Thanks to Lyman Reed, I have found an awesome new resource for a meeting of the minds.  Aaron Potts has created Personal Development Partners.  Summary – meet people, discuss ideas, find inspiration. 

I found a bit of that today.  I thought I would share my first thread here.  It is a question I would love to have you guys answer.

Special thanks to Lyman and Aaron – both have made me feel wonderfully welcome. Lyman has helped me sort through where I fit in.

I have a slightly different style. I have a husband, four children, a real estate clientele, and big dreams. In short…I am busy.

As I told Lyman, I believe in the LoA, positive thinking, and the like. I also believe in pulling up your bootstraps and getting it done – even if it doesn’t feel good or it’s not resonating – sometimes you just have to get to it anyway.

My bootstraps are my favorite weapon. When all else fails, I always have my hands firmly on them. Sometimes my mind gets right first, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is just raw tenacity.

Where do your bootstraps fit in?

My heart is broken over at The Chaos for my dear friend Lani Anglin.  She lost her brother yesterday.  Her words are here.

Here at Life, I am passing on Greg Swann’s call to action.

Aaron Anglin is survived by a wife and two very young daughters. The way I’m reading things, he died without life insurance, which puts those three ladies on a very hard road.

If you can spare something for them, put it in the form of negotiable funds — cash, cashier’s check or money order — and overnight it to:

Aleisha Anglin
  c/o Lani Anglin
  2719 Costa Azul Cove
  Leander, TX
  78641

April is working on setting up a donation account with Bank of America, and I’ll amend this post when that account becomes available.

But: I will promise you that there are people who will want to be paid now, and this young family will have immediate and ongoing needs. There was a time in your life when fate could have hit you this hard. Now is your chance to redeem that good fortune.

Thanks, Greg.

Lani, our prayers are with you now and our help is on the way.

For a while, the activity in my brain has been jumbled, stressed, and full of wonder. This feeling is exciting for about 2 seconds – then it just becomes overwhelming and scary. I am a fan of neither. Does this sound like anything you go through? Oh, I hope so or Lani’s right and I am just a weirdo.

Today I make the commitment to untangle the wires. I will regain my focus, set my intentions, and remember who I am - I invite you to come along with me. This journey is always better with a few friends. Laughter, support, new strategies, different perspectives – these are the beautiful aspects of friendships.

What better time to be tagged by Chris Cree with a suggestion of a promise. Although, with all the folks who have found it resonating, it is almost a pact.

Joe started it when he realized he had been noticeably absent.

It stuck a cord with Liz so much so that she made the promise herself and encouraged others to follow suit. That’s where my tag from Chris came into play.

Rick made the promise AND the buttons. (I like the blue, but he’s got green and red too!)

And now I make it as well.

• I will be sure to comment on other Blogs if I can add to the conversation.
• I will respond to comments on my own Blog.
• I will acknowledge any links to my Blog with a comment on the linker’s Blog.
• I will continue to link to other Blogs that are pertinent to a posts content.
• I will once again be a part of the Blogging Community.

However, in the interest of complete honesty, Troy’s reminder of the nature of a promise is ringing in my head. Especially after Chris’ reminder that most of us pay our bills in the face to face world.

But, I remember who I am. And that person is diverse and interested. That is the person who is ready to make this promise.

Should I tag some folks? I suppose I should. However, this was surprisingly personal to me. In a way that I appreciate Chris for, but am sure he couldn’t have imagined. If he did, he knows me better than I thought and I am grateful for friends like that. So, I tag you. The one who read this post and said, “Man, I really need to get on with it.” The one who read it and related. The one who was hoping I would tag them…I tag you.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I had the awesome experience of attending the 8th Annual A Working Woman in Need Gala last week.  During the event, I was able to present one of the awards to my dear friend Lisa. 

What a great opportunity it is to create relationships, give and get support, and learn and teach with those around you!  This has been on my mind a lot lately and I am apparently not the only one.

• Wendy from LifeHacker talks about learning from other people
• Ben the Instigator rightly identifies the role of friends
• Steve passes on a great story of some fabulous friendships and teamwork

I am lukewarm to the current pop music scene.  But the lyrics to Umbrella stay with me when this topic comes up.

When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be a friend
Took an oath I’ma stick it out till the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella

I know why this particular set of lyrics resonates with me. 

• Real friends do well when things are really good, when they are really bad, and every stop in between.  It is tough when you have a person in your life that can only handle one or the other – can’t stand to see you succeed, or needs drama to feel useful.
• Umbrellas are great.  They keep you dry.  However, when there gets to be more than one person underneath it, everybody gets wet.  But, everybody is drier than they would have been.  We may be a little wet, but sharing the load benefits everybody.

So, even though the weather is beautiful here right now, I need to always be prepared and consider my own umbrella and the umbrellas of others. 

• Not all umbrellas are made the same. 
• Not all people share the same. 
• Not all people want you to share with them.

In a day where technology helps facilitate relationships, face to face networking has unlimited venues, and we are told never to eat alone, it can become a challenge to know who you can share your umbrella with and whose you can feel safe standing under.

I’d love to hear about your umbrella!

I am nearing the end of week two of Craig Harper’s GYST challenge. I am proud to report that I am still on track – mostly. Some days I am ahead, others I am behind, but it is all evening out in the end.

My goal was to clear my house of clutter so that it didn’t look so messy lived in all the time. I have thrown out lots of stuff and donated more to Goodwill. It is coming along nicely.

During this process, I have realized that some things that seem unrelated aren’t. Two examples.

This first one I already knew about myself. My day changes based on whether or not (or at what point) I put on makeup. I learned this when I was 17 and a tonsillectomy ruined my life (well, a few days of it). Mom grew weary of the moping and told me to go “get yourself together.” This meant a shower, fresh clothes, and “putting on your face.” I felt better.

Tested the theory when I delivered my first baby. After the delivery, I “got myself together.” Hmm…this works pretty good.

Now I know, if I want to be productive and feel ready to tackle the world, it is not a good idea to skip the makeup. If I plan on relaxing and getting some rest, I will probably do better without it.

The second example is new to me and a further stretch to understand than the makeup relationship. My house is beginning to lighten up. It stays cleancleaner, things are easier to find, progress happens faster. I feel motivated to eat better.

Huh? Motivated to eat better? Yep…the more I clean, the more I feel the urge to eat healthy. The more put together the house is, the more nutritious I feel. Weird.

I can’t explain the relationship between these things (maybe the first, but not the second). But, they are real and obvious. Makes me think I need to start paying more attention to how the seemingly unrelated things in my life are affecting each other. There may be a goldmine (or a land mine) lurking around somewhere that I can use to my advantage.

Have you considered that things that don’t seem like they would relate to each other actually do? Can you explain it (especially the house-food thing)? How can we discover these hidden relationships and leverage them to our advantage?

Alrighty…this is April going out on a limb…ready? 

I am the picture of positive thinking.  The vision of visionary.  The princess of purpose.  I believe in finding what makes you thrive and turning that into what pays the bills.  I love the idea of going big.  I think that if your business branches into unlikely places that are beautiful and exciting none the less – climb that tree and diversify your income and live your dream.

But when is diverse too diverse?  And when is big too big?  Is it possible for your goals to be too great, too mammoth, too much for others to keep faith and believe that your thoughts of the future, while unconventional and kaleidoscopey, are still worth supporting?

When have we stretched too far?