enforcement, accounting and finance, culinary arts, and science. What IS surprising is that it took so long! Think about it—in two parent households, women generally make most of the purchase decisions for the family. They assume the role of disciplinarian, manage the cooking, and experiment daily, whether it’s helping with the 8th grade science project or trying to figure out how to grow a lemon tree in a climate not conducive to lemon trees.

It makes perfect sense that they would enter the workforce and want to be paid for these roles.

What can we learn?

I think it’s fair to say that any gathering that’s ALL MALE or ALL FEMALE will not be as strong as it could be.

The key to making smart decisions in any setting is to keep an open mind and allow all voices to be heard. Think about how you can incorporate this principle of equality in your families, book clubs, small groups, and business meetings. I also think it’s important for women to realize that there is NO reason to be intimidated in a room full of men. Because YOU are there, that room is smarter than they would be without you there. Wherever you go, your presence makes the place better.

The takeaway: To any male who happens to be reading this post:

If you want to be successful, make sure you have some women on your team.

Hey, the research proves it!

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When Progress Means Backward Motion

Progress.

I’ve always liked that word because progress feels like I’m doing something. Something important. Something that matters. Progress means I’m going someplace good.

And making progress is fun because it’s the physical embodiment of that up-and- to-the-right graph that’s prized by researchers the world over.

But thinking about progress can also invoke fear. As a kid, I dreaded the progress report sent home by teachers every four and a half weeks. Was I “on track?” Was I “a joy to have in class?” Did I “spend too much time talking?” That report told me exactly where I stood at that exact moment in time.

So progress is good, but also scary. How much progress we’ve made has implications in a wide variety of fields. We want to see forward movement. That’s why I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when I heard Adam Grant as a guest on Hidden Brain talking about how progress sometimes means going backward.

Wait. What?

Going Back

He said that in order to progress, you need to imagine alternative realities, and sometimes that means you will have to change the way you do things. For example, he said, suppose you want to become a faster typist, but you’ve spent your whole life hunting and pecking. You can hunt and peck all you want, but you’ll never be as fast as the person who learned how to use the keyboard by memorizing the home row and going from there. When you’re introduced to this new way of typing, you’re going to be pretty slow…at first. And that’s okay. You WILL get faster because the new and improved process of learning and the system it utilizes insures a faster typing speed.

Adam said,

Progress rarely happens in a straight line. It typically unfolds in loops. Day by day, it can feel like you're spinning your wheels.

The Downside of Accountability

After a fancy dinner at The Optimist last week, I told my family I was going to “up” my cooking game. No doubt there will be many kitchen disasters on my way to gourmet chef. To be sure, every meal doesn’t have to be a culinary work of art—even though I want it to be! Trying new techniques might feel like wasting ingredients. Taste is nuanced and personal. Everyone in my family can’t be expected to like everything I make.

I used to be a part of a cohort of entrepreneurs. The people in that group proved to be great accountability partners, but our monthly meetings left me feeling pressured to report only what was going well. That wasn’t the intention, of course. My own insecurity is what kept me from being totally vulnerable about the things I tried that didn’t work. But now I know what it means to “fail forward.” What we learn through failure makes the next step possible.

If this is the year that you’ve resolved either to try something new or to get better at something you’re already doing, I hope you find the idea of going backward for a time as a bit of encouragement. I know that doing so feels like the opposite of progress, but when you approach the experience with curiosity about what you can learn through the process, the pain of going backwards feels a little more bearable.

The Science Behind the Theory

I want to leave you with this final thought, and it’s a scientific principle that we can apply to life. A lot of people think speed and velocity are the same thing. The reality is that speed is how fast you’re going, but velocity is how fast you’re going in a specific direction. Adam Grant said that progress can feel like spinning your wheels, and it can if you’re not paying attention to direction.

We all want progress. But..if you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.—CS Lewis

Keep going, my friend. Just remember that going backwards might be just the direction you need to take right now.

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The Secret Sauce to the Dr. Seuss Success Story

A lot of people know the story of Dr. Seuss and The Cat and the Hat—about how his publisher challenged the author to write a book using just 250 words. Challenge accepted, challenge won! Three years another bet inspired the iconic Green Eggs and Ham, a nifty little book that boasts just fifty different words.

BUT, have you ever wondered how the ordinary Theodore Geisel became the famous Dr. Seuss?

Having grown up collecting Dr. Seuss’s many famous titles (he’s sold nearly 700 million copies), it’s hard to believe that publishers initially spurned Geisel. His first children’s book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected almost thirty times. It’s a miracle he didn’t just give up and never write anything ever again.

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but if you’re facing rejection—of any kind—keep in mind that Dr. Seuss, arguably the most famous children’s author of all time, heard the word “no” 27 times!

(For reference, J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected just twelve times. But I’ll save the rejection commentary for a post on another day.)

So…

What happened? Who would take a chance on a guy that had already been rejected by nearly every publisher in town?

Funny story, actually.

One day, Geisel was walking through New York City, manuscript in hand, dejected and forlorn. He was thinking about how when he got home he was going to burn the manuscript to that book. (After all, it was obviously a dead end. Nobody wanted it, so it must be garbage, right?).

Wrong!

Istead, something magical happened.

Geisel bumped into Mike McClintock, an old friend from his college days at Dartmouth:

McClintock said, "What's that under your arm?"

I said, "A book that no one will publish. I'm lugging it home to burn."

Then I asked Mike, "What are you doing?"

He said, "This morning I was appointed juvenile editor of Vanguard Press, and we happen to be standing in front of my office; would you like to come inside?"

So, we went inside, and he looked at the book and took me to the president of Vanguard Press. Twenty minutes later we were signing contracts.

That's one of the reasons I believe in luck. If I'd been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I would be in the dry-cleaning business today!

Mulberry Street was published in 1937.

And the rest is history.

Actually…

Geisel took a detour from children’s book writing in the 1940s. With the advent of WWII, like so many comrades, he began writing and drawing editorial cartoons for PM Magazine, then accepted an assignment with the U.S. Army’s documentary division, ultimately winning a couple of Academy Awards for projects he spearheaded during that time.

It wasn’t until 1947 that Geisel returned to children’s books, and he didn’t publish the famous Cat in the Hat until ten years after that.

So, what can we learn from the Dr. Seuss success story?

It’s hard to imagine a world without Dr. Seuss.
But perhaps Dr. Seuss couldn’t imagine a world without Mike McClintock!

The story is a reminder to me that it’s impossible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps (Read more about that here!).

In the late 1950s, things had shifted, with Geisel’s old friend, McClintock, working on a children’s book of his own. Now, it was Geisel’s turn to encourage his friend. In a letter to McClintock, Geisel wrote, “You’ve hit something there that has more terrific chances of becoming a classic than anything I’ve seen in a hell of a long time. The basic concept of fear, and running away from things, has something to say. The reader grasps it instantaneously, and then it builds, builds builds.”

(You can read A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock here.)

As I re-read Geisel’s words to his friend now, I feel a bit emotional. When someone we admire validates something we hold dear, their words carry immeasurable weight. Those words can literally be the impetus to keep us going when the going gets tough.

A Hand Up

Stories like this are the reason why quotes like “Your network is your net worth” are so popular. It’s also a reminder to me that it’s rare for something wonderful to be created in a vacuum.

Because I am a homemaker and my kids are mostly grown, my opportunities to “put myself out there” aren’t as prolific as I’d like them to be. I have to make a concerted effort. And I’ll be honest, that’s getting harder and harder. It’s easy to stay home and just “do my thing.”

I have to remind myself that nearly every interesting opportunity I’ve ever had has been the result of a connection made on my behalf.

C’mon, people, let’s be more bold about sharing our dreams!

What if Theodore Geisel, embarrassed that he had been rejected so many times, had passed his friend on the street and decided not to tell him what had happened? What if he had tried to spin a tale to make himself sound more successful than he actually was? What if the two had just shared a cursory fist-bump and walked on?

These are Dartmouth guys, after all. It’s hard to imagine two ivy league men sharing a moment of vulnerability on a busy New York street corner.

In telling the truth, Geisel received a priceless gift.

Some Christians might call it a “God thing.”
Bystanders would probably chalk the whole exchange up to coincidence.
Geisel, himself, said he was just plain “lucky.”

But the reality is that people like to feel helpful.

McClintock’s position in 1937 gave him a unique vantage. Years later, the tide had shifted, and now Geisel was the man with all the influence. Geisel could make things happen for McClintock. And he did, ultimately editing A Fly Went By and inviting McClintock to write for his Beginner Books series for children.

“The need to be needed is one of our fundamental desires. We want to feel significant in the eyes of others, even if it is only one other person. We want to feel like we play an important role, whether in an organization, family, or life of another. The need to be needed is rooted in our need for a sense of contribution to something beyond ourselves.”

— Steve Rose, PhD,

The Need to be Needed

The Need to be Needed theory makes it sound like helping out a friend is a selfish thing. I don’t think so, though. I think that’s the beauty of helping someone else get what they want. In doing so, we get the very thing our own soul craves: validation.

In this season, I find more time available to me—time I can use to help others get what they want.

When mission and purpose intersect with position and influence, you get to experience the joy of generosity.

Maybe right now you wish you had a hand-up for a dream you’re carrying. Don’t burn it down just yet. In the meantime, maybe you can be the bridge for someone else’s dream.

To be fair, sometimes that’s more fulfilling anyway.

Anything I can do to help you? Let me know by replying to this email.

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Your Values Determine Your Value

Please note that all blog posts can be found at www.chanteladams.com. There, you will find formatting more conducive to reading, and you can search for posts by topic.

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.”

— Albert Einstein

I don’t remember when I first heard this quote, but the words have stuck with me.

Success just feels so…subjective.
As it should be.
After all, everyone has a different definition of what it means to be successful. I’ve written about success many times over the years.
(You can read more, here, here, here, here, and here.)

We all want to be successful, and we definitely don’t want to admit it when we’re not.

But I think I love this Einstein quote so much because it just makes sense:

To believe that a man who provides value is more important than a man who believes he is successful: I can get on board with that kind of thinking.

In the marketplace, people pay good money for value.
Valuable things cost more.
Because they’re worth more.

And the more I thought about the quote, I too, wanted to become a person of value. “Value” is a word that’s rich with meaning: It conveys utility, importance, and high regard.

Values, on the other hand, are the individual beliefs that act as a guide for human behavior; the principles that help you decide what’s right and wrong and how to behave in certain situations.

When Gavin and I purchased the coffee shop last year, one of the first things we knew we needed to do was decide who we were going to be.

I know what you’re thinking. Duh! You’re a coffee shop! There’s one on every corner.
You. Sell. Coffee.

And you’re right. We did sell coffee. But the coffee was only a by-product of what we were really selling—the experience of drinking coffee in an environment that reflected our values. The problem was that when we got to Copper Coin nobody knew what those values were. They had never been discussed. They had never been shared. We had to create them so our team could begin internalizing them and our guests could begin experiencing them.

In business, the motto du jour is “Profit First.”
There’s even a book by the same title.

Profit, this book (and others like it) will tell you, is the difference between revenue and expenses. It’s what separates the unsuccessful business from the successful one.

Simple enough on paper but hard to do in real life.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been great at the whole for-profit thing. My entire life experience up until now has been firmly rooted in the realm of nonprofit work. “Stop trying to give everything away!” Gavin would often have to remind me in the early days of owning the coffee shop.

People will pay good money for what they value.

Again, the reminder:

“Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.”

— Albert Einstein

Our five values were:

1. Hospitality

2. Belonging

3. Generosity

4. Artisan Craftsmanship

5. Joy

It was only when we closed that I was sure we had succeeded in living out these values, as story after story was shared with me about the ways in which Copper Coin had been impactful to the people who experienced it on a daily basis. Sure, people missed the coffee, but they missed the experience of being in their favorite place with their favorite people even more.

Those five values mean a lot to me personally.

They reflect the person I aspire to be. But I don’t want them only to be aspirational; no, these values need to be guiding principles. No matter what the future holds in terms of work, I want people to look at my life and see my values reflected there.

No doubt the future will be filled with more opportunities to create, build, and lead. You have choices, too. Do your values act as guideposts for the decisions you have to make about future work and life?

“If the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.”

— Clayton M. Christensen

Do you agree?

I would love for you to share your personal values with me. How are they reflected at home and at work? Simply hit “reply” or type your answer in the comments below.

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A LITTLE NEW YEAR’S ADVICE

Can I have your attention, please?

It’s time for a little New Year’s motivation.

Now, before you groan, complain about yet another email claiming to help you achieve your New Year goals, and delete this email altogether, hear me out.

When I was a kid, spending weekends hanging out at the mall with my friends, there was a store we used to like to visit. Many graduation presents ended up coming from that store. You may remember it—it had the cheesy posters that college students had hanging on their walls. They often took these posters to their first job because—hello— they included such mantras as “There is no I in TEAM” and “The Road to Success is Always Under Contruction.”

My favorite one, though, might be “Your attitude determines your altitude.”

Read that again.

YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR ALTITUDE.

So cheesy! But I can totally see that rocket pointed at the sky and those big words written in a Galactic-like script:

Your attitude determines your altitude.

That was the one teachers liked to drop when anyone started complaining about all those pesky math problems she assigned for homework. “When are we going to use this?” we used to mutter under our breath.

As it turns out, ALL. THE. TIME. (Don’t believe me? Try tripling a recipe to cook for a crowd, comparing prices at the grocery store, or managing household expenses. Just yesterday, Gavin told me there’s no formula he uses more than the one about “percent change.” It’s vital to his business!)

---

ATTITUDE IN SPACE

Anyway, that quote about attitude is more than just a cliche. In the world of aeronautics, attitude isn’t the mood that determines your behavior; it’s the position that determines your destination. To be sure, the sky isn’t even the limit. When you’re riding in a rocket, up and down are totally relative.

When I first heard this, my mind was BLOWN.

Attitude is part of the description of how an object is placed in the space it occupies. Aircraft and spaceships use attitude to determine position. In order for the ship to go in the right direction, attitude must be monitored and controlled. If even a tiny mistake in the way the ship is pointed isn't corrected, the ship can end up millions of miles off course. Expensive equipment would be lost, to say nothing of the astronauts aboard and what that would mean for them!

Behavioral scientists might have hijacked the phrase, but rocket scientists invented it.

An example: Apollo 8 flew more than 580,000 miles and landed just 1.6 miles from its target point in the Pacific Ocean. That mission set the standard for landing accuracy, inspiring eight more Apollo missions that flew all way to the moon and back to land less than two miles from their intended targets. None of this would have been possible without calculations of attitude.

So…let me ask you a question:

How’s your attitude?

Nothing causes remorse quite like the realization that time has run out and you didn’t do any of the things you said you were going to do. Like me, you probably have a general idea about how you’d like this year to go. Maybe you’ve created your own 2023 dream list. But how do you get there?

Let’s get started.

The first and easiest thing to do is to point yourself in the right direction.

Once you’ve got the orientation right, now all you have to do is stay the course. But that’s the hard part. You have to keep going in the right direction. Spaceships stay on course by adjusting attitude with tiny thrusters containing compressed gases. As the thrusters release the gas, the spaceship undergoes micro-modifications to get it back on course.

In my university physics class, we worked a lot of problems that included the phrase “all things held constant” and “without friction.” In real life, though, all things are NOT held constant, and friction, unfortunately, is our constant companion. Something or someone is sure to thwart our best-laid plans. Reading about attitude, however, provides me with encouragement. Even rocket scientists have to continually make adjustments in order to get where they need to be. Mid-course corrections are not only necessary, they are planned.

And that’s good news for us, too.

Constantly evaluating where we are ensures we’re on the right path.

I think sometimes we don’t want to think about the things that might hold us back or the things that could go wrong. But that would be a mistake. As you begin this year, go ahead and plan for the minor adjustments you’ll have to make along the way. When things go off-course, as they inevitably will, what might you need to do in order to get back on track? Planning for setbacks ensures we’re not caught off guard. No one wants to be blindsided by something that could easily be corrected with a tweak here or a nip there, especially when that something could have been anticipated before it even happened.

OK…so how do you do this?

Designate several times throughout the year to check-in with yourself and figure out what needs to change so you can stay on track with your own far-reaching goals. You’ve already heard that writing down and sharing goals increases your chances of achieving them. And that’s true. But don’t just write them down. Review them. Often. Assess yourself. If needed, find an accountability partner. My friend, Jen Soong, and I have been doing this for years. She lives 2,500 miles from me, but once a month we get on a Zoom call and celebrate wins, encourage each other in the places we’ve fallen short, and challenge one another to keep going when the going gets tough.

Every month, Jen helps me adjust my attitude—and in more ways than one!

If you’ve been wondering how I know all this stuff about spaceships and Physics, it’s because I’ve been listening to Michael Collins’ fascinating memoir called Carrying the Fire, about his time as a NASA Astronaut. And if you’ve never heard of Michael Collins, it’s because he’s often called “the forgotten astronaut.” While Buzz and Neil were out frolicking on the moon, he was the guy who had to stay behind, orbit the moon in the command module, and ensure they all got back to earth safely.

I’m cheering for you!

And in the spirit of being cheesy (and space exploration in general), I’ll leave you with a mantra from another poster:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

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What Does It Mean if Your Lucky Bamboo Dies?

Help! The lucky bamboo is dead!

My dad has been growing bamboo in our backyard for as long as I can remember. It’s the kind of plant—ahem—grass —that most other people shun. They cut it down and complain to the homeowner’s association of its encroaching roots. Vile weed! Luckily for my dad, he lives in a neighborhood that doesn’t have an association.

Properties of bamboo:

• Bamboo is the fastest growing land-plant in the world. The only thing that grows quicker is giant sea kelp.

• Clumping bamboo purifies the air up to 30% more effectively than any other plant. Walking through a bamboo forest, high on all that extra oxygen, can help relieve tension and headaches and make you feel happier.

• Thomas Edison used a carbonized bamboo filament in his very first successful light bulb.

• Bamboo is not flammable, but does make a loud popping sound in a fire due to the air pockets that exist between nodes. The very first fire crackers made in China were created out of bamboo.

• Snakes don't like bamboo. Snakes like to curl up in warm, silent places. Bamboo mulch is both too loud and too cold (due to the air purification). Furthermore, the stems are too slippery to climb.

With all these good-for-you properties, why would anyone NOT want a few stalks of lucky bamboo?

Turns out lucky bamboo isn’t bamboo at all. All those properties I just told you about? Forget about them. They don’t apply to lucky bamboo. I feel like I’ve been duped. Lucky bamboo is actually part of the plant species called dracaena sanderiana, native to Africa, not China. It’s popular because of its ability to grow in low light. Textbooks also describe dracaena as “tenacious” and “difficult to destroy.” And there you have it— the magic properties that somehow linked real bamboo with the lucky kind.

The other day, we were cleaning out the coffee shop, getting the last of everything out so it would be ready for our final walk-through with the landlord. On the counter where the coffee grinders and espresso machines used to sit was a bottle that houses our single stalk of lucky bamboo. I noticed two weeks ago that the top was beginning to turn yellow, and then yesterday, as we cleared out the last remnants of what was left of Copper Coin, I discovered the bamboo was brown all the way down.

It died.

And I’m not superstitious, but I am a little bit stitious.

Isn’t it weird that our one tangible symbol of wealth and prosperity died just as our real-life dream keeled over too?

This single stalk lucky bamboo, which had been thriving on our barista counter for more than a year (some employees testified it had been there for several years), is now totally defunct. No one knows how we came by our lucky bamboo. Maybe another local business gave it to us? After all, lucky bamboo is a popular corporate gift because it brings with it the promise to keep the business flourishing. It is a symbol of power, strength, truth, commitment, and prosperity.

These days, I notice people looking at me with pity in their eyes. I can tell they want to ask me about the coffee shop, but don’t. I know what they’re thinking, though. “Poor thing. She just couldn’t hack it in the business world.” It’s truly as if someone has died. I think they’re afraid that if they bring up “the closing” I’ll start crying, but they’re dying to know. “What really happened?” they whisper to their friends. I think they’re hoping to avoid whatever horrible plague befell us. They want to make sure it’s not contagious.

Trust me—you can ask me about the coffee shop.

Gavin and I ended it on our terms. It was our choice. I promise I won’t cry. We tried something that we thought would be both profitable and fun, and as it turns out—it wasn’t that profitable, and it wasn’t that fun.

But I’m still glad we did it.

Right now, we’re watching a series on Netflix called The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a show about a woman named Kimmy who spent fifteen years in a bunker as the kidnapped hostage of a crazed cult leader. She’s now living her best life with her gay roommate, Titus, in a sketchy area of New York City.

This conversation between Kimmy and Titus in Season 4 really got to me:

“TITUS: Hey, do you ever wonder how your life might’ve been different if you’d never gotten in that van? I mean, just one little moment, —if you—

KIMMY: No. There’s no point. I’ve been through a lot of terrible stuff that I wish had never happened. But I still have to believe that this is where I’m meant to be, because if i didn’t... ...I’d go crazy.

”

— The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

I have to believe that this is where I’m meant to be, too. In fact, it is exactly where I’m meant to be.

One stalk of lucky bamboo signifies simplicity and a meaningful life. That’s what Copper Coin showed me. My year-long coffeehouse experience showed me that what I really want, deep down, is simplicity and a meaningful life.

I read recently that people tend to define success primarily through the meaning and purpose they derive from their lives. Purpose is forward-thinking and is closely linked to goal-setting, whereas meaning is how you view your past. The dead bamboo represents my past, a past I view with enormous gratitude.

On the last day at Copper Coin, at 3:00 PM, just as we locked the doors for the very last time, the song Closing Time by Semisonic played over our speaker system. This line rings true even now: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

And so it goes.

And so here we are…a new beginning.

P.S. I didn’t bring the lucky bamboo home. That’s some bad ju-ju right there. :)

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What if Success is About What You Have to Leave Behind?

The Words We Use

If you’ve ever studied another language, you know that words that are familiar to us in our own language, often mean something different in the language we’re learning.

In Spanish, for example, the word PIE does not mean delicious Thanksgiving dessert. It means FOOT.

SOPA, though it sounds like our word for SOAP, actually means SOUP.

And EMBARAZADO, contrary to popular opinion, doesn’t mean EMBARRASSED, but PREGNANT.

You can see how you could easily get into trouble misrepresenting any of these words in normal conversation. Things could get awkward fast.

Like, “ Mmmm…No puedo esperar poner un tenedor in ese PIE hermoso.”
Translation: “Mmmm…I can’t wait to put a fork in that beautiful FOOT.”

Or

“Esta SOPA es tan deliciosa. Voy a comerla todos los dias.”
Translation: “This SOAP is so delicious: I’m going to eat it everyday.”

Or

Ella esta EMBARAZADA porque se cayo de la cama anoche.
Translation: She is PREGNANT because she fell off the bed last night.

Is that how that works? I had no idea!

But there are some words, that even though they don’t mean what you think they SHOULD mean, nevertheless, have interesting hidden meanings.

In Spanish, the word for SUCCESS is EXITO. Sounds a lot like our English word for EXIT, doesn’t it? And I don’t think that’s a coincidence. There’s something beautiful about walking out from some dark space and through that wide door with the glowing EXIT sign suspended over it and into the wide, bright world of something better.

SUCCESS

Success means something different to different people. There is no one definition. Asking “What does success mean to you?” is like asking someone what “family” means or even something as mundane as “vacation.” Our definitions are different because our values are different.

I love the imagery of thinking about success in terms of what you want to leave behind. Closing that metaphorical door can be a thought-provoking, visual example of what it means to move forward after loss, oppression, or a simple change in circumstances.

What we carry with us might be heavy. There’s a strong chance that burden won’t fit through the door anyway. We need to shed it before we can move toward our ultimate calling.

Don’t cross the threshold until you’ve dropped the mantle of self-doubt, comparison, and envy. No matter your definition of success, these three things can have no part in it. I know I’m preaching to the choir—I’m actually preaching to myself—because self-doubt, comparison, and envy follow me everywhere I go.

Today’s the day that I tell them I’m leaving them behind for good!

You probably have conflicting emotions over what you’re leaving behind, too. Welcome those feelings for what they are: a visceral response or reaction to a moment in time. Time moves. And so do you. You won’t always feel the way you do right now.

Leave behind the scarcity mindset that threatens to jeopardize what you want most. As Aaron Burr so famously said at the end of Hamilton the musical, “the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.”

And you.

Yes, the world is big enough for all of us, and your success does not threaten mine—and vice versa.

The last thing to leave behind is ungratefulness. I say this only because even painful experiences have value. To discount those experiences is an insult to everyone who has ever overcome a difficult situation and used it to do something great. In fact, many (dare I say most?) of the people we venerate as successful have overcome unimaginable hardship to achieve their goals.

What’s Next

If you’ve been following this blog for the last year, then you know that in October 2021, my husband and I purchased a coffee shop in town. This summer, we made the difficult decision to close it. Our last day was September 3rd. We live in a society that often elevates the entrepreneur who keeps going despite evidence to the contrary. For us, the decision was difficult and fraught with emotion, made easier only because we knew we would be able to sell both the business and the assets. That dream died three hours before our scheduled closing last week. I have so many questions, not the least of which is “Why?” and “What is the purpose of this?” We closed the business because it demanded something from our family we weren’t willing to give. And whether or not anyone else understands that doesn’t really matter. We have peace about what we left behind. I can’t say I haven’t struggled over the last month with the meaning of both success and failure. Ultimately, however, I came to the conclusion that when I get to the end of my life and plot the important points along the timeline of my journey, this experience will be just that—a dot on the page—something we tried and did and learned from and ultimately left behind.

For what?

That remains to be seen. To say I’m a bit emotional is an understatement.

Fun Fact: The Spanish word for emotional is not EMOCIONADA. That word actually means EXCITED.

And it IS exciting to start something new. Yo estoy emocionada! (I am excited!)

Do you agree? If so, let’s take a journey toward “better” together.

Looking for God to Open a Door for You? Me too!

When you decide to close a restaurant (like I did) or make any kind of career change, well-meaning people are quick to offer up a lot of advice. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of comments that sound like this:

“Well, you know, when God closes one door, he always opens another.”

I know I’m cynical, so I can’t help thinking, “Just because there’s an open door, that doesn’t mean I’m the one meant to walk through it.”

Exhibit A:

Where did this phrase originate? And why is it always attributed to God? A little digging turned up this fun fact:

In 1605, Miguel de Cervantes now famous work Don Quixote offers up this quote:

“When one door is shut, another is opened.”

— Miguel de Cervantes

Then Johann Richter, Helen Keller, and Alexander Graham Bell all said:

“When one door closes another door opens but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Yep. Apparently they all said those exact words. Weird, right?

I can think of a lot of “open doors” in the Bible and the people who walked through them paid dearly:

Remember when Abraham took Sarah’s maid to be his wife so he could have offspring through her? Open door. NOT a good idea to walk through it!

Or when Saul went into the cave and didn’t see David, who cut off a corner of his robe. “I could have killed you, but I didn’t!” He had a clear open door, and he didn’t take it. You know why? Because it would have been a bad idea!

The time wasn’t right.

And here lies the million dollar question:

How do you know when the time IS right?

I did find one instance where the phrase “open door” is actually used in the Bible. Paul says that God “opened a door for him.” But here’s the kicker: he immediately regretted walking through it.

“Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.” (emphasis mine)

He then gives thanks to God for using the trip to spread the gospel. Of course, that’s a lesson for another day. God doesn’t waste anything. That open door, though it didn’t yield what Paul had hoped, still brought glory to God.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to know which doors to walk through and which to leave closed. We want the decision to be easy.

1. Open door.

2. Walk through it.

But not every open door is a great idea. In fact, there’s a dilapidated house next to my neighborhood. I walk past it everyday on my way downtown. A lone rickety rocking chair beckons from the porch. I bet the front door is unlocked. I tried to get one of my kids to test it, but they were afraid a ghost would follow them home.

The Scary House on Main Street

Some doors should remain closed forever.

Back to our problem. When should we try the doors in front of us? I came up with a list of questions to help me decide.

1. Does walking through this door compromise my personal values in any way?

2. Will walking through this door negatively affect my family?

3. Do I have the knowledge, skills, and support necessary for what this door will ultimately usher Into my life?

It’s obvious to me now that when I go searching for an open door what I’m really looking for is a miracle. I want God to show up in a big way, like he did on the third day when the stone had been moved and Mary and Mary Magdalene discovered that the tomb was empty or like the disciples who later huddled together in a room and mused that, “though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’

That’s all I really want. And isn’t that what you want too?

Peace.

Want more good stuff?

Additional Resources for this Post:

The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman

What to do Next: Taking Your Next Step when Life is Uncertain by Jeff Henderson

Art for your House—I have this piece hanging in our upstairs loft!

Print by Lindsay Letters

There's a LATTE Work to Do!

A CONFESSION

Well, hello there, stranger!

First, let me apologize. You haven’t heard from me in a months—MONTHS—and I’m sorry. (Just writing that sentence was embarrassing). Looking back, I wish I had written down everything that has transpired because it’s A LOT.

Allow me to explain.

On October 15th, my husband and I bought a coffee shop.

A COFFEE SHOP!

Sounds crazy, right?

Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are!

I never dreamed I would one day own a coffee shop, but the funny thing is that all the things I ever DID dream are all wrapped up in this one place. Again, I haven’t written anything here in months, but my journals over the years chronicle seasons of caring for children, volunteering in church, cooking for friends, planning parties, and serving the community in a multitude of different venues.

One of the ways God blesses us is by ensuring that no experience is ever wasted.

I have always been drawn to places where conversation and connection can happen organically. In our shop, we experience that every day! We like to say, “There’s lots of places in downtown Woodstock you can go. We want to be the place where a person can simply BE.” Some people have really taken that mantra to heart. Case in point—there’s a consistent crew who park themselves in our seats every single day to work, study, or read or don’t buy a single thing. GAH! Slowly, we are turning the tide. I am beginning to hear stories about the happy place we’ve created, and every week I’m seeing our regulars for breakfast (keto bowls!) or for their twice daily dose of peppermint tea.

I have to be honest, though. The learning curve for running a business like this is steep. We have more than 20 team members, over 5000 square feet of space, and a full kitchen in addition to our coffee counter. And when we bought the coffee house, I didn’t even know how to make coffee!

I want it to be awesome.

WHAT I’M LEARNING

The other day, I was chatting with a friend who stopped by for some avocado toast and tea before her hot yoga class. I told her I was overwhelmed.

“Just remember,” she said, “you only have to do it once.”

And she’s right.

• Updating the vendor contact lists.

• Enrolling in bill-pay.

• Hiring a CPA.

• Scheduling cleaning.

I only have to do these things once, and then I can move on to whatever is next on that never-ending list of daily to-do’s.

My friend, Maureen, acknowledged the magnitude of the work and put it in perspective.

Nevertheless, now we’re five months into this adventure, and we’re still encountering all kinds of firsts.

• We need a new air-conditioner.

• There’s a leak in the dish room.

• Our Point-of-Sale system is outdated.

• The doors need to be replaced.

• And on and on and on….

Such is the nature of owning a business.

As overwhelming as these last few months have been, I finally feel like I’m at a place where I can return to my first love: writing. The coffee house has given me plenty of content!

One thing I’ve learned is that when we choose to do hard things, we exercise all kinds of muscles we didn’t know we had. Consistent exercise leads to increased strength and endurance. I don’t know what the future holds, but these last five months will surely equip me for whatever is next, whether that’s more time at the coffee house or something altogether different.

Only God knows. All these “firsts” will not be wasted.

Follow along here to join us on this journey. In the coming months, we will have to make some hard choices. Together, may we find value in the work we choose to do.

The Hidden Benefit of Trying New Things

The Hidden Benefit of Trying New Things

If you’ve ever been bored by your life, you’re not alone.

Maybe you’ve heard someone else say they feel like they’re languishing?

Now, that’s a big word!

The literal definition of languish is to suffer from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation.

And the older I get, the more people I meet who seem to be stuck there.

Turns out, it actually IS hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

And listen, I’m not one to talk.

Change is scary!

But just because something is scary doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Case in point: When my kids and husband begged me to ride Rip Ride Rocket at Universal Studios, I said yes. I screamed from beginning to thrilling end, but did I have fun? Heck yeah I did!

You say you want to flourish. You say you want to make a profound impact. You say you want to live life to the fullest by doing work that matters.

Maybe you want to share your your message, your skills, your mission with hundreds or even thousands of people. 

And yet you wonder why you can’t seem to get moving when you think about how exciting your life would be—if only you could just DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. 

How overwhelming it feels, how impossible to reach a bar that is set so very high for yourself!

Start a company? Buy a new house? Reach out to a new friend? Of course you are going to get cold feet when you ask yourself to do those things.

Your life is stable. Comfortable. Predictable. Life is going well. Why would you risk all that?

It’s easier to stay where you are. But the longer you stay, the more you are in danger of languishing.

One of the things I love about kids is that every time they experience something new, they grow just a little bit—not in stature but in maturity.

All those rites of passage.

• Braces.

• Driver’s licenses.

• First dates.

• College acceptance letters.

Having something to look forward to makes life interesting and fun. And the problem is that most of us have become fearful of trying new things. Year after year, we fall into comfortable habits and familiar rituals, all in the name of safety and security and then wonder why our lives feel so BORING. When each new day feels exactly like every old day, time flies and we can’t even remember what we did. “Where did the time go?” we ask ourselves.

If you’re not sure what’s next for you, let me encourage you to start with one thing.

JUST ONE.

Do something new and small. Do you normally drink tea? Try coffee instead. Like to work out by pressing buttons on your remote control? Try a group fitness class.

What if that one decision gave you the courage to try one more?

What if your decision today was enough to kick-start your booty into doing something totally brand new?

Here’s the thing no one tells you: You’ll never know what waits on the other side of your decision until you take that first scary step.

I know what you’re thinking. Changing up your daily hot drink or working out in a different way is not enough to help me dig out of the rut I’ve built.

I get it.

But remember, doing something scary can feel exactly like visiting a gym for the first time. At first, everything is awkward and unfamiliar. If you make it through the first workout, you’ll probably feel sore the next day. But every time you exercise those muscles, the workout gets a little easier. The pain is still there, but now it feels GOOD because you understand that you are building muscle. You can add more weight, do more reps, go a little longer. Your clothes fit better. You have more energy.

Maybe someone asks you to run a 10K. You hesitate for a fraction of a second, but then you say, “Yes! Yes! I can do that!”

And you know you can—because you’ve already tried something new and hard. And you didn’t die.

My thirteen year-old daughter also used to be terrified of roller coasters, but she made a promise to herself that this year would be her year to ride them all. When we went to Universal two weeks ago, she started small: First, Hagrid’s, then the Incredible Hulk, then Dr. Doom, and finally the granddaddy of them all: the Velocicoaster. Halfway through the ride, she was no longer white-knuckling the bar in front her. Instead, she was laughing with her hands in the air.

That’s what I want for you, too. The thrill of riding with your hands in your air through all the ups and downs and twists and turns of every new possibility life brings. Love and work are one wild ride. And besides, life is too short to spend any of it languishing. Try something new, and enjoy every minute!

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When You Love Your Lifestyle But Hate Your Life

Mature women everywhere…REJOICE!

I bet you never thought somebody would say that, did you?

But here’s what I love about getting older. Standard of living usually—(and I mean USUALLY)—increases as age increases.

And that’s pretty awesome: those larger paychecks make the “big” house, the boat, multiple vacations a year, and the fancy car possible.

But I’ve also discovered something disturbing:

A lot of people I know love their lifestyle and hate their life.

Impossible, but true.

And the thing is: I don’t even think they’re going to do anything about it!

When you’ve been around as long as I have, it’s easy to put things on autopilot. You tell yourself that the pension you’re going to get when you retire is worth the misery you’re experiencing now. I have a friend who’s committed to working twelve more years in a government job she finds boring and tedious. Twelve years! To turn her back now on that kind of future financial promise is a leap she just can’t make.

But is it worth it?

My husband is getting ready to leave his comfortable job to venture out on his own after 15 years working in a church. It’s a huge leap of faith, and I’m so proud of him because when he tells our friends about his hopes and dreams for his new career, I see the longing in their eyes. They wish they were the ones embarking on a new adventure!

I hear our friends say things like:

I’m too old to change careers.
Who’s going to hire me now?
What if I have to take a pay cut to do the thing I really want?
What will my family do without the consistency of a steady paycheck?

But can you afford not to?

If I were ask you what makes a fulfilling life, my guess is that almost all your answers would be things that are free or almost free. When you create more space and time in your life, you not only discover new opportunities waiting for you but also you find that you are more open and willing to accept them for what they are: not lucky circumstances, but real possibilities.

Love and relationships matter more than money and things.

We know this intrinsically, but we are afraid of the risk. As we get older, we’re not just responsible for ourselves. We have spouses and children who depend on us. We have mortgages and college tuition to pay. Some of us may even be caring for aging parents. The risks are real and anything but trivial.

And the reality is we like the house and the car and the vacations.

Our status symbols have become our status quo.

Depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States among people ages 15-44. It ranks among the top three workplace issues, along with family crisis and stress. (source) According to Fast Company Magazine, nearly 50% of six-figure salaried workers are plotting a job change this year. People are asking themselves, “What do I really want…for my family, from my job, in my life? The answer to those questions will have a direct impact on our future psychological and spiritual well-being.

My husband knew that the time was right to make a change. “If not now,” he said, “then when?” Even though we have two kids in college, five cars (because—teenagers!), a mortgage to pay, and kids in private school, we couldn’t keep putting off the decision. If we waited for the perfect time, we knew we would never make the leap. There would always be something tying us to where we are. He’s making the change because everything he’s done up until now has been preparing him for THIS. VERY. MOMENT.

You can have everything you’ve ever wanted and still feel empty.

What has God been preparing you to do?

Here are 5 things to consider as you ponder what’s next for you:

1) Often other people recognize our aptitudes before we do. Ask the people closest to you what gifts they see in you. Their answers might surprise you.

2) You don’t have to have your entire life journey planned out. Few people do. Life is organic, not linear. Be willing to explore new possibilities and the next right step will reveal itself.

3) Find a community that shares your values and inspires your ideas. I used to be a part of a cohort of entrepreneurs through an organization called Plywood People. I count the five years I spent with those women among the most growth-orienting years of my life. What I learned from them could not be replicated anywhere else.

4) Kids need their parents to model purpose and meaning, not privilege and entitlement. They can sense your restlessness. They know when you’re stressed. Show them what matters by doing work that counts.

5) Work on building wisdom, not a resume. There’s so much more to life than the work you do. No experience is ever wasted. Even if your job no longer challenges you in a way that makes you feel alive, you can still find ways to engage with the world.

In our family, we like to say that when the pain of staying is worse than the fear of change, it’s time to do something different. Sometimes you know what you have to do and you just do it. Sometimes, you need to take a breath and pray about it for a season. Sometimes, even with the best intentions in mind, it just doesn’t make sense to take that leap. And that’s okay. But if you’re being called to STAY, give your work the enthusiasm it craves and give your family the attention they deserve.

Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.—Dolly Parton

When my friend Melanie’s dad retired from his work as a veterinarian, he gave a charge to the employees, and this is what he said—(Melanie wrote them down, and I saved them)—

What is work? Just a platform for relationships. Whatever we do, people are involved on some front. It’s that interface that matters. Work is just the bridge that makes the connection to people. (Thank you, Mr. Rickard)

Wherever we are, we can all do that.

The best of you is yet to come!

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From Order to Disorder--The Way of the World

My one year-old nephew was visiting last week. While his mom took a call, I played with him in our living room, and I noticed something that seems pretty common with boys.

They are destructive!

If I stacked the blocks, he knocked them down.
If I lined up the cars all in a row, he scattered them.
If I put the plush toys in the crate, he fished them out and threw them on the floor.

By the end of the day, my living room looked like a war zone.

The scientific term is entropy— a gradual decline into disorder.

Interestingly, entropy is also known as the amount of energy unavailable for doing useful work.

It’s not just little boys who gravitate to a state of entropy.

We do it, too.

The bills pile up, the countertop connects clutter, the closet needs purging, and yet entropy trumps energy more often than I want to admit.

I get in my own way of doing useful work.

When I was in college, I thought my life was really complicated.
All those papers!
Exams!
Sorority meetings!
Roommate drama!

Then I got married, and learning how to do life with my soul mate made life even more complicated.

Then we had kids, and as you might have guessed—I discovered the real meaning of complicated. The family dynamic shifted each time we brought home a new baby. Our marriage, jobs, kids, and other obligations all fought for our attention, and like that stack of blocks in my living room, we didn’t always do a great job of keeping it all together.

As we get older, life doesn’t get easier. It just gets more complicated (and weirdly, also more expensive).

But also as I’ve gotten older I crave useful work. I need it.

But how do I make sure the energy for doing that work is available to me?

I’m a big fan of the THREE R’s—rituals, rhythms, and rest.
In fact, I’ve written about those three things here, here, here, and here.

But today I want to talk about something else….

And I know it seems counter-intuitive to add something to an already busy schedule in order to create more order in your life, but remember—we want to increase the energy available for doing useful work, and the the best way to do that is to do something that actually makes us feel energized.

Here’s How:

Get lost in a subject completely outside your scope of knowledge.

I’m reading a book called Buzz that’s all about bees, interesting to me because bees are responsible for nearly 1/3 of the foodstuffs we eat, and also for more than 350 of the 1,000 medical prescriptions cited in the 12th century Book of Medicines. I have no idea how I might apply what I’m learning about bees to future work, but a deep-dive into a subject in which I know so little is sure to spark creative output.

Schedule time to revitalize by doing something you’ve never done before.

Last week, I experienced a sound bath. Never heard of it? Let me explain—it was new to me, too! Essentially, a sound bath is a meditation class that guides you into a deep meditative state while surrounding you in ambient sound played by instructors who use instruments such as bowls, gongs, and cymbals. For a whole hour, I laid on my yoga mat in a warm room and just let the sound “wash” over me. It was glorious.

Meet with someone who inspires you, not because you need anything from them but because you love their company.

I used to be a part of a cohort of small business owners, but when I ended my business last year, I knew it was time to move on. For five years those women functioned as a lifeline for me, and I miss them! Today, I’m making a pact with myself to schedule a lunch with one or two of them. I love learning from people who are different from me in every way—stage of life, type of work, hobbies, or worldview.

Entropy will always play a role in our lives. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, creativity is often born from chaos.

Albert Einstein’s Desk on the day he died.

See what I mean?

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Can a Toy Teach a Kid How to be a Successful Adult?

In 1999, business partners Jennifer Fine and Jennifer Hamlin collaborated to create a line of dolls designed to take the world by storm. These career-forward icons of the doll world would topple Barbie on her pretty little head by re-imagining how girls play.

Girl power!
Achievement!
You can be anything!

Unless you’re Ashley the Attorney or Emily the Entrepreneur. These “smart friends for smart girls” captured the public’s attention for one brief moment at the turn of the century.

Game over.

Like 90% of new businesses, the company folded in 2001, a real tragedy considering the dolls were even featured as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things of 1999.

Ouch.

Being an entrepreneur is hard.

I should know.

A few years ago, I also launched a doll company with the goal of reimagining how kids play. Built on a foundation of generosity and friendship, our dolls honored kids with cancer and helped kids who care learn how to be better friends.

What we discovered, however, is that kids don’t need adults to tell them how to play with their toys.

They’re really awesome at doing that all by themselves!

Every mammalian kiddo across the planet engages in some form of play. Play helps animals discover their abilities and learn their limits, two skills crucial for both survival and success.

At a seminar I attended way back in 2001, parenting coach and author John Rosemond said, “Kids only need like three or four toys: a ball, some blocks, a few crayons, and a stack of books.”

Just three or four toys?

I couldn’t believe it!

And yet…

Think about all the the things you can do with just the toys I mentioned:

Let’s take the ball, for example:

Bounce it.
Throw it.
Catch it.
Carry it.
Roll it.
Pass it.
Pop it.

A ball can be used to play a game of kickball, baseball, tetherball, or 4-square.

And what little girl hasn’t stuffed a ball under her shirt, and shouted, “Look! I’m pregnant!” Who hasn’t used a giant ball as a makeshift seat or a tiny one as ammunition aimed at a younger sibling’s head?

Sure, Taylor the Teacher, Destiny the Doctor, and Jessica the Journalist arrived with some really cool accessories: miniature chalk, stethoscopes, and press passes, just to name a few. But while those things were cool (and teeny weeny), did they really inspire kids to be attorneys, doctors, and journalists?

I would venture that using math to perfect the ratio of dirt and water for a proper mud pie would be better preparation for a career in education. Following a stray ball into the woods and ending up with an angry case of poison ivy might ignite a passion for medicine. And staying up late into the night pouring out our feelings into a journal could be just the confidence-booster our kids need to realize a career in journalism.

The REALITY

Playthings don’t really prepare kids for the roles they will one day lead. Over and over again, psychologists point to toys such as balls, blocks, and books as the devices that do the real heavy lifting. In fact, scientists confirm that fewer toys actually help kids focus longer and play more creatively.

The smart lesson we should have all learned by now: A child doesn’t need to be told how to play, no more than a kitten needs instructions for pouncing on a string or a puppy needs his mama to show him how to catch a frisbee.

All animals instinctively know how to play.

We spend our lives playing because we spend our lives learning. It’s all one big “Choose Your Own Adventure” where anything can happen. What prepares us for our roles—whether we’re a homemaker or a hack saw operator—is the time we spend figuring out how to innovate, create, solve problems, work out solutions, make amends, and adapt—using whatever the heck is right in front of us.

We don’t need fancy stuff. We just need…STUFF.

But if Emily the Entrepreneur taught me one important lesson it’s that there’s no such thing as a “big break.” Just because you land on Oprah’s List of Favorite Things doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy a lifetime of success.

When the blocks fall down, rebuild.
When the ball rolls away, go after it.
When the crayons break, color gently.
And when the book ends, write a new story.

It’s true—90% of first-time businesses do fail. But you know what else is true? 90% of entrepreneurs who pick up the pieces and start again—SUCCEED.

The first game I ever played I played without any toys at all, and I bet you played it too. Remember the magical world of MAKE BELIEVE? Yes! That fantastical place where anything can happen and anything can be? You can go there right now. If you can dream it, you can do it.

If you are one of the 12.3 million female entrepreneurs in the United States today, my advice to you is this: Never stop playing.

You’ll figure it out.

And if at first you don’t succeed, you can always try again. Chances are good—next time, you’ll find your way.

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Insignificance: The Battle to Stay Relevant

Our Work

Few people have ever heard of American inventor Maria Beasley.

This incredible engineer successfully marketed at least 15 inventions, including a foot warmer, an anti-derailment device for trains, and a barrel-making machine that resulted in an estimated income of $20,000 a year at a time when most working women earned $3 a day. That income is the equivalent of more than $450,000 today!

But in 1880, she dreamed up her greatest accomplishment of all: a life raft that would be compact, safe, fire-proof and of course, easily accessed. By changing the style of the floats, she created a raft that could be folded for storage but unfolded quickly in an emergency. To say Beasley revolutionized water safety is an understatement. One such ship that stocked her lifeboats was the infamous RMS Titanic. Though the ship had too few lifeboats to begin with, the 20 lifeboats the ship did carry saved some 700 passengers.

Despite Beasley’s amazing accomplishments, however, the attitudes of her time are still obvious:

In the 1880 US Census, Beasley was listed as an "unemployed housewife."

What about all those inventions? What about her massive income? What about all those lives she saved?

I’m only guessing here, but I wonder if she ever felt like all that work didn’t even matter? Like just because she was a woman her work was irrelevant?

More scary than being irrelevant, however, is a sinking feeling of insignificance.

I’ve been thinking about insignificance for the past three years. About how we feel it, repress it, squash it, and overcome it.

Like many people during the pandemic, I found myself binge-watching the Great British Baking Show, and unfortunately it’s given me a bit of over-confidence in the kitchen. On any given Saturday, you might find me tackling a batch of cinnamon rolls or spreading a swiss cake roll with filling. Believe it or not, you can go from “this looks delicious” to “oh my, what a disaster” in an instant.

There’s a difference between baking soda and baking powder, between granulated sugar and powdered sugar, between vegetable oil and vegetable shortening. At first glance, these small discrepancies might seem insignificant, but I’m here to tell you that making any one of these mistakes will cost you dearly.

No ingredient or instruction is insignificant when it comes to baking.

And as we enter new seasons of adulthood, we begin to believe the lie that we, too, are insignificant—either we’re too young, or we’re too old, or we don’t have the right kind of experience. We believe our career, hobbies, clothing choices, or blog posts (😳) are insignificant. No one cares about the work we do. We don’t get the appreciation or recognition we deserve.

It can be downright embarrassing.

But we know in our heart of hearts that insignificance is a lie. We do matter. Our work is important.

Some things never go out of style.

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1.Wisdom

Do you love to learn new things? Do you find that people often ask your advice? There’s an old adage that says, “Common sense isn’t common.” Good character and unexpected opportunities often go hand-in-hand. Wisdom says go slowly when everything around you wants to speed up. Wisdom holds knowledge loosely, recognizing that conscience and character matter more than worldly success or fame.

Questions to ponder: What is the harder choice I’m avoiding? How will today’s difficulties shape my character?

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2. Experience

Whether you are young or simply young at heart, you have experiences that have surely shaped the way you view the world and your place in it. Experience is never wasted, and God can use it all. Your experience might be just the story somebody needs to hear right now. You probably discovered some things that worked. And a lot of things that didn’t. That’s okay. That’s how experience prepares us for what’s next.

Questions to ponder: If life is a game, what are some of the rules? What’s one thing you regret not doing?

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3. Connections

Nearly every interesting opportunity I’ve ever had has been the result of a connection made on my behalf. Never be afraid to share your dreams. I used to think that people wanted to steal my ideas. News flash: People want to help you with your ideas! Think about the people you know. Who can you introduce? Who needs to know about someone else’s interesting project? Introduce people whose needs match another person’s strengths. Give people a sense of empowerment and watch them grow.

Questions to ponder: What connections are you choosing not to see? Who’s had the biggest impact on the person you’ve become?

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4. Resources

I used to think the only resources that mattered were the ones with dollar signs attached to them, but now I know that resources come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. As we get older, we usually do have more money, especially if we’ve made good choices when we were younger, but more importantly we often have more time on our hands. My kids no longer need at-home round-the-clock supervision, which means I have more free time to devote to causes I care about. Remember when I used to wistfully say, “One day….”? That day is here.

Questions to ponder: If you could choose any new skill to learn, what would it be? Have you ever thought about giving people not what they need most, but what they need first?

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5. Empathy

Have you ever been disappointed? Sad? Frustrated? To sit with someone in the midst of their pain is a rare gift. Brene Brown, the foremost expert on empathy, says this:

“It may be a small thing, but I can’t think of a single social problem in the culture that cannot in part be healed by: A change of heart, a willingness to get humble, a transformed spirit, a shifted mindset, and a long hard look in the mirror.”

— Brene Brown

Questions to ponder: How can I be a better listener? Who do i want to become during this uncertain time?

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Want to stay relevant?

I’m not going to tell you to immerse yourself in cool music or wear cool clothes. Those things only make you look relevant. If you want to be relevant, you need to first acknowledge the significance of your time here on earth. I hate to break it to you, but it’s temporary. Every single minute counts. Don’t leave with regrets.

Significance is right in front of you. You may not ever have a portfolio of inventions, but that doesn’t mean your work doesn’t have value. So much of who we are is all in our perspective. But it’s also in our experience. Maria Beasley probably wouldn’t have had the idea for her foot warmer without having once experienced the agony of cold feet. How could she have dreamed up her innovative life raft if she had never actually been on a boat?

You’re never too old to try new things, meet new people, or learn new skills. And maybe as you ponder some of the questions in this post, you, too, will realize that you don’t need to overthink the big questions, for in doing so it’s easy to overlook the small (yet very worthwhile) answers, the logical next steps for creating a life we love.

I want to leave you with one more story.

It’s the tale of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Southern abolitionist and a Union spy during the American civil war. She sent valuable intelligence to Union officers, provided food and medicine to prisoners of war and helped plan their escapes, and ran her own network of spies. She would pay dearly for this activity; ultimately it cost her her place as a member of Richmond’s social elite. In her old age, having lost nearly everyone who was dear to her, the local newspaper printed her obituary.

“They say I am dead? Well, I am not, but I am very feeble and sick. My heart is heavy, and I am sad. My hours are lonely and long.”

After years of manic work, at the end she found herself feeling insignificant and irrelevant. If you believed the local news, she was as good as dead. Poor Elizabeth—to feel so sick and sad and lonely.

Have you been there, too?

For some of us, we’ll never know what hangs in the balance of our decision to do the right thing, the next best thing. History teaches us it’s normal to feel like we don’t matter, especially when the public fails to recognize our efforts.

Today Van Lew’s memorial stone reads:

“She risked everything that is dear to man—friends—fortune—comfort—health—life itself—all for the one absorbing desire of her heart—that slavery might be abolished and union preserved.”

Isn’t that beautiful? I feel inspired even now. What a legacy!

And like Elizabeth van Lew, Maria Beasley was also vindicated. Today, you’ll find her profession listed as “Engineer and Inventor.”

And maybe one day, mine will read “Professional Baker.” (Wait. Who am I kidding??? 😂😂😂)

Only time will tell.

As our senior pastor Andy Stanley says, “The men and women who make a difference in the world are the ones who act and react when they see and hear something that’s not right.”

What’s not right in your world right now? Could you be the one to make a difference in that space?

The only way to know is to begin. A small beginning marks the first step to a lasting legacy.

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

— Zachariah 4:10

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Apathy: What to do When Work Feels Meaningless

First, let’s talk about work.

In Physics, work is force x displacement. The formula looks like this:

W=F(s)

In life, work is the energy we devote to making a difference in our homes, businesses, or communities.

But when we feel like we’re devoting a lot of energy with little or no return on that investment, the work feels meaningless. We begin to wonder if the work we’re doing is making a difference at all. And when we’re the ones who feel displaced, something is terribly wrong.

The pandemic has exacerbated our felt need for meaningful work by shifting focus (and resources) to essential frontline workers.

If you’re not an essential worker, your business might have taken a real hit this year. Many people experienced layoffs, furloughs, and resource allocations.

It seems like everyone these days is thinking about work—how to get a job, keep a job, or make their job impervious to future challenges.

I get it.

Even though I’m “just” a mom, I’ve been getting questions about work my whole life.

“What do you do?” I’m often asked. Or sometimes, this one, masked with politeness, “Do you work outside the home?”

The repetitive nature of household work combined with a feeling that your value is being taken for granted every single day can make even the most doting mom feel apathetic.

Parenting is like taking a ride on an emotional roller coaster. One second you’re on top of the world. The next, you’re in the pits of despair. Exhilarating highs and sorrowful lows eventually bring on emotional fatigue.

Emotional fatigue takes a toll, and the result isn’t pretty; it’s apathy—that sinking feeling that everything is meaningless.

I never thought of myself as an apathetic person, even though I did use phrases like “I couldn’t care less” and “Whatever” a lot as a teenager.

That was pretend.

I was just acting like I didn’t care, when in fact I cared very much—about everything—but I wrongly assumed that looking cool had something to do with giving off an air of aloofness.

Eye rolls, hair flips, and sighing were all just part of the act.

Real apathy—I didn’t experience that until I became a mom.

It’s bad manners not to tell mothers they have the most important job on earth, but given what’s actually practiced, it is hard for mothers to believe this is true.

My friend Jen once told me, “It’s not hard to be a mom; it’s hard to be a mom in a world that doesn’t value motherhood.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes felt this way, too.

“Yet when I survey all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

— Ecclesiastes 2:11

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A recent article in the Harvard Business Review aptly titled “What to do When Work Feels Meaningless” outlines some helpful strategies, which include empowering yourself with small actions, participating in something called “job crafting” and imagining a more purposeful future.

Let’s simplify.

Whenever you begin to dread the work you’re doing, you need to ask yourself two questions:

1) What do I want most?

This question is important because it acts like a gauge for assessing if where we are is serving as stepping stone or a stumbling block to helping us get where we want to be. Also—and this cannot be discounted—we can inadvertently sabotage our own future by prioritizing what we want now over what we want most or even by refusing to think about what we want at all. Both are choices, and both can be dangerous.

2) And why am I doing this?

WHY might be my very favorite question of all time. It’s the one two year-olds ask when told it’s time for bed. Heck, it’s the one two year-olds ask when we tell them anything. But just because we’re all grown up doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask why. We should NEVER, ever stop asking this question.

As Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, so aptly mused, “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

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“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’””

— Viktor Frankl

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Learning to make meaning from our life stories may be the most indispensable but least understood skill of our time. Paul Wong, a meaning researcher in Toronto, calls meaning making “the best kept secret to the greatest human adventure.” (Adapted from Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler)

Humans have a unique ability to live in the present while simultaneously remembering the past and envisioning the future. Being able to do this gives us a real-time view of the over-arching theme of our lives.

When I realized what I wanted my life to look like, I was able to craft a story I could live with.

I know what you must be thinking: What do you do when you realize the life you envisioned doesn’t match the one you’re living? When the friend dies or the kids haven’t met your expectations or the husband walked out on you?

The only way to survive suffering is to find meaning in it.

The. Only. Way.

Frankl also said, “Our need for meaning is greatest when life is harshest.”

We must bring our own meaning to the story we’re living.

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The Role of Imagination, Discipline, and Gratitude

1. Imagine your preferred future. Make an effort to stay connected to whatever work you gave up. I studied Biology in college. Although I may never work as a scientist, I recently subscribed to Scientific American Magazine. The articles are interesting, and every month I’m inspired to think about the world’s problems in new, creative ways. Problems I can actually do something about! Small steps in the direction of our dreams prepare us for what’s next.

2. Discipline yourself. We can wake up every morning obsessing over all the things that have to be done—the minutiae that preoccupies our waking hours—or we can decide that today is the day we do something different. When I was a young mom with small children, I often woke up tired. Before my feet hit the floor, I would already be dreaming of how I could squeeze in a nap later in the day. This attitude set me up for disappointment. Sometimes I got the nap, but often I didn’t, so not only was I tired…but also frustrated. And worse—I didn’t get anything done! Decide what you will do today and make a plan for getting something done. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just a “some”thing.

3. Practice gratitude. Give thanks for the work you’ve been given. The work of your hands is never offered in vain. Remember, no work (no matter how small) is ever wasted. Your perspective makes all the difference. I can grumble about the things that annoy me (i.e. unloading the dishwasher for the 100th time) or give thanks for the opportunity to serve my family.

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Above all else, remember that the story you’re living doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. Jealousy is counterfeit flattery. It’s an insult to everything that person has experienced, suffered, worked for, and failed at.

“And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

— Ecclesiastes 4:4

The work you do is important for the sole reason that it belongs to you.

Want more good stuff?

Tune in next week for Part 3 of our series: We’ll be talking about Insignificance and the battle to stay relevant.

Don’t miss a thing!

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What Does it Mean to be a Mission Driven Woman?

I started Mission Driven Woman in 2018, in response to the behavior I was seeing in my friends’ lives. Educated, well-connected women were struggling to communicate their value in a world that shrugs off motherhood. They told themselves that duty called and then expressed regret over the talent and skills that suddenly seemed dormant, if not dead.

But we all know that dormant doesn’t mean dead.

In plants, dormancy is closely associated with environmental conditions. Some grasses go dormant in winter in order to conserve water and nutrients. Scientifically speaking, dormancy describes a state of quiet rest.

Do I even have to tell you about all the studies that have been done touting the importance of both quiet and rest?

Funny thing: I’ve yet to meet a mother who gets to enjoy an abundance of QUIET or REST.

You know what that means? We’re not dormant!

I think women go through a process of transformation akin to something that’s common in the insect world: holometabolism. You probably know it as metamorphosis. Insects such as butterflies, beetles, and bees undergo this common and complicated form of maturation.

Inside the cocoon of a butterfly, for example, the caterpillar is broken down and turned into something new. A caterpillar disintegrates from the inside out, using digestive juices to literally consume its own body. The new cells it creates are called imaginal cells, and imaginal cells are undifferentiated cells that can become any type of cell!

Anything at all! IMAGINE that!

Isn’t that what we’re doing when we take a break to build our family and raise kids?

We think we’re going to seed (aka dormant), when the reality is we’re transforming (holometabolizing) by creating our very own imaginal cells.

My Mom’s Story

My own mother got married young by today’s standards. She was only 19. At 22, she got pregnant with me and dropped out of college. I had two brothers born a few years later. Our family was very traditional. Mom stayed home and did all the cooking and cleaning, and my dad went away to work. Then when I was in high school, my mom got a job too: She began driving a school bus. And I don’t know, but maybe there were some people who said, “Man, that’s what happens when you don’t finish college.”

Why do you think she did that? Got that job? Do you think it was because it was the only job she could get?

Trust me—she didn’t drive the school bus because that’s all she could do. She drove it because it was one of the choices available to her in that season of life.

Hard choices require us to access our values.

My mom drove the bus so she could have the flexible schedule of someone who worked for the school system. She drove the bus so our family could have access to health insurance while my dad transitioned into new work that would challenge him in new ways and also afford our family additional opportunities for both education and recreation.

Then, in 2000, with her kids finally all grown up and graduated from high school, my mom started a new adventure in a response to a problem my dad shared with her. At the time, he was a lobbyist for a trade association of child welfare organizations, and during the legislative season, he spent the majority of his day tracking down government notices at the state Capitol.

Together, they created an electronic tracking system that freed up time and space at the Capitol for not only my dad, but all lobbyists. This technology did not exist before my parents created it! Now my dad is retired, and my mom still runs the business, adding new clients and continuing to innovate every year for a more streamlined process.

I’m quite certain my mom didn’t lay on the grass as a little girl, stare up at the clouds, and daydream about being a lobbyist.

But one thing I do know: She did have dreams.

And no one but her will ever know “what might have been.”

Nothing Wasted

Don’t let what might have been haunt you. No experience is ever wasted. We get to take our dreams as inspiration, then use our very own “imaginal cells” to turn what’s in our brains into something usable and totally brand new.

We live in a time of incredible prosperity and creativity, when it’s entirely possible to create brand news ways not only of earning money but of serving the world.

Ask yourself: Who do I want to become during this uncertain time? In this season, what choices are available to me?

For many women who dreamed of becoming something different than what they are today, the future can feel hopeless because the present is tinged with loneliness, apathy, and insignificance.

I don’t want that for you.

Remember: a season is just a season. All living things go through periods that feel like death.

Renewal awaits.

This week, look out for three short blog posts that are all about combating those feelings inadequacy. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Know someone who needs this encouraging message today? Please feel free to forward to a friend!

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When You Want to be an Expert (at everything)

I don’t visit LinkedIn very often because technically I don’t have a “real” job, but every once in awhile I like to see what all the cool kids are doing. The other day, I was reading a post penned by a former neighbor that was all about supply chain logistics, and I’ll have to be honest—I didn’t understand a word of it.

“Gosh, this is over my head!” I said to my husband.

He just looked at me blankly.

“What?” I shrugged my shoulders. “It is. I don’t understand a word he’s saying.”

“That ‘s okay,” he said. “You’re not supposed to understand it. Supply chain logistics isn’t what you do. It’s not ‘over your head.’ And it doesn’t mean you’re not smart; It’s just outside your realm of knowledge.”

Your realm of knowledge.

And of course he was right.

We can’t be expected to know everything. But I’m an Enneagram 5, and my natural tendency is to want to know everything about everything. In fact, when I discovered this book, I thought all my dreams were coming true.

How Not to be Wrong

But there’s real freedom is focusing only on the things you do know. After all, I’d venture to say you’d probably add more value to the world by becoming an expert at one thing than by knowing a little bit about a bunch of different things.

I’ve been doing a lot of research these last two years on women and work—how it evolves over a lifetime and how we grow and change in the midst of it. It’s easy to get sidetracked by all the other cool things there are to learn about, but all those things are just distractions from the one thing I really want to deep dive.

If you could become an expert on just one thing this year, what would it be?

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Is it True the Best Things Come to Those Who Wait?

Imagination flourishes in the margins of our lives.

It’s a magical time when anything can be.

If you can dream it, you can do it.
The best things come to those who wait.
Ah, and patience is a virtue.

These are the clichés we all know by heart.

But the reality is that waiting can be hard.

Right this very minute, I’m dreaming of a beach vacation that’s still eight (EIGHT!) months away. Just thinking about the sun on my face brings a smile to my lips. Despite the fact we’re barely out of summer here in Georgia and the leaves here are only just beginning to make the seasonal transition from deepest green to radiant hues of orange and red, I’m imagining the sand between my toes, warm waves lapping at my feet.

Hopeful anticipation brings light to my soul.

Our family has been going to the same resort town for more than a decade. One year, it rained almost the entire time. Not only that, but one of my kids came down with a weird infection which required frequent sheet-washing. Another child, deep in the throes of potty training, tortured us all with her frantic, immediate urges, and one child suffered a short, but potent bout of food poisoning.

Sounds terrible, right?

The best part of that trip was definitely the months I spent looking forward to it.

We didn’t take many family vacations when I was a kid, so instead of dreaming about island getaways, I fantasized about what was for dinner and the cartoons I was going to record on my VCR on Saturday mornings. These things came and went like clockwork. I could count on them.

Then I grew up, became responsible for making my own dinner and discovered the real meaning of the phrase “working for the weekend.” I began a new season of waiting for things like “the one” and tuning my ear to “my calling,” both of which seemed very big and grownup and kind of scary. But kind of fun too.

Waiting suddenly became more than just ticking off the minutes on my bedside clock. My soul carried the full weight of an unknown future, but it was a future bright with possibility.

Back then, I was young and there’s a lot of grace when you’re just starting out on your own and trying to figure things out.

“You’ve got time,” everybody said.

And I did.

But now I’m in my 40s, and everybody kind of already assumes I have it all figured out, so being thrust into the throes of waiting causes a knee-jerk reaction to—how should I say this—PANIC.

Time is not on my side.

But I don’t want to wallow in the wait. Although waiting is hard, waiting can also be good.

What if I anticipated what’s next in my life with the same expectant joy I approach my summer vacation? What if the waiting was the best part of what’s next?

Just because I have to be patient doesn’t mean I’m paralyzed.

June will be here before I know it. And my dreams aren’t passive. We’re saving up for this trip. I’m exercising everyday to prepare my body for swimsuit season. The kids have already analyzed the floor plan of the house where we’ll stay and negotiated the logistics of who’s sleeping where. This is the vacation I anticipate all year, so when June finally rolls around I want to be ready.

One week at the beach is a very small thing compared to that next big career step or decision to abandon what’s comfortable to do something other people might think is crazy. The tension of the in-between is an important time of preparation.

It can also be a time of hopeful anticipation.

I’m reminded of a verse in Zechariah, which brings me great comfort, even though these words were not said directly to me: “Do not despise this small beginning, for the eyes of the Lord rejoice to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel (Zechariah 4:10).” 

Indeed, these are the days that will prepare us for a new day.

• If we could re-frame what it means to wait, how would that change our attitude in the midst of it?

• Would we be better equipped to accept what comes, whether it’s what we want or simply what’s next?

• Could we learn to embrace the in-between?

Everybody I know is either waiting on something or waiting for something. Perhaps, like me, you’re hopeful of a new day. Or maybe you’re overwhelmed with a terrible, soul-crushing pain you think will never end. Maybe you feel hopeless about what’s next. Maybe you’re ambivalent because the wait has been longer than you anticipated, and you’re just…tired. You feel like there’s somebody on the other end of an invisible phone cord saying,

“Thank you for your patience. Please stay on the line. Your call is very important to me.”

You’re frustrated because right now seems so much better than five months from now.

Or five years from now.

Or five decades from now.

But if we got everything we wanted right now, we’d miss all that growth that comes from working hard in the midst of what’s in the middle—what’s between the before and after.

“Thank you for your patience. Please stay on the line. Your call is very important to me.”

Stay the course.

Wouldn’t you love to be able to one day say,

“THIS was worth the wait.”

Want more good stuff?

Sign up for my newest 52 week series. It’s all about Identity, something I’m still figuring out. Every week I’ll share a short, inspirational post about something I’ve learned about self-discovery, a Biblical truth I’ve found helpful, and a question or two to help you find clarity, too. You can get it here.

Three Things That Will Change Your Perspective About Work

“In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention.”

— Philip Dormer Stanhope

This quote is familiar to me, though the person who said it is not. Philip Dormer Stanhope was an 18th century British statesman. chiefly remembered as the author of Letters to His Son and Letters to His Godson, which are comprehensive guides to manners, the art of pleasing, and the art of worldly success. (I have never read them).

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, though, Stanhope’s painstaking advice fell on deaf ears: his son was known for being a misbehaving hooligan, and his godson was remembered for having “as little good breeding as any man I ever met.”

I’ll admit I’ve often been the recipient of well-intentioned advice I chose not to take. Sometimes the advice I did take turned out to be the wrong kind of advice. And sometimes—though this is rare—I wish somebody had given me more advice. I could have used it!

Like why didn’t anybody tell me it probably wasn’t a good idea to major in Biology in college?

My husband always says it’s futile to ask our friends for advice because they’re all just as dumb as we are.

No offense, friends.

So take this next bit of wisdom for what it’s worth. Friend to friend. Luckily, hindsight is 20/20.

MYTH: You need more education, skills, experience, and connections to make it in your industry.

TRUTH: You are uniquely equipped for the work you are doing.

Education, skills, experience, and connections are good, and of course you should work towards acquiring them, but don’t WAIT to acquire them before you begin work. Preparation is overrated. You’ll never feel like you’re ready. Just begin. You’ll be surprised about how easily all those things you think you need fall into place once you begin taking steps in the direction of the work you want to do.

There’s a story in Judges about a man named Gideon who God called to save Israel out of Midian. In the story, Gideon asks God to prove his presence three times. He doesn’t understand why God called him, the “least in his family,” to strike down the Midianites. Gideon feels weak, inadequate, unqualified, and ill equipped. In the midst of this crisis of character, “The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (emphasis mine).–Judges 6:14 Like Gideon, I have often felt weak, inadequate, unqualified, and ill equipped. And when I do, this is the verse I replay over and over in my head. “Go in the strength you have….”

In the beginning, that’s where your responsibility lies.

MYTH: If it’s meant to be, it’ll be easy.

TRUTH: If you’re doing your work well, it will be challenging—in a good way!

Tom Morkes (influence blogger and founder of the “Pay What You Want” method) said “doing anything well takes time…A lot of time…And a lot of sacrifice…And a lot of struggle…And a lot of small or insignificant progress…And a lot of time failing…and the rest of the time feeling like a failure.”

Preach it, Tom!

I think there’s a misconception that if we’re doing work we love, then the work should be easy. Fun. Profitable. Even popular.

In 2014, my friend Ginny and I launched a nonprofit called Forever We. Creative entrepreneurs often describe their work as an affront against the Enemy (a.k.a. the Resistance with a capital R.) And it’s true: Work, according to my old Physics textbook, is the exertion of force OVERCOMING resistance.

(For more on that concept, read the War of Art by Steven Pressfield.)

For five years, Forever We felt like one long uphill battle, but I never—not once—felt like it wasn’t work worth doing. So much resistance. So much sacrifice. So much disappointment. So much joy.

And so much growth.

Even now, more than a year after ending it, I will occasionally receive a note from someone who was touched by the work we did. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

And it was worth it.

MYTH: You can control the future with a tight fist.

TRUTH: The only way to live is open-handed. 

Ten years ago, I bought this little iron paperweight that rests on the desk in my office. It’s shaped like a pair of open hands and functions as a small altar that reminds me I am but a steward of all that’s been entrusted to me. An open hand can give as well as it can receive. Ironically, just last month, the shop where I purchased that small paperweight gave me one of the most generous gifts I have ever received. Every time I look at the little pair of hands, I feel a nudge in my heart to give thanks. We often don’t know what good will come from the work we do, but if we’re open-handed with the results, blessings abound.

I read recently that a job is what you do, but your work is who you are. I’ve had many “jobs” over the course of my life, some life-giving and some that made me feel like I was drowning. All that time, though, I was becoming something. Open-handed with the good and the bad. With the things I wanted to do and the things I had to do.

BONUS:

The best advice I ever received about work was this:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

— Colossians 3:23

So many people think about jobs and work as the same thing. They’re not. A job is just a way to make money. A job is all about us and what we think we’re worth—as if that “work ” we’re doing was made for us instead of the other way around.

THE TRUTH IS WE WERE MADE FOR WORK.

Work worth doing points people to heaven. It’s not about us. It never was.

Want more good stuff?