Today I felt something almost tangible inside about networking.  I’ve believed in the principle and have practiced it slowly and in my own small way over time, but basically until very recently I’ve pretty much felt I was alone in this thing called making my future.

And hey, please don’t feel bad for me for one second, I’m totally cool with hanging out with myself.  But today I felt stronger because of my network, my growing virtual network.  I felt connected and supported and I felt stronger.  Thank you.

You who have been doing it a while will say, aah yes and nod wisely. I salute you.  And to those just crossing the threshhold, I say take heart.  Reach out, one feeler at a time. We are here and you are not alone.

Boy, sometimes it’s like the main shipping channel out there.  Lots and lots of information and so easy to get caught in the current.   And that current will take you far and deep and can pull your day under before you know it. I have (for the most part) learned that lesson.  Now when I get in the current, I face forward, keep my head up and stay alert (focused).  As soon as I start to feel I’m drowning or about to be caught in a strong undertow of things I really don’t need to know right this second, I scoot on over to the side and catch my breath in the swirl of an eddy…  Sometimes I get back in, but mostly I head for dry land and get on with my day.

Let me know if I can help you with a life raft ever.

In the meantime, swim well.

The word luck has come to my mind a few times recently, either being spoken by someone else or through experiencing it personally.

Anne McKevitt, a hugely successful entrepreneur and coach, was who I heard saying she doesn’t believe in luck.  In that  particular context she was talking about making things happen, taking action, etc., and I certainly agree that luck isn’t something you’re likely to get much of sitting around on the front porch thinking about what you coulda woulda shoulda.

But I definitely think of myself as a fortunate person, self-made or otherwise.  I don’t allow myself to be stopped by too many what-if obstacles and that keeps my path pretty clear for action.  Actions result in consequences, some planned, some not.  I guess you could call those unplanned consequences good luck or bad, depending on what they are.

My latest good fortune has been as small as coffee leaking (a lot) out of my travel cup all over my clothes on the drive in on Monday, a day when I had to wrangle a board meeting – the good luck being the top I was wearing was the one thing I own of a color which apparently completely blends with coffee, so the (multitude of) stains didn’t show!  And in the past, as huge as coming out of a nasty roll-over car accident basically in one piece (you never realize how lucky til you survive one and then all you hear about on the news are these awful deaths from car roll-overs!!).

For sure people’s paths are sometimes literally on a collision course with other people and things. But don’t discount the beneficence of life because you’re afraid of what might be around the next corner.  Move forward openly and just be as ready as you can for what’s next because, to quote Seneca the Roman: luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

P.S. Hope you don’t mind, but I called this post The Luck Dragon because “The Never-Ending Story” is one of my favorite movies and so of course Falcor the Luck Dragon came to mind along with the rest of the luck items.

P.P.S.  Turns out, Falcor has his own Facebook fan page!

Funny how we (think we) need validation from others.  I find it most excruciating waiting for feedback from my peers, yet pay more attention to those closest to me probably because, besides the high value I place on their opinions, I believe they have no motive other than they care.

The reality may be that those closest have more motive to cushion their commentary, but that motive would likely be about making me feel good. Hence my close attention…  🙂

My two dogs are sisters.  Two of four pups abandoned at birth. We got ’em at 10 weeks and they’re now 4 years old.  With the exception of three occasions that I can recall, they have spent all day every day together.  Their interaction is a constant source of fascination, amusement and wonder for me.  This past Sunday afternoon our little skinny scared one Bluebell hurt her knee and we had to confine her to make her rest.  She has food and water and gets let out for potty breaks, but her anxiety level is fairly high even on her good days, so I know she’s pretty stressed.  Her potty breaks aren’t producing much. She’s not pooping because she’s not eating.  Less poop is great says I, not eating for much more than a day and a half is not.  And my own anxiety, no matter how much I try, just compounds it all. Interestingly, Blue’s sister – our big girl Daisy – has also not eaten (one who usually eats her bowl and half of her sister’s).  It struck me how completely in tune with each other’s senses they are.  There are no such things as why and wherefore with them, it just is.  Legs will get better, barriers will be removed, food eaten and poops pooped.  Normal life will return. But they don’t even think about that.  They are solely in the now.

But what of us and our complicated lives?

I’m the middle sister of three.  We are very close and even though I’m an ocean and a continent away, most of the time it doesn’t seem that way.  We have a strong and loving relationship and it’s part of my inner being, my core.  So now that I am in business in the virtual world you’d think maybe I’d have a slight jump on it.  But no, not really.  In business we are hampered by a whole other set of criteria that get in the way of our relationship-building.  Big things like making a living, and cyber communication; a culture of instant gratification being handled from cramped home offices with too many days of less than stellar self-confidence..plus the little things like deciding whether or not to use emoticons in your emails to people you don’t know yet 🙁 

These things are real and we don’t have control over much of that crap, but what we do control is ourselves.  So tune in to yourself, feel good about who you are and where you are.  And if you don’t like what you see, step outside and revisit that relationship you have with yourself.

It’s easier than you think.      

Chris Brogan is one of the top bloggers on social media (among other things) and I’m a big fan.

I’ve been trying to pin down what it is about Chris and his posts that I like so much (so that I can emulate naturally).  The content is great of course, but it’s more than that.  Anyway, happens he’s putting out a book soon called Trust Agents and I believe that’s it.  Trust.  I trust him.  Why?  Well, there’s a confidence projected in his writing – it tells me he’s completely comfortable in his arena which I feel organically means being knowledgeable in his arena.  Coupled with his tone, serious but generously balanced with levity, it all strikes the right chord for me.

He’s had some fun these last few days with a couple of spoof posts and I sense an element in the post-mortem that slightly perplexed him.  Cool.  It’s all good because it’s especially important to me that he’s human!

Hey Chris, you rock.

P.S.   And thank you to the visionary Stacy Brice for turning me on to him!

What’s with the constant struggle to remember things these days?

It’s frustrating as hell and the one thing about where I am in my life that really bothers me – well ok maybe there’s a couple more, but this is the main thing.  Plus those of us who are mothers know that some portion of memory gets ejected with the placenta right, so we already have one strike against us.

Mostly I resign myself to the fact that this is an undeniable, no way around it sign of aging, but you can have a little fun along the way.  When I first heard someone refer to it as half-heimer’s, I bust out laughing (wish I could remember where I heard it and who said it – see there it is again!) and now shamelessly use the expression myself because it makes people laugh and laughing is super good for your health.   (This is, of course nothing whatsoever to do with Alzheimer’s which is not funny in the slightest. )

Anyway, I also put this state of forgetfulness down to being too busy, having just too many things going on in my head, and that is a daily reminder to self that one of the most important parts of what I want in my life going forward is simplification.  Not an especially easy goal to achieve when you’re cut from the busy-all-the-time-cos-there’s-so-much-to-be-done cloth, but definitely in my life plan – hence my Oasis and doubly so now I’ve stated it here (aah the key – writing things down makes them real for me, makes them stick.  A simple tool I’ve used all my working life.)

So is it because time gets more precious as we get older, it seems to pass quicker and quicker and thus we feel the pressure to get everything done because time is running out?  Maybe that pressure is zapping our memory cells??

Have a happy weekend .. it is Friday isn’t it???

Tonight there was a gorgeous full moon at the oasis.  It was balmy and breezy on my walk with the dogs.  The palm trees were swaying wildly and the shadows were alive.

Those kind of summer evenings always make me think of Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man.  I need to find a copy and remind myself why it had such an impact on me all those years ago.  His rich detail always thrilled my imagination.  Anyway, I love his writings and know Ray Bradbury’s had this kind of life-long affect on so many people, in fact someone was saying exactly that on Los Angeles public radio earlier this week, for her it was specifically Fahrenheit 451, a book that was required reading in my son’s Freshman year at high school.

I can’t imagine not having books to read, it’s a deep and genuine pleasure for me. But I sometimes wonder if my generation is the last, true, book-loving one. I have plenty of friends who read, but does my teenage son? I bet not. 

Each step forward on the path automatically generates a knowledge upgrade.

Having finally officially become a blogger, I naturally revisited the question “How Do I Get Readers to My Blog?”  From a quick  Google search I opened up a long “How to Blog” post by MasternewMedia and discovered something new (note: it’s an older post so maybe this never caught on?  Let me know what you know).  You have to scroll down several pages to the section on Windows Blog Editors, which includes a video review on Windows Live Writer.   This is a Windows desktop application with, as far as I can see, everything you need to quickly whip off a pretty professional post (includes linking, image editing, maps, etc.) super fast, but the whole key is that you can prepare your posts off-line in web-ready form.

Nice and easy, that’s the way we like it these days.

Welcome to my little Oasis.

A couple of weeks ago my lovely younger sister Judith, together with my niece and nephew, came over from the UK for a visit.

It was a wonderful, much needed break for the two of us.  We both love being in the garden, working in it too.  My back yard is pretty big and over the past year had finally gotten the upper hand.   Between my girls Daisy and Bluebell (lab-pointer mixes – also sisters), and the tenacious weeds, even I had to say “you win.”

The dogs are now 4 years old and have ruled the yard for the last couple of years.  Lately I’ve really wanted to separate the yard into two sections, one for me (and my friends) and one for them.  I had thought about this many times, but never to the point of action.  Judith, bless her, got right to it!

With her inspiration and design, and the hard work of my great gardener Javier and his team, the backyard was cleared, 28 Fern Pines were planted and fenced off, add to that the truly magic ingredient water, and in just one day I had my secret garden, my oasis.  Within a week the grass was green and lush, and now my friend Lou has put in beautiful gates at either end so I can enter without having to hop the fence.

So I have my separation, my dog-poop-and-pee-free zone, and most of all a place of quiet retreat.  What we did was different, definitely outside the box, but those initial resistors trusted and went with the flow and I thank them for that.

Biggest lesson from this so far is how having an extra head and heart in your life can so easily get things done for you.

Gillian

****be still and know*