Har­mony vs Bal­ance: What’s the dif­fer­ence? Do you want har­mony in your life or bal­ance? We hear a great deal about the need to cre­ate bal­ance in your life. Try­ing to achieve bal­ance can cause even more stress. And who needs more stress! Read the rest of this entry »

To all of you that have left the encour­ag­ing sup­port­ive comments,

“Thank You.” Read the rest of this entry »

The hol­i­days are almost upon us.  Many of us will be spend­ing time with fam­ily.  Some of us look for­ward to that and oth­ers of us dread it.

Think about your fam­ily life for a moment. If you are like most peo­ple, there are a vari­ety of dynam­ics that sur­round your fam­ily.   You get along, you don’t get along.  You laugh and have fun and you storm and yell.  You talk to each other and you don’t talk to each other.  You love your sib­lings, but you can’t wait to go home and get away from them.  You love your par­ents, but they drive you nuts.  You love your own kids, but you can’t stand them at times and you can’t wait for them to grow up and leave home. (OK,  I can hear some of you chuck­ling and nod­ding your heads, espe­cially if you have teenagers.) Read the rest of this entry »

As I lis­ten to the mul­ti­tude of news sto­ries about one of the world’s best golfers crash­ing his vehi­cle in the early morn­ing hours and as the  details unfold about his pri­vate life, I am sad­dened for him, his wife and fam­ily and for us.  This is just one more high pro­file celebrity who has momen­tar­ily self-destructed. It is one more high pro­file per­son who in moments of indis­cre­tion has jeop­ar­dized his career and his fam­ily life.

Then I step back and try to gain per­spec­tive and real­ize we all have sim­i­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.  We all can stray from our paths, our fam­i­lies and our beliefs.

So what is it that enables us to stay true to our core val­ues?  What is it that enable us once we fal­ter to get back on track? Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Thanks­giv­ing.  A day for giv­ing thanks, enjoy­ing fam­ily, friends, good food and football.

So what are you truly thank­ful for?  Do you really rec­og­nize the bless­ings in your life even when your life seems to be out-of-control?  Or is it out-of-control because you are not rec­og­niz­ing the bless­ings in your life? Read the rest of this entry »

If you are an employee, do you know the core val­ues of the busi­ness or orga­ni­za­tion that you work for?  Do you know the core val­ues of your super­vi­sor?  Of your colleagues?

If you are a busi­ness owner, have you clearly iden­ti­fied the core val­ues of your busi­ness? Have you artic­u­lated them to your employ­ees? And do you insist that the com­pany cul­ture and code of behav­ior reflect those val­ues? Read the rest of this entry »

Core val­ues… we all have them, whether we acknowl­edge them or not.  So what are yours?  Can you eas­ily tell some­one what your core val­ues are?  Do you design your life around your core val­ues?  Do you live your core val­ues? Read the rest of this entry »

Friends.  What more can I say.  Friends can be a strong sup­port sys­tem to help you strengthen the har­mony in your life, your fam­ily and your work.  Who else will lis­ten to you as you vent, as you try to work your way through what you are deal­ing with, as your shed your tears or help you cel­e­brate when you over­come your obsta­cles. Read the rest of this entry »

As I think about strength­en­ing the har­mony in my life (and in help­ing oth­ers) one of the first things that comes to mind is the mul­ti­ple “hats” we all wear.

In my life, I wear the hat of spouse, mother, grand­mother (of eight and it is the absolute blast), daugh­ter, sis­ter, busi­ness owner, friend, gar­dener, Great Dane and cat care­giver, bird feeder, vol­un­teer and per­pet­ual learner.  Try­ing to fill the role of each of these can be a daunt­ing task.  Main­tain­ing bal­ance across all of them is dif­fi­cult if not impos­si­ble. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the cat is out of the bag.  I know I should be pro­ject­ing this air of pure con­fi­dence, but I think it is impor­tant for the integrity of this blog to reflect what I am actu­ally feel­ing.  Trep­i­da­tion.  Excite­ment.  Amaze­ment that I’ve got­ten this far. Read the rest of this entry »