Nothing ever goes as planned.  That is the one lesson I am learning over and over again as I try to lead my family to greatness.  Okay, greatness is a little much, how about to being better than we started.  Today is October 10, 2010, which was the due date for my family’s leadership quests.  Let me drill down to how they did.  First, my husband.  No he didn’t do the real estate thing.  Once he got into it that didn’t seem practical so he went to applying for a job, which turned out to applying to many jobs.  He got hired too but quit that day realizing it didn’t fit with his ethics.  Now he is further down the job path and we have our fingers crossed that one of the jobs he applied for will come through or that he will find one that will work soon.  My take, this has been a huge success.  He got out there, got his feet wet, and still continuing.

My daughter who was going to bake a cake for the widows joined in with another daughter and then my son also joined in giving up his idea of cleaning the park.  They of course waited until today to do it.  They set out with the cakes they made to visit the widows and learned that not one neighboring widow was home.  They had a life other than waiting for teenagers to knock on their door on Sunday afternoons.  So my girls and son visited youth leaders in their church.  The reported ah ha was that everyone needs a boost.  They were surprised at what a difference it made in people who they would have judged had it all together.  They learned everyone needs kindness.

My daughter that was going to do the book donation ran into the problems with that project which she may continue in a later date.  She has decided to do another project this time for a widow that does answer her phone.  My daughter was granted an extension and will be serving soon.

Then to my four year olds project.  We had a great time buying the cookie dough at the grocery store together.  (I can’t bake.  Seriously I can’t stand putting all that butter and sugar in.  All I think about is the clotted arties and I begin reducing the recipe then I get yelled at …you get the picture.)  After we had the dough she did a good job in arranging all her siblings into helping her bake them.

Today we went as a family to give the cookies to my former mother-in-law, Mara Dee.  As a side note, I adore my mother-in-law.  This woman was one of the great ones.  She was funny, full of life, and cared so much for others.  She would spend months making wreathes for people sick at the hospital or for the elderly.  She has dementia and quickly went downhill over the past few years.  I haven’t seen her for awhile, being an ex-in-law and all but this was a good excuse.  I know how much she loves children, cookies, babies and we brought all three.

I knew that Mara Dee wasn’t doing well.  I’ve seen her before but I guess I wasn’t prepared to see someone that I love so much be so completely gone.  As I looked into her eyes and saw someone completely checked out, I couldn’t help but remember how many times she would say how she didn’t want to become like that.  How she never wanted to be a burned to anyone.  How she would rather die than to not be able to function and remember.  Yet, there she was exactly what she didn’t want to become.  I waited until everyone else left the room and held my baby up to her and I think for a brief moment she looked at the baby with delight and then the cloud came over her again and she grew tired and scared.

As I look back at the journey, I am glad we took it.  The kids enjoyed the meals, some like the picnics, storytelling and family time, which we are continuing.  Yes, it has brought the family closer and hopefully created more memories for them to rely on later in life.  Each person life has changed.  There has been learning.  I have to say what I learned most was the impact that my mother-in-law had on me.  She loved me all those years I was her daughter-in-law.  She took me in as daughter and a friend.  Her influence I will never forget.  It was her love that changed my life and made it so much better.  It is my hope that my family when looking back will be able to say that about me.  If they do, I know that my life was lived well for this reason I will continue to working on strengthening the tribe.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 10:41 pm | Comments (0)

Have you ever found it difficult balancing two different areas of your life, such as work and family? Would you be interested in knowing that there is a way to be happier in both areas—and that it doesn’t necessarily require more work?

You should have been there when I was coaching a young sales rep with a truckload of ambition, saddled with the concerns a young family can bring. When he showed up for his coaching call, he announced that one of his children would soon have an extended stay in the university hospital. How would he manage the increased family responsibilities with the constant pressure of being able to provide for them? He would have significantly less time for business but a dramatic increase in demand for money because of growing hospital bills.

To add another layer to his pressure, his wife had a chronic health condition that the doctors said needed immediately attention. The last layer of stress was the businessman’s health. It was starting to get affected, because he wasn’t putting in the needed time to take care of himself.

I immediately had him take a deep breath, letting go of as much stress as he could. Then I had him quickly write what needed to be done in one column, what could be taken out in the other. He had to be ruthless. He had no time or energy to work on things that “would be nice.” Every item in the second column went to the calendar as things to do after he climbed out of survival mode.

Then I had him study and explore a concept I learned from my personal coach. The concept sounds real simple, but it’s one of those things that is harder to apply.

Here it is: Figure out what your perfect working conditions are.

What is included in your list? What things need to be in place for you to be a peak performance? Do you need to eat certain kinds of food at certain times? Do you need to exercise? If so, what type? How often? How long? Do you need to have a certain amount of rest?

What about the state of your desk? Do you operate better when it’s clean, or if it has a certain amount of clutter? How much family time do you need to put in so you aren’t riddled with guilt? What else do you need in place?

How many hours are you working? What gives you the motivation to step it up? Are there certain people, activities or meetings that naturally get you motivated?

These questions sound easy, but it is amazing how many people don’t know the answers. After I put my young sales rep through the questionnaire, it became clear that proper food, exercise, and hunting time were his magic ingredients to relieve his stress enough that he could with a clear head move through the other challenges. Once we brainstormed how he could accomplish more of those things within the confines of his circumstances, he more easily slipped into the zone. In fact, at the end of the year, he was ecstatic that he’d worked less than ever but had and made significantly more money.

The question is: Are you ready to be happier? What would being in the zone do for your business? What would it do for your personal life?

If you are ready to find out, Zone Play.

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 4:52 am | Comments (0)

Achieving excellence in leadership is a matter of knowing how you show up in the playing field, your impact, and how to accelerate both for maximum results.

Have you ever gone somewhere and wondered why you even made the effort? How about feeling like you don’t belong in some groups no matter what you say or do?

What if I told you that there is a way where you not only will never feel like a stranger, but you won’t have to worry about pleasing others again?

On an early snowy January morning in 2009, I was deflated, sitting at a greasy, cold breakfast network meeting. I was surrounded by suits, wondering how to get their respect and sell in a man’s world. The men were courteous but clearly did not accept me into their club.

I was newly remarried, recovering from a divorce after six kids and thirteen years of marriage. I was also recovering from a failed business that had consumed most of my time, energy, and money the year before. As I straightened my jacket, I wondered,

What am I doing here? I don’t belong here. I’d been coming to these meetings for six months and had never made a sale. I’m a mother of six, I thought. I should be at home. The suits won’t take me seriously, especially with another baby coming. It doesn’t matter how professional I dress. And I already lost $30,000 last year.

At that meeting, I once again, went through the process of trying to sell myself as a coach. Once again, I failed. I dragged myself home, where my husband put his arms around me and said I should just quit.  “Dear, I hate seeing you get all stressed out and tied up in knots. You don’t belong in the hard business world. You just aren’t built that way.”

Later that day, I received an e-mail from the coaching school I just promised $8000 to get accredited. I needed to have seven paying clients in one month’s time, or I would be kicked out of the program. Great. I’d gone six months without a single sale. I had one client so far. Now, magically, I was supposed to get six more in four weeks?

I sat on my office couch in defeat. I was going to quit. It definitely would be cheaper. I wasn’t cut out to be in business. The kids would just have to wait for braces until they got married and their spouses could pay for them. Assuming they could find someone to marry them with crooked teeth.

I had just got myself believing that I would never have future grandkids because I wasn’t a business woman, when the phone rang. It was my future mentor calling, a woman I’d met the month before. She was an older lady from Arizona who wore ethereal clothes and had a quiet confidence about her although she was incredibly shy.

She said she’d felt impressed to call me. After hearing my plight, she had three life-changing questions for me.

Question #1: Are you a man or a woman?

Answer: Woman.

Question #2: Do you like the aggressive way the men sell?

No.

Question #3: Then why try to be one of them?

Ahh. She got me.

Over the next week, it didn’t take long for me to figure out my strengths. I was a mother at heart. I can see greatness in others. I can call them to that greatness, whether it requires a nurturing touch or a butt-kicking. I naturally discover what causes people pain and then help them tap in to their brilliance to solve their own problems.

Once I plugged in to my unique but natural way of being—focusing on helping the suits be their best—and stayed that way throughout the sales process—I hit bingo. Now not only do I fill my practice quickly and easily, but I get to decide which clients to take on.

In a sense, my husband was right—I didn’t belong in the boys’ club. I needed to start my own club. Now I belong to Lisa’s club. I am the owner, and I decide who belongs. Guess how much I charge my husband to come visit?

So ask yourself: What club are you still trying to get into to? Stop.

Own your own club.

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 4:49 am | Comments (0)

Sometimes life has a way of sneaking up and completely changing things.  That happened this week on my plans for the tribal leadership.  I had plans on giving my family some skills on how to lead and get better results.  Then really life happened.  On Sunday instead of me teaching my family some ways to align with others, I ended up in Urgent Care because I couldn’t stop fainting.   The docs ran tests and aren’t sure what is wrong.  They think I might have developed vertigo as a result from the physical therapy that I have been doing.  They are hoping it is that and not my heart.  I am hoping that too. So in our family meeting, when I wasn’t sleeping (the docs gave me sleepy medicine), I encouraged everyone to step up in their quests and get their projects done.  The deadline is looming and I hope that they meet the call whether I am a wake or sleeping

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 6:55 pm | Comments (0)

Going to the next level in your life and business often requires you to build a dream team. I learned the necessity of having a strong dream team the hard way while going through a divorce—during that awful period when the decision had been made and all that was left was to completely rip my life apart and then hope somehow, magically, I’d be able to reassemble it again into some kind of order.

My former husband had always taken care of the money. Now that we were parting, I was faced with the challenge of how to meet the needs of my six kids and myself. I was in absolute panic as I obsessed over our future. I broke into an ice-cold sweat and struggled to breathe.

“I have a roof over my head,” I told myself. “I have food in the cupboard, and I know where my children are.” That helped only to a point.

Things got worse when I gathered up piles of financial papers and plopped them on the desk. Ancient Greek would have been easier to understand. The sinking feeling plummeted deeper as I delved into the papers and tried to understand them.

At this time, Sally, a neighbor—a pear-shaped, pit-bull woman dressed in her grandmother’s dresses, rang my door. A licensed financial planner, she barged into my house and took control.

The relief was tremendous. My young children and I were about to be rescued. She gathered boxes of information and put them in files. She created summary sheets of what I had and what it all meant. She created another sheet of how I could grow my money.

Turns out my ex hadn’t been smart in his distribution of investments. She crunched the numbers and showed me how to grow my money quickly and be able to meet the needs of my children. Hallelujah!

As we dug through the mess, we spent a lot of time together and quickly became best friends. Since my mom wasn’t active in my life at that time, Sally stepped in as grandma. She taught my kids to sew and cook, took them to their activities when I couldn’t make it, and baked them personalized cakes for their birthdays.

My life stabilized, I remarried, and things were good. Sally and I talked often, had a great time selling my books, camping, and more, being good friends.

Then I had an odd feeling that something wasn’t right. You may have felt something similar. My feeling got stronger and stronger—I wasn’t quite settled where I was and wanted something more. My life was good, but I felt there could be something even better. At this time I ran into one of my mentors—Rich. He was charismatic, successful, and played life in a big way.

I told him I wanted to play bigger too.

“Great,” he said. “First step: accountability. How are your finances? Do you know where you stand? Do you know all your financial numbers right now?”

I didn’t.

He challenged me to make a daily money effort. That meant doing something positive with my money every day, whether call on a bill, cash a check, upload QuickBooks, or whatever.

I took the challenge. About two months later, I had more gut feelings, little hints that all was not right. I dove deeper. I started asking Sally questions. She passionately tried to calm my concerns, but the uneasiness grew. I brought my concerns to my husband. We were both tempted at the time to let things go, but I had made a commitment to take daily action steps. Step after step, a horrible reality was slowly uncovered, ever so gradually the dark cloud parted until at last we had to look at what was before us.

My husband and I requested a meeting with Sally’s boss. Sally called us over and over again, and so did the higher-ups in her business. They were scared, and the more we dug around, the more we knew why they should be.

Then the sun rose on the truth, and we saw it—I had been cheated and lied to by my best friend. The person I had had named as my children’s guardian if something ever happened to me had stabbed me in the back for her own profit. She’d threatened my ability to provide for my family.

After the pain ebbed and I was able to gain perspective, I learned a very important lesson—if I hadn’t surrounded myself with the right people asking me the right questions, I would have been hurt even more. As it stood, I uncovered the truth in time to make adjustments, stop the damage, and start rebuilding. Soon after, the economy took a dive. Had I not taken action when I did, I would have been completely wiped out.

Having the right people around to warn you about the big dangers is a must if you are going to thrive. So who’s on your team?

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement at 10:05 am | Comments (0)

Taming the opposition is a much-needed skill, no matter whether the resistance is originating internally or externally. It’s critical to subdue the opposition’s overall impact by implementing sabotage detectors, systems to avoid traps, and getting immunization shots to protect against hazardous dangers in the environment.

Does success sometimes feel just out of reach, that the more you try to get it, the more it slips away? This is the exact feeling a successful businessman was experiencing. He was energetic, making one business deal after another. Looking at him you would have seen someone committed to his work, someone capable and full drive.

But if you leaned in and looked closer, you would have also seen someone who, every time he got close to what he was trying to create, had something happen that made accomplishing the next step just barely out of his reach.

This is one of the reasons he hired me; he wanted to successfully take the next step, make sure he landed it and be sure he wouldn’t be bumped off course. As we worked together, it became clear he wanted to create a thriving business with lots of reps under him, people he could tutor and help to become as successful as he was.

He had the success, the attractive personality, and the vision. We had to dig deeper to discover his block. It didn’t take long to identify that his energies quickly went from building the team to making the next big sale.

When I asked, “What’s getting in the way of focusing on your reps?”

He sighed. “I don’t know.” He talked about his current reps. It didn’t take long to discover he had an emotional vampire on his team. You know the type—the kind of person who, when you’re around them, suck your time, energy, and well-being. I encouraged the businessman to apply a success principle I learned from one of my mentors. The principle was simple: don’t hang around energy suckers.

My client had a decision to make. He could continue as he was, keeping busy selling to avoid the difficulty of focusing on building a rep team. Or he could change: stand up to his “vampire” rep, try to get him to stop the behavior, or he could fire the rep.. He could have a heart-to-heart with the rep, or he could distance himself from the toxic vampire altogether.

My client chose to keep the rep on the team but distance himself. This was hard for him at first, but by the end of a month, the rep had stopped coming around. The businessman was working less and earning more.

Six months after the Energy Vampire had slipped away, my client’s health improved. His pay increased. Most of his focus centered on building up his reps. He had successfully tamed the opposition by figuring out where it came from and how to minimize what was slowing him down.

So what do you want—more money, more time to focus on your dreams, and less competition? If so . . . tame the opposition.

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement at 11:10 am | Comments (0)

What is a leader to do when they know the task before them could cause the group dissension and could end up costing a lot of time and hurt feelings coming to the solution?  This was the question I was faced with this week on our family tribal leadership task.  We have yet come up with the family motto and the energy on the individual quests was starting to slacken before completion.

I started out the meeting talking about leadership.  We discussed what qualities a good leader does by highlighting some of the family’s favorite leaders.  1) They have a vision of what they want to happen and they communicate it clearly. 2) They make it very clear what actions they want the group to take.  3) They create a clear picture of what will happen and what the rewards will be if they achieve their vision.  4) They make it very clear what will happen if they don’t achieve their goal.

We discussed this paragraph out of the popular Seth Godin bestselling book, Tribes:  “Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate.  They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them.”  Teenagers got it. Create a safe place to talk.  When they discussed this, I had to smile to how fast they jumped to what the next steps they were going to take on their quests.  I told them that this was their chance to lead.  This was their chance to make a difference and if they were going to do it the key was connections.

They pointed out that out of necessity (one of the people they wanted to visit had a stroke and is still in the hospital) their original quest has changed.  That is the way leadership and making a difference works.  We have ideas, we set out to create it, and life happens.  A leader adapts, sees the opportunity in the changing circumstances, and leads.

We then came to task that could take a long time.  I announced the next activity could take three to five minutes or hours.  Either way we were going to accomplish it and it was their choice to how long it would take.  They voted for the three minutes.  I explained that we need a family motto that everyone in the family could stand behind.  When things got difficult, when there were disagreements, we would follow back on the motto.

One of my more quiet teenagers said, “We do good things.”

My husband and I looked at her in surprise not expecting something like that from her.  Insightful.  Encompassing.  Motivating.  First suggestion.

It took a matter of a few minutes for the family to agree to her simplistic brilliance.  There is genius in our family that we didn’t know we had.  I was impressed.  Now we are the jellyfish who do good things!  Watch out world.

Do you have genius in your family that you might not have originally known about?  I’d love to hear about it.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 5:30 pm | Comments (0)

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When was the last time you felt completely drained, like you didn’t belong in your job? Ever ask what you were doing at the job in the first place? What if I told you it was possible to do the work you choose, and you don’t have to have that awful, overwhelming feeling again?

One of my clients in 2009 was a cute Asian girl with short, trendy hair, a black business suit, and large, sad, brown eyes. As we began to work together, I discovered a beautiful, radiant artist’s soul. She arrived in Utah from a cosmopolitan area with a history of miserable jobs in sales and a passion for the big city. Not long after moving to the middle the Rockies, she wondered why she suffered from so many headaches, bouts of the flu and colds, and felt absolutely drained most of the time.

She quickly discovered that the job she found in Utah wasn’t giving her enough money to meet her bills. She’d found work in what she thought was perfect for her—a young, progressive company with lots of opportunities. But it didn’t take long before she felt completely disconnected. The stress of being miserable at the job began to affect her health. On came the headaches and the flu. She called in sick more and more. Since her jobs were based on performance, her ability to financially put her student husband through school was seriously compromised. Eventually, after months of this high stress, her long-suffering and patient husband gave a “we can’t continue like this” talk.

Desperate, and knowing she had her living, health, and marriage on the line, she tearfully asked me what the problem was.

Why was she so miserable with a job she thought she would be good at? How could she get herself into a better place? I immediately prescribed a value assessment to determine her top three to five values.

Upon taking the test, it became clear that what she was missing was not honoring one or more of her values in each of her duties. After looking at her list of values, she said, “Now I understand why I’m so miserable.”

She started asking herself questions like: “If I value aesthetics so much, why am I not pursuing a career that includes them?” and, “How can I bring more of my values into my current job until I am at the right spot to change jobs?”

Over the next couple of weeks, as she thought about her top values and whether her work honored them.  She came to a deep understanding what that really meant to her.  As a result, major shifts followed in her job, housing situation, and health.

Those few critical questions set her on a completely different path. Since then she has chosen the industry she wants to be in, has gotten training to prepare her for that path, and has made huge shifts in what she looks for in jobs that help her get by until she qualifies for the one she wants to land eventually. She’s not sick as often, and her husband has time to focus on his studies. Best of all, when she thinks about her career, she is on fire with the passion that makes her ready to take on the future.

What are your top three values? Are you honoring them in every area of your life? If not, Step It Up and Be on Fire completely, by living within your values.

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement at 5:31 pm | Comments (0)

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We gathered together in the dirt pit.  It was filled with rocks, tall thorny weeds, and dust.  The chairs sat in awkward angles threatening to fall.  In fact one child did fall as the chair didn’t like the uneven ground.  I looked around at my family and could tell they didn’t much like being there, but they would endure it so they could get on with their plans that they had for the evening.

The toddler continually tried to make her escape and the almost four years old would constantly make loud noises.  I sat next to my husband at the top of the circle and I tried to gain control.  I first had my blonde teenager get out from sitting in the middle of the circle, explaining that it was important that everyone in the circle was equal and no one should be the center.  She reluctantly joined the rest of us although stating she wanted to be the center and deserved the attention.

We talked a little about gathering and how it was important.  Then I established the ruled for storytelling.  Each person was going to tell their favorite story that happened in the family.  When the person was talking no other person was to talk and everyone could say positive things or ask positive questions after the speaker was done.

I asked if anyone wanted to go first and was pleased that my blonde teenager who wanted to be in the center of attention volunteer.  Of course she choice to tell a story about what she just did with my ex-husband that excluded me, my husband and two of our children.  I knew why she was doing it and overlooked it.  My almost four year raised her hand on wanting to go next and she told the story about how she was out skating with her older brother, hit a rock, and cut her head.  She said there was lots of blood and went to the doctor and they hurt her (which meant they sewed up her cut).  This story ignited the family.  My son added to it, and I did, and then others added their part.

Everyone then willing told a story.  I was told before I did this from others who had done circle story telling that it was a great learning to have kids tell the popular family stories in their own words because then you get to experience what the events was like for them and their perspective on it.  Well, I learned that my kids remember a bunch of things that I don’t remember.  It was not so funny or positive but definitely interesting. The more they talked the more I realized the daughter who I had thought recently was so perfect wasn’t.  She started telling all these stories about how she had to go to time out for this or that or how she would do dare devil activities.

My memory started coming back.  These kids weren’t so easy to raise!  It wasn’t only one child that gave me trouble, a lot of them did.  The more they reflected the more I realized that the time out’s must of worked because they are much better behaved and that I am sooo glad they aren’t still young.

As my husband and I reflected on the experience, we realized that we were having a hard time remembering what happened the past eight years. We were having a hard time capturing the funny little stories that happens in every family.  We realized that this storytelling activity was a great beginning.  The kids at the end still talked about stories as we went on a family walk.  More memories came, and laughter, and so did a vague fog that we couldn’t remember most of the past eight years.

It wasn’t until tonight did I fully understood how important it is to remember stories and to tell them.  Stories bring bonding, memory, and can form the friendships that I yearn for my children to have.  We are going to tell more stories in our household and would love to hear about your experiences of telling stories in yours.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 10:43 pm | Comments (0)

An important skill in any leadership is to sense what is not working and to adjust.  I have to say it didn’t take a genius to get that my kids did not like the idea of going to the storytelling festival.  Messing with their Fridays, especially when there was school events on that night, would have been shooting myself in the head.  So, being the brilliant leader I am, I decided not to do that. I did have to put some thought into determining the balance in leading a family.  Teenagers are not really interested in family bonding time.  Surprise!   Yet it is important, and will benefit them for years to come.  There is a balance between agency and honoring their free will and helping them do things that they wouldn’t do that will grow them as leaders.

I talked with my other tribal leader, my husband, than we talked with the teenagers.  I announced that I got that they really didn’t want to do the storytelling festival and told them that if we as a family didn’t do that then we needed to do something different so that we can still come together as a family.  After all that is my stake, that they have a sense of community as a family and that won’t happen unless some time is put in.  Notice I went back to our common stake and my vision.  This is always a good thing to do when things aren’t going as well as liked.

Bam.  It is amazing when they have some motivation how fast they are at problem solving.  “Mom, let’s do a picnic in the park.  Or we could play a game together as a family.”  Well, since I am not the normal type of mom, a smile came across my face because I do like to watch them squirm.  “Great on Sunday we will do both!”  They, of course, with much energy tried to talk me into doing only one, but I was strong.  “You have such a great ideas we will do both!”

Sunday came and I did our new tradition of pot roast.  This time I bought two since one wasn’t enough.  Well, with a college boy home for the weekend, two wasn’t nearly enough either.  It going to be fun buying four pot roasts next time to see if that is enough to feed the hungry vultures.  Hours later for dinner we had the kids make sandwiches and we all bundled up and walked to the park across the street in the midst of hollowing wind.

The little ones were excited to be going somewhere with whole family, but the older ones dragged themselves onward without complaint.  My husband pointed out some picnic tables that were in a grove of trees that formed a circle.  I was thrilled to be sitting in a circle that protected us from the wind and to have the chance to talk about the importance of gathering in a circle where everyone is important and equal.  We got to notice the strength it gave us.

I have to admit we had nice conversation around the table as we munched on sandwiches, grapes and strawberries.  My younger son decided hotdogs needed to be part of the food for next time.  The idea of chips, cookies, and pop got vetoed by of course their tribal leader who told them that wouldn’t support their poor health.  One of my kids managed to get his ball stuck in an underground pipe and also managed to find a dead tree that he carried across the park.

When we returned, everyone was in good mood and we actually did feel more together.  Then came the vote for the game.  My husband really didn’t like the idea that Duck, Duck, Goose won, preferring Taboo.   We were all surprised at how much fun we had playing that little kids game.  My 18 month old laughed and laughed as people carried her as they chased the other kids.

Moral of the story: when there is a lot of resistance, change the plans.  Hold firm to the vision, and try things out.  Even if it sounds lame to play Duck, Duck, Goose, you might be surprised what happens.  The important thing is to hold firm to quality family time.  Yes, that does mean the teens have to give up their phones and friends for an hour or two, but truth be known they will survive and might like mine did forget the time and actually enjoy it.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 8:15 am | Comments (3)