Lessons of Leadership, Starting the Intermediate Run (#246)

With my dear friend, leadership coach Edwin Vega, who has supported me so far every step of the journey. Our glow after an amazing 3-day intensive.

Where do I even start? Last month, I began my training in life coaching with the Coaches Training Institute. I will go through the entire, intensive certification course – as part of my journey to coaching others, writing a book that’s been burning inside me, doing some public speaking, and learning to inhabit the leader that’s been somewhat dormant inside of me.

What can I say? Whew! What a course. Now, coming out of my first of the intermediate-level three-day intensives, I feel energized like a teenager and more open and present than ever. Hanging out with twenty-five to thirty other engaged, intelligent, compassionate people learning to use their intuition, fully listen, and dance in the moment kind of has that effect.

My big takeaways this time, in addition to my personal growth and to learning and sharpening my already wonderful skills as a coach:
1. Life purpose matters and is a birthright. Identifying and owning it makes life more full. Ask me mine, and I’ll tell you.
2. We all have voices that try to sabotage us.
3.We also have voices that lead us and voices that know how to appreciate the beauty in everything (the full picture). We get to decide how to listen and whose volume to adjust when.

An incredibly heartfelt thanks to all the participants, instructors, and volunteers. You have left me whole today. So much more to come. In the meantime, happy holidays. Love, joy, and peace to you all, these present days and the many to come.

Alright Here

Despite the news of Hurricane Sandy and the NYC Marathon cancelation, I’ve kept a relatively low profile as I recover from a couple of unexpected blows. First, the marathon, and its cancelation that oddly leveled a sizable blow to my ego even to the point of feeling like heartbreak. Second, my knee, the same one I had worked so hard to heal after my training fall on the Queensboro Bridge, which I then re-injured by falling while dismounting my bicycle on the way to my church job last Sunday – ironically, the day I had planned to run in the marathon. In one week, I went from running eleven-minute-miles to walking eleven-minute-blocks along with the elderly with their walkers on Tuesday. I did vote.

As I sat at home for the rest of the week, nursing my physical and emotional wounds, I searched for answers and lessons to be learned; meanwhile, the universe threw funny moments and great visitors in my direction to remind me that I wasn’t and am never alone. Several friends came to visit, along with a photographer I had met while singing in the subway. She needed a place to stay when her plane was canceled due to the Nor’easter last week and gave me an opportunity to help someone displaced from the storm, from the comfort of my home. The strangest surprise came when a census bureau representative who had tried unsuccessfully to ask me questions for a financial survey when I was sick months ago returned at this uncanny time, with organic orange juice and flowers.

My loved ones and well-wishers have helped to soothe my soul and teach me some valuable lessons about striving, resting, and communing with life and the living. Here are five things I learned this week:

1. The elderly aren’t just wise because they’ve accumulated a lot of experience. Having to move at such a slow pace makes you choose between living in the moment and going insane.
2. When it takes you 2 minutes to walk past someone, you’re more likely to be friendly. Otherwise, every person you pass is an instant awkward moment.
3. Although I value peak experiences, I placed too much stock in one day’s easily canceled event. I talked a bit too little about anything else but the marathon, and in it I laid my worth as a woman who could do anything. I can still do anything, and I will likely run another marathon, but each day has no more potential than the next to change my life or the world.
4. Heartbreak is sometimes a gift to make you a stronger person.
5. Regardless of fame, success, dreams, and all our striving, our best lives still end with those we love at home

Thank you to everyone who cheered me on, and especially to those who donated to Team for Kids on my behalf. It’s an amazing charity, and I’m so grateful to have still helped so many children with your gifts. Finally, a song from my dear and talented friend Trina Bass Coleman, called Alright Here. It reminds me of the most important lesson of all: regardless of fame, dreams, and all our striving, our best lives still end with those we love at home.