For the Love of Books

When I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, a neighbor gave me a book called Let Me Hold You Longer by Karen Kingsbury.

And it was the saddest book I ever read. The book begins like this:

Long ago you came to me,
a miracle of firsts:
First smiles and teeth and baby steps,
a sunbeam on the burst.
But one day you will move away
and leave to me your past,
And I will be left thinking of
a lifetime of your lasts . . .

As happy as I am for my children, all of whom are growing up so fast before my very eyes, there’s a piece of me that wants to keep them little.

I look ahead and dream of days
that haven’t come to pass.
But as I do, I sometimes miss
today’s sweet, precious lasts . . .

I’m not crying.
You’re crying.

I’ve watched you grow and barely noticed
seasons as they pass.
f I could freeze the hands of time,
I’d hold on to your lasts.

And so while I let them choose their own bedtimes, drive away in the car, meet friends, and bring home first paychecks, I have retained this one thing, this one small thing that we usually do with very young children. I am doing this thing with my last, almost-grown child.

We READ ALOUD every night.

Why the read-aloud?

In early 2019, I read a book called The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction. By that time, my youngest daughter, 11 years old, could read very well on her own. She didn’t need to choose a book off the shelf anymore and drink a cup of milk while I read to her. That wasn’t the point.

The book lauded the benefits of reading aloud to children. Without a phone, TV, or music playing, we simply spend 30-45 minutes reading aloud every night before bed. This precious time cannot be underestimated, and I’m not saying that my daughter loves every book I choose or even loves that I call her down to read every night at 8:30, but she does it faithfully and without complaining, and I’m praying that one day she will understand that all those words we shared together were a good thing.

Reading aloud to children is like planting a seed that will grow and flourish over time. It may not bear fruit right away, but with patience and persistence, it can yield a rich harvest of knowledge, imagination, and understanding.—Meghan Cox Gurdon

I love that my kids are independent, deep thinkers. All of them tend to choose creativity over conformity, a choice that sometimes brings more pain than pleasure. We do need to let go. But we don’t have to let everything go.

“The single biggest predictor of high academic achievement is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or nigh (orboth!) to sit and read them wonderful books.” (teachergoals on Instagram)

But hey—it’s all about choices, really. How do I want to spend my time? What can I do to get the biggest return on my investment? You can always make more money, but nobody has yet figured out how to make more time. Once you exchange that time for something, it is gone forever. And I know how I feel after 10 minutes of doom-scrolling versus 10 minutes of reading.

No contest.

Nobody is telling you you have to read a whole book or even read for an hour straight. You can read a couple of paragraphs and call it a day. Progress is progress, after all.

According to Meme creator, Tank Sinatra, (when he was a guest on the podcast 3Books), “reading is the number one thing you can do to have a better life.”

I don’t know about that…but WHAT IF???

HOW BOOKS SAVED DEMOCRACY

There’s a book by Molly Guptill Manning called When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II. In the early 1940s, books helped soldiers understand the cultural values they were fighting for. They faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books. Here, on the front lines, they squirreled away books from home in their pockets and backpacks and found solace, inspiration, and entertainment between the pages of beloved classics like The Great Gatsby and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

It’s hard to imagine a world where soldiers clamored for books rather than video games. Reading has fallen out of favor in recent years, as digital entertainment has increased in popularity. But if you were a civilian in the 1940s, you would have clamored to donate your gently used books to the men serving our country.

These books had enormous value because they held the ideas and ideals that made democracy worth the fight.

Hitler worked to strengthen Fascism by destroying the written word. But the American Library Association fought back. They had no intention in allowing Hitler to succeed with his war of ideas. They urged all Americans to…READ MORE.

Read It …AGAIN

I think it’s interesting how the same book can affect us differently depending on what’s happening in our own life. For example, I first read The Diary of Anne Frank as a thirteen year old, the same age Anne was when she and her family went into hiding in Amsterdam. I understood her curiosity about her changing body and the tumultuous relationship she had with her mother. While waves of grief still wash over me when I think about Anne Frank, my heart aches in a new way for Anne’s mother, Ethel. She was a highly educated Jewish woman plunged into the fathomless loneliness of the Annex. Ethel endured a complicated relationship with her daughter, and Anne’s emotional writings evolve and fluctuate throughout the months in the Annex. We don’t have Ethel’s diary, but now I wonder if silent tears poured down her face on nights when Anne rebuffed her. I imagine the connection she craved with her daughters. Did she ever hold them and tell them she wished she could give them more?

My older son often blames school for killing his love of reading—and that is a tragedy. As parents, during read-aloud time, we have a unique opportunity to share with our kids the books that shaped our own lives. We get to introduce them to the books we loved, and then pray a thousand prayers that they’ll love them too!

(Even now when I go into an antique bookstore, I drink deeply of the lignin and vanilla eeking from the pages of old books. The old Margaret Mitchell Library in the hometown where I grew up had that smell. There, I ran my fingers along the spines on Saturday mornings with my dad. I read Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and John Steinbeck.)

Those books changed my life.

The Million Word Gap

Research suggests that “young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids whose parents never read to them.”

That’s a lot of words!

Words that teach children about the world and help them think more deeply about causes that matter.

Of course, we all understand how important it is to read to kids. It’s why programs like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library exist. Other states have followed suit. The program provides free books to children from birth to age five, with the goal of promoting early childhood literacy and fostering a love of reading.

Public libraries host summer reading programs, and all across the United States “little free libraries” have popped up in public parks, town squares, and neighborhood street corners.

Iceland has a wonderful Christmas tradition in which people give books to one another on Christmas Eve It’s called Jolabokaflod, and people spend the night reading and eating chocolate. To its credit, Iceland is the first country in the world to be recognized for having achieved "full literacy."

Congratulations, Iceland!

Iceland’s close neighbor, Finland, publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world. And Finns purchase more books per capita, too!

How I’d love to visit one of their independent bookstores!

It’s no surprise that the Bible is the most published book of all time. According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the Bible has been printed more than five billion times. Every time you open it, you’ll discover something new within its pages.

There’s lots of books, in fact, that I’ve read more than once. And every single time I learn something new.

I think my favorite thing about books are the conversations they inspire. Even fiction challenges my thinking around hot topics. Race and politics, transgender relationships, work and values, science and religion—I could go on and on—

If you’ve ever longed to write a book, I pray you’ll do it, not because it might sell millions of copies and make you very rich (although I hope it does), or because you might become famous and be asked to speak on stages all over the world (although I hope you do) but because the act of writing and the act of reading are one of the the few things that have the ability to deeply connect people who may never meet in person. A book transcends time and space. It’s why people get so upset and want to censor what we’re allowed to read. People who can think for themselves are the scariest people in the world.

Because they have the ability to change the world.

And isn’t that what we’re all doing here anyway?

My time with my children is fleeting. As much as I’d love to take them on expensive trips and give them the kind of experiences they’ll never forget, I know that the biggest bang for the buck is within the pages of a book. (This, of course, is coming from a person who loved it when the teacher said, “Please read quietly at your desk for the rest of the class.” Also the person who actually bought books at the book fair. Also the person who stayed up late at night with a flashlight under the covers reading books.) 😉

As for all those lasts, the “last time we cuddle with a book” is still many moons away. :) I don’t plan on giving that up anytime soon!

Want More Good Stuff?

Need some ideas for your own read-aloud time?

My favorite read-aloud is the Harry Potter series performed by Jim Dale on Audible.

I also love ALL the David Sedaris books, memoirs read by the author himself. Laugh-out-loud funny!

How is NOT the Right Question to Ask

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For easier readability, Click HERE to view this email on the Chantel Adams website.

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Let me rephrase that.
How is not the right FIRST question to ask.

Hey there, friend.

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?

You’ve got a big idea, but you’re not sure…
(I’m cringing now because I don’t want to say this next part)
…HOW to get started.

I know.

Yikes.

The big HOW.
It’s a loaded question. And for someone like me, someone who likes to have all the answers so she never looks stupid in front of a crowd, it really is the question of all questions.

How stops me in my tracks.
Every.
Single.
Time.

The world is changing—FAST—and I’m starting to feel like I don’t understand anything. How is trying to become a regular part of my own vocabulary.

Don’t worry—I won’t let it!

The weird thing is that I’ve always hated this question—not because I might not have the right answer, but because I think we miss out on something very important when this becomes the FIRST question we ask.

Let me explain.

There’s a Peter Block quote that I’ve been thinking about lately:

“There is depth in the question, ‘How do I do this?’ that is worth exploring. The question is a defense against the action. It is a leap past the question of purpose, past the question of intentions, and past the drama of responsibility. The question ‘How?’ more than any other question looks for the answer outside of us. It is an indirect expression of our doubt.”

— Peter Block

Purpose, Intentions, and Responsibility

Let’s dive right in.

Block says the question of “how” is a DEFENSE against action.

Ouch.

It is a leap past the question of purpose, past the question of intentions, and past the drama of responsibility.

Triple Ouch.

I gotta be honest. I read a lot of online news, follow a lot of blogs, and listen to a lot of podcasts about culture and invention and progress, and while loading up on all that inspiring content can be really encouraging, I can easily get lost as a spectator to other people’s accomplishments.

Yep, I hear it when I write it. 🤦‍♀️

Maybe I should be working on something of my own.

Purpose, Intention, and Responsibility aren’t questions at all. They are reflections of what we value and determine how we move in the world.

The real, almost visceral question of how can be such a downer when you aspire to live in a world of purpose and accomplishment.

It reeks of FEAR.

Of course, whenever I’m thinking about something big that I don’t understand I go to THE BOOK to see what God said about it, and I found a few examples I’d like to share here: In every case study, the main character went to God with the question that’s been on the forefront of my own mind lately: HOW???

In Genesis 18, God tells Abraham that he will be the father of a great nation, which was clearly hilarious to both Abraham and Sarah. No one their age got pregnant and had children. At the time, our modern concept of what a “nation” is didn’t even exist. People lived in tribal communities. So HOW was God going to create a nation from the loins of Abraham?

Genesis 18:11: Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children. so she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master, my husband, is also so old?”

Pretty bold when you think about it. Would you laugh at an audible promise from God?

Now consider this exchange between Moses and God outlined in Exodus 3:10:

Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country. but Moses said to God, “I am nobody. How can I go to the king and bring the Israelites of Egypt?

At the time, the Bible records about 600,000 men who ended up leaving with Moses. Including women and children the number could have been closer to 2 million, nearly half of Egypt’s total population.

No wonder Moses had some reservations about leading God’s people out of Egypt! How do you coordinate travel plans without the ease of communicating via the Internet? 🤷‍♀️

It wasn’t easy being an Israelite.

Years later, God instructs Gideon to save Israel from the hands of the Mideonites. This guy was woefully unprepared. If he was applying for a job today, the interviewer would have said, “You lack experience.” Code for “we need someone older.” But more politically correct.

Judges 6:15: “Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “How can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manassah, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”

Even though God had come through for Israel again and again, they often needed reminding. Jeremiah ultimately became one of the greatest prophets in Israel. He is best known for his prophecies of gloom and doom. Soon, he would warn Israel that if they didn’t get their act together, they were destined for destruction.

But not yet.

This, apparently, was not a message that Jeremiah wanted to deliver. A message like this wasn’t going to help him win any popularity contests.

According to Jeremiah 1:6, he said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord…I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

Ok, let’s fast-forward a bit for a sneak peek into the life of David before he became the greatest King Israel had ever known. We see David happen upon a face-off between the people of Israel and the giant Goliath, who is mercilessly taunting them. The Israelites, cowering in his wake, ask, “How?” What we see here, however, is that David (the one who ends up overcoming the giant) actually doesn’t pose this question at all. (Hmmm…we’ll come back to this later.)

One of the first encounters with God we see in the New Testament occurs when Zechariah is in the temple of the Lord. According to Luke 1, an angel of the Lord appears before Zechariah and tells him that his barren wife, Elizabeth, will bear him a son. In a deja vu moment that harkens back to the days of Sarah and Abraham, Zechariah asks,

“How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

In the very same chapter, God sends the angel Gabriel to Mary to tell her about the baby she will carry, the one that will change the world forever. Mary is young and healthy, but there’s a twist.

Luke 1:34: Mary asked the angel, “How can this be? I’m a virgin.”

And yet it does come to be.

All grown up, wherever Jesus goes, crowds follow. On one account, more than five thousand people gather in the hot sun to hear Jesus teach. Lunchtime approaches, the people are getting hungry—very hungry—but the disciples aren’t operating a restaurant. How will they feed so many?

John 6:8: Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

In every single case, God responds with some version of these words: “Listen, kid, don’t worry. I will be with you. Is there anything too hard for ME?”

And that’s where I think we get hung up.

We think that doing incredible work depends on us.

And okay, yeah, I believe in hard work, too. I also believe that we worship THE GOD OF HOW. We don’t always have to have all the answers. Maybe purpose, intention, and responsibility are enough to carry us.

You may be thinking, “But God hasn’t audibly spoken to me. God hasn’t sent an angel to me. I haven’t walked alongside the living, breathing Jesus.”

Maybe not.

But you have something equally as rich and powerful.

Hebrews 4: 12 says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

What is interesting to me in all the examples in both the Old and New Testament is that God performed his miracles by meeting his people exactly where they were and invited them to use only what they already possessed. No one had to go and get a special degree or make sweeping changes in order for the plan to be completed. They simply had to trust God’s purpose, act with intention, and keep straight who was responsible for what.

So…

If “How” isn’t the first question we should ask, what IS the first question?

Here’s the one I keep coming back to:

““Will you go with me, God?””

There’s a promise that shows up again and again, of God saying, “I will never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6, 31:8, Joshua 1:5, Psalms 27:9, 1 Chronicles 28:20 among others ) and then of Jesus saying “And I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever” (John 14:16).

I told you that I would come back to the David and Goliath story.

Isn’t it interesting that all the people around David asked that question, and yet David never did? Poor David. Young David. Weak David. He possessed no special skills or equipment. In fact, 1 Samuel tells us that “David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines, and asked his brothers how they were” (1 Samuel 17:22). When Saul realized that David was bold enough to actually fight the Philistine, he gave him a coat of armor, a bronze helmet, and a sword.

But David took them off.

That’s right. He shed the fancy fighting equipment, and instead gathered his shepherd staff, along with a few rocks and a sling, and then approached the Philistine.

And then he said what I wish I was brave enough to say:

“For the battle is the Lord’s (v. 47)

We all face giants, seemingly insurmountable obstacles that threaten to squash us or humiliate us. We think we have to have all the answers. We ask HOW like the battle is ours to win.

But like David, who said that all glory and honor would go to God, we too need to remember that this life isn’t about us. If I want to bring glory and honor to God through purposeful living, I don’t need to ask HOW, I just need to be willing to ask God to come with me.

Want more good stuff?

***Fun Fact: When I was a camper at Camp WinShape for Girls in the 80s and 90s, we engaged in a Native American storytelling tradition around the campfire that invited listeners to say the word “wow” when something sad or disappointing was shared and “how” during moments of great triumph. I always thought the counselors had got it mixed up, but nope—HOW was what you said when you agreed with the storyteller! It was not a question of doubt, but rather a proclamation of awe.

When Something is Exactly Right

This year, I turn 49.

Everyone loves to remind me that I’m almost 50.

And oh my, isn’t that soooo old?

Sure. It’s old. I guess. Age is just a number.

Am I right?

I’m not bitter.

Speaking of bitter, let’s take a little detour and talk about food for a minute. (I LOVE talking about food!)

Do you remember learning about the four core flavors our tongues can detect: salty, sweet, sour, and yes, that bitter one? If my memory serves me correctly, we had a ditto printout of a tongue and it was mapped to show where all those taste receptors reside.

Taste Map of the Tongue

That was 1987.

That taste map has since been debunked, and in recent years, there’s been talk of a fifth flavor.

You may have heard of it.

It’s called UMAMI.

Brief history.

In 1908, a scientist by the name of Kikunae Ikeda discovered a peculiar, but subtle taste present in foods such as tomatoes, asparagus, meat, and cheese. He recognized this additional taste quality as something quite different from the usual salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. I’ll spare you the boring details, but after a long chemical process, Ikedo isolated and identified glutamic acid as that fifth unique taste. And he named it UMAMI.

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Umami provides balance, increases cravings, elevates the other flavors present in a dish, and in the right proportion, provides great pleasure.

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Ruth Reichl (the food critic for the New York Times from 1993-1999), once described umami as “what something is when it is exactly right for the moment.”

What Something Is When It Is Exactly Right for the Moment

Believe it or not, the International Symposium on Glutamate didn’t recognize umami as a distinct fifth taste until 1990, nearly 100 years after it was first discovered.

Coincidentally, 1990 was the year I met my now-husband. Exactly right? You bet!

And I’ll tell you, it’s taken me a long time to get here, but finally I can say that where I am right now is also exactly right for this moment.

In fact, all the moments I’ve experienced up until right now have been exactly right.

Even when those moments didn’t seem like they were exactly right.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
UMAMI in LIFE

Life is full of flavor.

Years before I got pregnant with our first daughter, Gavin and I talked about having kids…someday. But we kept waiting for the right time.

“Everything must be exactly right,” we told ourselves.

“We have to finish graduate school. “

“We need to get out of this apartment. “

“Raising a family costs money.”

Then when we unexpectedly found out that we were pregnant, none of those things had yet come true.

And guess what?

That little baby was exactly right for that exact moment in time.

Of course, back then no one would have described what was happening in our lives as umami.

That’s because the word umami is used almost exclusively to describe food. In Japanese, umami literally means “essence of deliciousness.”

But just for fun, let’s keep the metaphor going.

A “delicious“ turn of events had just taken place in our young lives!

Something unique was happening. We loved being parents. Our new daughter brought out the best in us. Because of her, we added three more children to the mix. And all of them provide us with great pleasure.

Maybe umami isn’t a flavor at all, but a state of being.
Of being exactly right for the moment we’re in.
Exactly right, right where we are.

I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older I want to savor more of every moment. And yes, that includes even the hard ones.

We talk about the “sweet” seasons of our lives, seasons filled with first the joy of first love. We lament the “bitterness” of disappointment—an unbearable diagnosis or the heartbreaking loss of a loved one. Everyone knows what it means to feel “soured” by circumstances that don’t work out quite the way we want. And who hasn’t been miffed by a “salty” comment directed our way?

But in every season and every circumstance, a layer of complexity resides. No wonder it took decades to locate the taste buds that detect umami (the year 2006 to be exact). Things don’t always feel exactly right, right when we’re experiencing them.

Time is a thief. And time is our friend.
In time, our lives are softened by memories, shaped by perspective, and forged by wisdom.

I bet you, too, have a story of something that turned out to be exactly right for the moment, even though it probably didn’t seem that way at the time. These “umami” moments are the spice of life.

The right spice in the right amount leaves us feeling satisfied and full.

That’s umami.

Take that, 49!

And I am grateful.

Want more good stuff?

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.

WANT MORE GOOD STUFF?

13 Reasons Why (I love having women in my life)

March is Women’s History Month, and I would be remiss if a blog titled MISSION DRIVEN WOMAN didn’t dedicate at least one post to the inspiring females among us.

In 2019, I began this blog with a series of video conversations in which I interviewed more than 50 women. Some were friends of mine, but a lot of them were the result of me just asking,

“Hey, who do you know that I should know?”

The wisdom shared in these conversations cannot be underestimated. By the world’s standards, none of these women have platforms that would fill a colosseum or bank accounts that would make Oprah jealous.

And yet…

They are an enduring reminder of what happens when we get to choose the work that matters to us.

What follows are snippets from some of my favorite conversations. I hope you’ll read them and be inspired, too. As I sit here typing, I realize that I’m the one who needs these reminders more than ever.

At the end of each sound byte, I included a question to ponder.

Information is wonderful, but information without application is wasteful.

(You can click on the name to link directly to more helpful content about and from this woman leader.) And as always, feel free to reply directly to this email if you have a question or idea you’d like to share!

LET’S BEGIN!

On Contentment

with Lydia Mays

Lydia has a smile as wide as the Nile. You would never guess at the heartbreak she’s known, but she channeled her own loss into generosity. When we talked about contentment, she said this: There’s one thing contentment is not: Contentment is not passive. It’s active and focused. Contentment is a deliberate intent to fill yourself up with love so you can embrace a vision of ways to give away more time, money, art, and love.

It’s a lesson on “How to be Generous” on steroids.

Our souls are not like vaults in a bank: empty, insulated, and locked. No vault can rival the human soul, which has an infinite capacity for forgiveness, love, and grace.

Question to Ponder: What are you holding onto that needs to be shared?

On Intentionality

with Ginny Starr

Harnessing the power of the moments we have is the key to combating the curmudgeon living inside all of us. Ginny and I weren’t talking about the “carefully curated” moments we see plastered across our Instagram feeds. (Ginny’s not even on Instagram!)

We talked about the kind of real-life intentionality that leads to real powerful visceral responses.

So what does it mean to be a curator of memories?

The word curate comes from the Latin cura, which translates “to care for.”

When Ginny says she want to be a curator of memories, what she’s really saying is “I want to care for you.”

In caring for people, we’re not just manufacturing special moments; we’re literally making them feel special.

Question to ponder: What’s one unexpected thing you can do today to make someone in your life feel extra special?

On Identity

with Lauren Ware

At the time of our conversation, Lauren’s husband was in law school, and Lauren had just had just given birth to their fourth child.

In Lauren’s words: “We are learning to live with less so that our future will include more.”

In the midst of what feels unfamiliar and scary, a lot of women cry, “I feel like I’m losing myself!”

Lauren didn’t express this sentiment because she isn’t losing herself at all; she’s leveraging the change to solidify her own identity. Isn’t it true that we define ourselves by what’s in our hearts, not by what’s on our business cards?

Question to ponder: What does your current business card say about you?

On Purpose

with Deanna McCurdy:

“GOD GAVE ME THE ABILITY TO RUN AND THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THE HUMAN BODY. WHEN HE GAVE ME A CHILD WHO CAN’T DO THOSE THINGS, I DISCOVERED MY PURPOSE.”

I’m intrigued when I hear people talk about the work they do. For them, the “work” has nothing to do with what we commonly think of as “our job.”

Deanna has a daughter with Angelman’s syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes delayed development, problems with speech and balance, and intellectual disability. Deanna is using her training as a physical therapist to care for her daughter and her love of extreme sports to raise awareness and funds for the disease.

Unpaid work can be a springboard for the work you’re meant to do.

Questions to ponder: How do we plan and prepare for the lives we lead? Is purpose something we’re born with or something to be discovered? Can we find meaning in the circumstances that choose us?

On Fear

With Jordan Foxworthy:

Jordan told me about how when she was a little girl she was afraid of so many things! And then one day she just decided to say yes—yes to an overseas missions trip with her dad. Getting on the plane and traveling to a faraway country with customs and language different from her own, she said “YES” and the experience changed the trajectory of her entire life!

Change is scary. Sometimes, I think we actually become more fearful as we get older. Maybe it’s because we can imagine all the ways in which something can go wrong. We know too much. Knowledge isn’t always power. Jordan, who is now in her late 20s, says she often has to remind herself how far she’s come. Saying “yes” opened her up to the possibility of new experiences.

“My life is more interesting, eclectic, and diverse than my high school aged brain ever imagined it would be.”

Question to ponder: What might you learn if you said yes to the thing you’ve been running from all these years?

On Choices

With Bonnie Clark:

When a series of bad choices led to the end of a college dream, Bonnie Clark, didn’t allow herself to wallow in self-pity.

Sometimes, we make the wrong choice, suffer the consequences, and discover that the very next choice is the hardest one of all because we have to swallow our pride and accept the consequences. Looking at it from another perspective, however—that all other options have been eliminated—makes the next choice an easy one.

Bonnie reminds us to capture your thoughts, evaluate every decision, and remember: a choice is both a privilege and an opportunity. Don’t let the fear of making the wrong choice keep you from making a perfectly acceptable one.

On Hope

With Ashley Jones:

My friend, Ashley, lost her daughter to a terminal illness. She is the founder and CEO of an organization called Love not Lost in Atlanta. In talking with Ashley and others with similar stories, I discovered that there is a connection between the emotional moments that happen to us and the creative moments that we make happen.

These emotional moments sometimes manifest as interruptions, inconveniences, or gross injustices. But if we live each day in holy expectation, the moments become invitations to join God in the work of bringing more hope and love into the world.

Question to ponder: Have you ever had an interruption that turned into an invitation you couldn’t resist?

On Self Care

With Melanie Dale:

Melanie, who has published three (four?) books now, says that she often has to make time to fill herself up. All that stuff she pours out on the page didn’t come from nowhere. The words are the way she processes her lived experience, but she wouldn’t be able to share the hard stuff if she couldn’t also set aside time to create, dream, and just have fun.

Women are notorious for setting aside their own needs in service to everyone else’s.

Question to ponder: What’s something you’ve been wanting to do for fun that you’ve been putting off because you didn’t think you had the time?

On Success

With Jen Soong:

Here’s what Jen had to say about success:

“I wanted to define success on my own terms…Success is doing work that’s meaningful and making meaningful connections, and building a life that I’m proud of everyday.”

The questions below are hers.

Questions to ponder:

“Am I living a life of integrity?

Am I stoking my creativity?

Am I showing up in a honest way that allows myself and others to be seen?

On Meditation

With Karen Seward:

The secret to Karen’s contentment might surprise you: Karen starts the day by doing absolutely nothing.

She calls this meditation, and it’s definitely not doing nothing. Meditation is important work. When Karen first started meditating, she would set a timer for just two minutes. After years of practice, today she doesn’t need a timer at all and still spends up to thirty minutes every morning in silence. She told me that she imagines putting all her cares into a giant balloon and releasing them into the sky. Then she focuses on simply being grateful.

Question to ponder: What do you need to let go of?

On Decision-Making

With Sandra Stanley:

Sandra shares that life is a series of baby steps, tiny decisions or actions we encounter on our way to something bigger. Ask God to help you prepare for the season that awaits. Pray, “God, give me guidance and direction. Please cast vision for what’s next, and show me what to do now, so I’ll be clear about where to go next.”

Question to ponder: What do you need to stay motivated during this season of waiting?

On Trauma:

With Courtney Geiser:

Here’s a big idea: The gift of experience is grace for tomorrow.

No experience, however trivial or traumatic, is ever wasted.

Courtney emphasizes: Never think for one second that your trauma did not matter or matters only to you. While your experience is personal, the emotion surrounding it is universal.

Question to ponder: Have you ever felt like your trauma had to be experienced alone? Who needs to hear your story?

On Friendship:

With Kristi Porter:

Kristi is the founder of Signify, an organization that helps nonprofits and social enterprises get noticed and grow through effective marketing and communication. When I interviewed Kristi, she told me the one thing—the ONE thing—everyone needs is a mentor. Someone “a little farther along the path” knows exactly how to help you get to where you want to be. And the accountability cannot be minimized. It’s everything! (She was right! I have both a mentor and an accountability partner, and without their help, I’d be sitting on the sofa everyday watching soaps and eating bon bons—no kidding!)

Question to ponder: Who can you ask to be a part of your team?

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I was going to insert an inspiring quote here because I’m sure Helen Keller or Maya Angelou said something worth writing down. To be sure, the contributions of women like Amelia Earhart and Marie Curie, are valuable. But there is something worth sharing inside each and every one of us. The purpose of this post was to elevate the ordinary voices who possess extraordinary wisdom.

And although he’s not a woman, Solomon, the wisest man in the Bible reminds us that, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

We need to lean into the relationships that are all around us.

May this blog be a place where you find the people and accountability you need to stay on track right where you are.

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Use at Your Own Risk

We’re about to get really intimate.

If you’ve ever longed to be understood, this post is for you.

If you’ve ever felt lonely.
Weird.
Marginalized.

If you’ve ever said out loud to no one or everyone, “You don’t understand me,” then please—keep reading.

I’ve got a solution for you.

I’ve never been the engineering type. I don’t really care how things work. I just care that they work. At home, I expect things to work. When they don’t, I can get pretty frustrated.

My favorite appliance is probably my oven. Boring? Maybe. But to be fair, my oven is pretty fancy.

It came with a user manual, although I have to be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever actually used it. After all, I’ve been living and eating indoors for 48 years, and I’ve never not had access to an oven. So when we moved into our new house two years ago, I assumed I would be able to roast a chicken with no problem. Never mind that on day one I couldn’t even turn the oven on. After several failed attempts of trying every button imaginable, opening and closing the doors a few times, and even checking the pilot light, I ended up calling the builder, only to discover there’s two concentric knobs, and both have to be adjusted in order for the heating element to begin doing its thing.

Who knew?

Did I learn my lesson?
No, I did not.

I still haven’t read the user manual.

And I’ve encountered more than a few problems since (You just heard about the first). Currently, all my settings are in French. I have no idea how to change them 😳🤦‍♀️. And I’ve undoubtedly missed some important features. Features I could have been using if only I knew how.

So 99% of the time, I turn the oven to “Bake” and set the temp for 350 degrees. And 99% of the time that works. But maybe the things I cook would turn out even better if I used the “proofing” function when I make homemade bread or tried “convection mode” every once in awhile in lieu of dragging out the air fryer.

I treat my oven like my relationships. I’ve been using an oven all my life. Surely I know what to do.

But like people, this oven has its own way of doing things. It’s special. Complicated.

Cue the PERSONAL USER MANUAL

I recently came across an interesting article about Personal User Manuals. These user manuals are for individuals who want to tell their employees how to interact with them—a brilliant idea and not to be confused with a personnel manual, which is more like an employee handbook that outlines the policies, procedures, and expectations for working in a company.

B.O.R.I.N.G.

A Personal Manual, on the other hand, is a document that says, “This is how I work best. If you want to partner with me, this is what you need to know.” The document outlines how you like to work, collaborate, communicate, and receive feedback. It’s primarily used by CEOs and creative types.

It got me thinking.

I like the idea of creating a Personal User Manual, and no, not so I can pass it out during family meetings. I’m not that crazy. I think the personal manual could be a useful tool for understanding ourselves, sort of like a journaling prompt on steroids. Writing is thinking, after all.

These are the six subject prompts for work. I’ve altered the questions following for personal reflection and growth.

Trust me, I know this is a little weird.

But let’s stick with it—just for kicks and giggles.

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1. Introduction: This is your opportunity to summarize where you’ve been and who you are. Maybe a little bit about where you grew up, how it influenced the decisions you made about school and work. How did you get to your current place?

1. Environment: Think about your ideal living conditions. What are your daily rhythms? How do your rhythms align with the responsibilities you have both at home and at work? How does your work inside the home integrate with your work outside of it?

2. Communication: What’s the best way to communicate with you? A shared calendar? A weekly meeting? A heart-to-heart at a specific time every day? Are you an external processor or an internal processor?

3. Feedback: How would like to receive feedback? Do you invite others to help you evaluate what’s happening in your life or is this a project for you and you alone? If the feedback has the potential for conflict, do you want to talk about it right away or do you need time to cool down? Maybe you like to save encouraging cards and emails that people send to you. Maybe you already have a system in place that includes the question: “How did I do today?”

4. Support: How can the people who live with you best support you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Goals for personal growth? Where would you like to improve? Do you need time alone? Do you need help with chores? Would it be helpful to keep lists of places you’d like to visit, vacation spots, and ideas for date nights or girl getaways, so that when you are feeling overwhelmed you already have an index of go-to getaways? Maybe you’d like to start keeping a list of encouraging Bible verses, a list of friends you can call day or night, or a list of everyday activities for fostering peace and prosperity.

5. Favorites: What are your favorite TV shows, movies, books, restaurants, music, and gifts? (Feel free to leave your personal manual open to this page close to key holidays 😉).

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For What It’s Worth

You know, my oven gets used every single day. It works just fine—even though I’ve never read the user manual. I would say it’s “adequate." On a scale of 1-5, I’ll give it a 3.5. It gets the job done. We eat muffins and baked chicken and roasted vegetables. I bake cakes and prepare potatoes myriad ways. But I know I’m not using the oven to its full potential. This expensive, professional grade appliance essentially does the same job as a $150 countertop toaster.

Even though it’s worth far more.

When I googled, “Why is my oven so expensive?” you know what Google said? "

The price increases due to the quality of internal components used to build the product and make it as long-lasting as possible.

Because the Personal Manual is a deep-dive into our souls, I wondered what God might say about those innermost parts. Turns out, he agrees with Google.

Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. —-1 Peter 3:4

I’m being a little facetious when I suggest creating a personal manual for your life, but maybe it’s not that far-fetched after all. Wasn’t it Socrates who said “Know thyself?”

If you created a personal user manual I can only imagine that it would make you more aware of your own idiosyncrasies and quirks.

Understanding ourselves is the first step in understanding others.

And relationships are big business.

There’s games for getting to know one another better. Who’s tried UnCurated or Toilet Tag? And then there’s apps like Lasting and Better Help, not to mention the retreats and adventure programs all with one lofty goal: helping people connect in meaningful ways.

It all boils down to this, though: I can’t expect someone else to understand me if I haven’t opened myself up to being understood.

So tell me, who out there is brave enough to compile a PERSONAL USER MANUAL?

Want more good stuff?

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.

Want more good stuff?

Life Hack #1: Editing is Never a Waste of Time

I don’t like to waste time.

There.

I said it.

I don’t like to waste time.

But I’m guilty. I waste time ALL THE TIME.

That’s why when I was trapped on an airplane for nine hours this summer on my way home from Barcelona, I decided to be a productive grown-up. The in-flight entertainment system included the opportunity to dig into courses taught by world-class instructors through MasterClass.com. I don’t have a membership, but I’m a sucker for an invitation to learn something new for free. This was my chance.

With a day-long flight ahead of me and no desire to close my eyes because—AWKWARD—I scrolled through the available options and chose Malcolm Gladwell’s master class on Non-fiction Writing. Twenty-four lessons. Six hours. Master instruction from a critically-acclaimed author.

As it turns out, watching six straight hours of content wasn’t that hard. What was hard was taking notes because the rest of the passengers had shuttered the windows, the flight attendants had turned off the lights, and most everyone, including my seatmate, were trying to sleep. My hand-written notes are a little sloppy, to say the least!

Malcolm Gladwell’s Masterclass on Writing

Here’s what I learned:

Writing and life aren’t all that different. In fact, you may have even heard that writing is thinking. That’s not a new idea.

"I don't know what I think until I try to write it down."—Joan Didion

'Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.—David McCullough

"Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly can write clearly, about anything at all."—William Zinsser

And a lot of writers don’t believe in Writer’s Block, either, which is simply being unable to think about what to write next or how to proceed with the story. Malcolm’s advice? Just keep writing. “A lot of problems,” he says, “are resolved in the doing.”

And he continues, “You can always re-write. Make use of that extraordinary freedom.”

Extraordinary Freedom

EXTRAORDINARY FREEDOM was the phrase that jumped out at me. There is freedom in being able to re-write, to edit. We get to write and rewrite the story of our lives over and over again.

And I love that. It reminds me of this scene about editing from an old episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. In it, Raymond gives a toast at his brother, Robert’s wedding, a wedding in which everything goes comically awry. He explains editing better than anyone I’ve ever heard. You can watch the entire speech here:

Raymond gives a toast at his brother, Robert’s wedding. The theme: Editing. “Keep the good ones.”

I like the idea of applying the editing principle to my own life. Ask anyone who’s ever eaten anything from my kitchen. I mess things up all them time. You know how expensive food is these days! We can’t throw anything out. Sometimes the very best dishes are born from what started out as a veritable disaster. So I just keep stirring. Add a little of this. A little of that. Suddenly, something new and even better emerges. (Well, most of the time)

As I write this, four months have passed since the coffee shop closed. One of my favorite parts of owning the shop was sharing my own recipes. We launched a new menu last January, with our signature item being a homemade biscuit waffle—essentially scratch-made biscuit dough that we cooked on a waffle iron. The dough was tedious to make and involved grating pounds and pounds of frozen butter everyday. It was both labor intensive and messy. I found myself staying late to do it on more than one occasion. I remember racking my brain trying to figure out an easier way to make a homemade biscuit waffle that wouldn’t sacrifice flavor for convenience.

EDITING IS ABOUT SIMPLIFICATION

Then one day, at home, I was making my own biscuits using a recipe passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. It was easy, shelf stable, and could be mixed up easily by anyone—no special skills required. The catch was that it included one very unconventional ingredient—an ingredient I didn’t share until I first had several people taste the waffles made with the new recipe. An ingredient that would be added along with the milk just before the dough hit the waffle iron. The new recipe was a hit! Slightly sweeter and fluffier than the original version, we immediately adopted it.

You see, there’s EXTRAORDINARY FREEDOM to re-write what isn’t working.

I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to get things right the first time. But why? That’s not how the world really works. New ideas are tested and evaluated, revised and simplified. The first draft is never the best draft. It’s complicated and messy. And that’s a good thing!

That waffle mix went from seven ingredients to four, and prep time went from about 10 minutes per batch to just two. Not only that, the new waffle also cost less to make. In the restaurant biz, that’s a big deal.

That’s the power of EDITING.

I want to believe that the principle at work in making book drafts and waffle recipes more palatable can surely be applied to other crises of concern.

Even the big questions, like “What should I do with my life?” or “How do I know I’m on the right track?” can be answered by applying the extraordinary freedom available to anyone who has the courage to EDIT along the way.

The story that’s being written can always be re-written. Do you agree?

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What problem are you working on today? Take hold of your own extraordinary freedom. Then let me know how things are going or how I can help. I’d love to cheer you on!

Want more good stuff?

P.S. Hey, friend, I know you’re wondering about that secret ingredient. I’ll tell you—it was MAYONNAISE! Before you say, “Ew…gross…just remember mayo is basically just oil and eggs and when you add that plus milk to self rising flour and a little sugar, you get something pretty delicious!

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!)

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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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Christmas Looked a Little Different This Year

Christmas Eve

BACKING INTO 2023

On December 20th, my daughter had spinal fusion surgery. If you think that sounds painful, that’s because it is. Spinal fusion is a procedure used to permanently connect the vertebrae in your spine so that there is absolutely no motion between them. To fuse the vertebrae permanently, the surgeon places the bone graft material between the vertebrae. In my daughter’s case, titanium rods were also placed on either side of the spine, and screws were used to help hold the vertebrae together while the bone graft heals, thus fusing the spine.

From our research before surgery, we knew days 3-5 would be the worst, and the experts were not wrong. I slept in her room every night, setting an alarm for every two hours. She didn’t want to eat, movement was both excruciating and necessary for pain relief, and the lack of sleep took its toll on all of us.

TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS

For our family, tradition is important. Every year, I make homemade gingerbread and marshmallows from scratch. We watch Christmas movies and make hot chocolate, we go to church, and drive around looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, Santa leaves a trail of gold coins and miniature candy canes all the way to the tree, where presents are wrapped and waiting.

But this year we didn’t do half of it.

The baby girl was writing in pain, and we never left her side. I felt both sad and happy.

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Sad that Cari Jill felt so awful.
Happy that her back was fixed. (And she’s now three inches taller!)

Sad that we didn’t get to do the things we normally do.
Happy that our whole family was together during this difficult time.

Sad that everyone is older and Christmas has lost some of its magic.
Happy that everyone is older and we can introduce something new.

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Sometimes, loss, as hard as it is, is a gift.

Letting go forces us to open our hands and accept what’s new.

These days, it seems all my friends have kids who are getting older, and I’m watching them try desperately to hold onto the old traditions, forcing the college-age kids to sit on Santa’s lap for the obligatory picture, trekking to the farm to choose the perfect tree, and coraling everyone to church for services. There’s pushback and anger when the (adult) child oversleeps or wants to include the boyfriend in the Santa picture. Traditions that made sense when our kids were young seem ridiculous now.

I love traditions as much as anyone. I want to hold onto them.

My younger son attended college in Barcelona last semester. I told him to bring home a Spanish tradition he could share with the family over Christmas, and we ended up with a Caganer sitting next to our nativity. If you don’t know what a Caganer is, let me just tell you—Caganer literally translates to “The Crapper,” and it’s a figurine caught in the act of defecation that’s part of the Catalan nativity scene.

I know! So weird!

My family was horrified when we gifted all of them with their very own Caganers, but in Catalan culture, it’s not offensive at all. Doo-doo is just non-toxic fertilizer, to be sure, and acknowledging it as such is said to bestow joy and good luck to the household. So yeah, maybe we didn’t get to drive around and look at Christmas lights and watch holiday movies, but we did get to tell the “moving” story of the Caganer!

It was ironic, too, because here’s a fun fact for you—hard core narcotics cause constipation!

WELCOMING THE NEW

Next year, I told all the kids that we’re going to harken back to the days of yore, when they were in elementary school and researching “Christmas Around the World.” I told them all to be prepared to share a new tradition with the family at our next holiday gathering. Our “old” family tradition will be NEW traditions! I don’t know if it will work, but it’s fun to think about how we can keep the best of what we love about the the holidays front and center while introducing something new and different at the same time.

Isn’t that the beauty of every new year?

We get to decide what to take with us and what to leave behind. Sure, there may be unexpected curveballs, and some of them may not be all that welcome. But the promise of new provides hope for a better future.

10 Days After Surgery

For Cari Jill, right now she’s experiencing a lot of loss. She will never again be able to cheer or tumble, and certain kinds of dance will never be possible because her back simply does not bend. When it finally does heal, she’ll be able to begin playing sports again. This year, she developed a love of soccer. Over the next few months, school may be difficult, as sitting for long periods of time in a chair are simply uncomfortable. I already know, though, that she’s glad she decided to have the surgery. Besides the obvious height difference, she is clearly more confident, as her hips are now even and her shoulders level. She considers her scar a badge of honor, and she’s proud of the strides she’s already made on her own.

As her mother, I’m proud too. We’ll never forget this Christmas and the tangible, visceral reminder that the old has gone, and the new has come. We STAND TALL and welcome it with open arms and open hands!

“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here.”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17

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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

Flowers on Tuesdays

Who remembers the Must See TV of the late 80s/early 90s? During those years, one of my favorites was Cheers, the fictional show set in a real-life Boston-area bar. The series follows a group of locals who meet to drink, relax, and socialize.

It’s the place “where everybody knows your name.” Every town has one. In Woodstock, GA ours was the Copper Coin.

I say was because we closed our doors forever on September 3rd.

That day was bittersweet, and I still treasure the memories of it in my heart. Messages from friends poured in even as a line snaked out the door from open to close.

A few years ago, I read an article about actress Kirstie Alley, the female lead who begins managing the Cheers bar in Season 6. Some of you might remember that in real life Kirstie Alley battled a multitude of personal problems, including substance abuse. When she got clean, she made herself a promise:

She would spend as much money on fresh flowers for her house every week as she used to spend on drugs.

“Just living is not enough....one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”

— Hans Christian Andersen

I used to think that fresh flowers were a waste of money. They just don’t last very long, after all.

But that’s a dumb reason not to buy them.

We buy all kinds of things that don’t last very long.

In fact, my whole business was based on people buying something that can often be consumed in one big gulp.

Exhibit A: This 4 oz. cortado

Copper Coin Cortado

I have some friends who hate fresh flowers. When they get them, all they see is death. Ugh! Who wants to trim the stems? Change the water? Pick up the dropped petals from the table? Day by day, you watch them wilt only to finally toss them in the trash.

Trust me. That was me before Copper Coin.

Our flowers arrived every Tuesday.

Sometimes I would find that the previous week’s flowers had been moved to a ledge or the floor to make way for laptops and books.

Even so, as I set the new flowers on table after table, guests would look up from whatever they were doing, smile, and murmur thank you.

The flowers were such a small thing. Even now as I type this in an empty room, the flowers leftover from our last day are making me smile. They’re cheery and bright. And even though they don’t talk, their mere presence says, “Welcome back. I’m glad you’re here.”

Before Copper Coin, I never really thought about fresh flowers. I rarely bought them for my own house. Like I said, I too, used to think they were a big, fat waste. Flowers that lasted just a week seemed like a luxury I could easily forego.

But I already miss my Tuesday flowers.

The Tuesday flowers had a positive effect on our guests. I know this to be true because I saw it every week at Copper Coin: flowers boost mood and reduce stress. They foster contentment in a way only nature can.
No complaints here. Who wouldn’t want more contentment in their life?

As I transition into this new season in my own life, so many things feel out of control. In the last month, the coffee shop closed, my youngest child started high school, my dog died, and today, my younger son left for college in Barcelona.

Flowers on Tuesdays are one of the weekly practices I plan to carry into this scary in-between time fraught with change and uncertainty.

Agency over our own lives is a powerful motivator. When you don’t know what to do, think about the small, seemingly insignificant acts that that you can control.

I can buy flowers on Tuesdays.

Trader Joe’s carries an affordable, seasonal assortment, as does Costco. Both are close to my house. With flowers on my table and contentment in my heart, I’m one step closer to whatever the next step may be.

Here’s a question for you:
What’s one thing you’re doing to exercise more agency over your own chaotic life today?

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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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Playing Small is not an Option

Many of us remember high school as a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog marathon popularity contest and rejection fest. That was never more apparent than in my 5th and 6th period acting class. Improvisation. Monologues. Role playing games. Voice calisthenics. And then the dreaded auditions. Talk about rejection! But casting was never just about talent. How do I know this? Because our instructor loved to repeat this well known theatre adage:

“There are no small parts, only small actors.”

I used to think she only said that to make us feel better about ourselves when we didn’t see our names on the cast list. As our teacher, she needed to cut off jealousy, hurt feelings, and petty grievances at the source.

But Ms. Bishop wasn’t the first teacher to admonish her students with these words. For theatre kids like me and professional actors all over the world, it was Konstantin Stanislavski, the father of modern acting, who coined the phrase: “There are no small parts, only small actors.”

Prior to Stanislavski, actors with smaller roles often gave “smaller” performances. They moved with no sense of purpose. They performed their characters with no depth; no commitment. In effect, they were spectators more than they were actors.

Stanislavski found this unacceptable. He required actors who performed in his theatre productions to engage their roles with equal commitment, whether they were lead actors with large roles or supporting actors with few lines or no lines at all.

——-Acting Magazine, July 2018

Three centuries earlier, Shakespeare, the father of English literature, likened the whole human experience to one big theatre production:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

There are no small parts, only small actors.

If I’m being honest, I haven’t always taken the high road. I’ve played it small, looking around and seeing people with opportunity and success looming large right in front of them and thinking: “Why not me? Why don’t I have their talent? Money? Connections? Education? Luck?”

As a young mom, I sometimes complained about the time I spent nursing, changing diapers, and doing laundry. Under the burden of all the things I had to do, I felt like my own raw talent would shrivel up and disappear for good. But these were lies. Those “small” parts weren’t small at all. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were flexing and growing.

Stanislavski believed that every role, regardless of size, mattered. In order for the audience to embrace the story, he emphasized that every single person who worked on the production had to deliver exacting authenticity. (We’ll come back to this later.)

Let’s be real: Even being a part of the ensemble is awesome. How many of us have seen Hamilton, only to be mesmerized by the seamless choreography of the supporting cast? How many of us found ourselves awestruck by the pageantry of a show like Phantom of the Opera, gasping at the drama of a “shattered” chandelier, but never asking “how”? How many of us felt our hearts swell as the ensemble in Les Mis sang “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

Not every actor can or even should be a lead. Some actors need more experience behind the scenes before they’re ready for a bigger role in front of an audience. Acting, like life, is extremely subjective. It takes years of practice, and even the best ones don’t always get a chance at the big-time. To be sure, things like connections and luck do contribute to success.

One of the best parts about being a part of that high school cast was that I got asked to do a bunch of things I didn’t even know I was auditioning for. Actors, by themselves, aren’t all that special. They need the support of those who understand costuming and sound effects, marketing and light design. I learned how to do all those things. And for one special production, our entire class collaborated to write an original play (and we won first place in the state competition!). Behind the scenes and in front of an audience, I saw first-hand how integral every single person was to the success of the entire show.

In college, I thought I was preparing for the role of a lifetime—medical school. I could practically taste the credibility and respect. I could count the money and influence. But instead of getting the role of “student,” I landed the part of “mother,” and my life has never been the same.

Am I going to complain that I didn’t get the role that came with a spotlight? (Is that even something I want now?) Or am I going to accept what I’ve been given with the grace and tenacity of a girl who is out to prove that she can be trusted with small roles, too?

Stanislavski suggests that there are seven questions that actor should ask herself in order to fully understand her character:

• Who am I?

• Where am I?

• What time is it?

• What do I want?

• Why do I want it?

• How will I get what I want?

• What must I overcome to get what I want?

Understanding ourselves and the world we live in is the first step in creating a life of value. Time and place matter because these things are fluid. Just because you are deep in the throes of mothering or school or work right now doesn’t mean you always will be. In fact, one of the best things that could happen to you might be not getting what you want. And as painful as that truth feels right now, you might be surprised at what you uncover when you ask yourself why you want it in the first place.

I realized there were a thousand other ways I could create the life I wanted without being a doctor.

There’s actually two parts to the Stanislavski Method of acting, and it’s this second part that might be the most important of all. It’s called The Magic If:

Utilizing the magic if, you can place yourself in any given scenario and imagine exactly what your character should and would do. In life, that character is YOU. When you understand who you are at your core, you get to make decisions that are congruent with both your values and desires. This is true authenticity!

• How would you respond if …?

• How would you behave if….?

• What thoughts would go through your mind if…?

• How would you feel if….?

• How would your life change if…?

Embracing Empathy

The biggest thing I learned from being an actor? Empathy. According to author Josh Linker of Big Little Breakthroughs, “the empathetic process actually leads to more creativity.” First introduced to the concept of empathy as a young acting student, I’ve since discovered that it’s given me not only a love for other people, but grace for myself. Empathy has shown me not only how to identify problems around me but also how to use both my experience and imagination to solve them.

Playing it small is thinking there’s only one way to be successful, happy, influential, or even helpful. Like Shakespeare said, we are all actors with our entrances and exits, and one man (or woman) in her time “plays many parts.”

All the parts I played have made me a better mom, sister, wife, friend, and ultimately a better human. After all, every role is important. I’m embarrassed I ever thought some of them were small. Indeed, the things I originally perceived as “small” turned out to be the biggest opportunities to shape not only my own generation, but the generation to come.

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I hope you’ve found this post helpful. My prayer is that the next time you find yourself face-to-face with an open casting call for a role you didn’t necessarily choose, you too will be ready to take the stage.

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How 9/11 Changed My View of Motherhood

They say that your worldview is forever shaped by the way the world is when you are in your 20s.

When I was 27, my world changed forever.

This week, I watched coverage of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy in the United States, and like you, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news. I was a new mom, with a two-year old and a brand new baby. That baby was only a week old, and when the twin towers fell, I felt my hopes and dreams for that child fall with them.

To be sure, that day changed the world for all of us, bringing evil near and replacing freedom with fear. In those first days and weeks, I wondered what our new lives would look like. I remember my heart beating fast as I thought about about all the “maybes'“ and “what ifs” of a future I could not see.

In time, two more children joined our family, but I no longer fear for their future. I no longer worry over the circumstances that will shape their lives.

Is it because the world is safer now than it was twenty years ago?
Is it because I’ve buried my head in the sand and decided to turn my head from violence, disaster, sickness, and war?
Or is it because I simply have more courage today than I did back then?

After all, didn’t Jesus command us not to worry? (Matthew 6:25-34)

That last one is true, BUT NO, the real reason I don’t worry as much is because I finally realized that:

God’s solution to big problems has always been a baby.

Those helpless babies I rocked twenty years ago are part of God’s plan to restore the world.

It was Isaac,

the first son of God’s promise to Abraham, who became the legacy of a great nation.

It was Moses,

whose mother tucked him in a basket and sent him down the river, who delivered the Israelites from Pharaoh.

It was Samuel,

whose mother dedicated him to God before he was even born, who became a priest, a judge, and a prophet, and who anointed both Saul and David as kings of Israel.

And it was Jesus,

who came to us as a baby and saved the world from sin. It was him who preached of sacrifice and love and who ultimately calls us not to hide but to be a light in this dark world.

Whether we have children or not, we all started out as babies, and we all have the same opportunity to do good wherever we are.

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Looking back, I’m embarrassed that I felt fear for the new life in my arms. After all, God trusted me with that child (and three others). And as long as the earth continues to turn on its axis, I believe he’ll keep using babies to bring peace and hope. Mine are growing up fast, and I’m so proud of them.

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