What Do You Want to Be?

Always looking for blog inspiration, I never expected it to come from a video shot at our recent PEAK conference.  But John is right.  At a certain age, we do stop asking ourselves what we want to be.  I've been spending a lot of time trying to answer this question for myself and know I will do more exploration as I begin My Desire Map in the coming weeks.  But for now...

I want to be trusted.  I want to be loved and accepted.  I want to be patient and kind.

I want to be a good friend, daughter, sister and aunt.

I want to be paid for what I am passionate about (thankfully, I already am).

I want to honor those who have paved the way for me.  I want to help those who are in need - human and canine.

I want to be called Mom.  I want to grow old with Todd.

That's what I want to be.  I doubt this will change but I'm glad John posed the question so I could contemplate my answers.

What do you want to be?

These Old Things?!

Last year (it seems so weird to write that!), I had the privilege and honor of being the Social Media Host at our Annual Meeting in Denver.  By the end of the week I was even promoted to Maven!  This meant being on stage at our general session each day and asking our members to tweet, text and Facebook about their experiences at the conference.  Oh, and I was talking in front of a few thousand of my closest (not really) friends.

One of the highlights of the experience - and there were many - was when I read a message from one of my Academy classmates.  She talked about good friends, making the most of the week and even going home with a new pair of shoes.  Of course I commented I hoped I could go shoe shopping too so my chair, who was on stage with me, pointed at my black patent leather Calvin Klein Mary Janes with the red tortoise shell embellishment and said, "those?"  And I replied, "these old things?!"  (yep, the crowd even laughed!)

And, quite literally, they have been in my closet for a few years.  I wore them when I finished the Leadership Academy experience in 2010 and they are my excuse to wear a red dress and feel sassy and confident in front friends, colleagues and complete strangers.  These old favorites never let me down!

My First Haiku

I am lucky to be part of a really cool team at work called the Innovations Team. Inspired by one of my friends from the Academy, this team gets together monthly to use both sides of our brains as we try to identify challenges and solutions within our organization.  We rotate bringing creative exercises, check-in questions to get to know one another better and meaty substantive agenda items.  Yesterday's creative exercise totally inspired me!  Write a Haiku (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) inspired by customer service.  So, without further ado, my first Haiku:

A Shopper's Dream:
I MUST have those shoes!
Do you have them in my size?
Yes, at a discount!

Feel free to snap as if you are at a poetry jam as I nod my head in appreciation.

What will you do that is new and creative today?