changes

Books Can Change Your Life

I  am a voracious reader. Yes, I said voracious.  I have an unquenchable appetite for the written word and am usually reading 3 – 5 books at a time.  Some of them are business related, some insightful, some great literature and some of them are just good thought-wandering pulp fiction.  I wish I could describe how I choose a book – what it is about the title, the cover, the story – that draws me to them, but it is just a feeling, just an unspoken pull that says “you need to open these pages and see what they have to share with you…”

Books have always been a constant friend and the ultimate escape.  The ones that took me from boardroom lessons to foreign shores and everywhere in between.  Books are a part of what made me who I am. Lessons learned and stories absorbed from their pages helped mold not only my personality but my curiosity about the world.   Then there are the books that change your life…

There have been a lot of books that had a profound effect on me, many of them, but there have been three, and one very new addition, that struck such a cord in me that they changed the course of my life.

IMG_2072The Bible — I don’t care what religion you are, or are not, everyone should read the Bible cover to cover at least once.   Not only is the basis of one of the largest religions in the world, but it is full of lilting prose, majestic stories, unforgettable characters and ethical lessons of how to treat your fellow man that should be learned by everyone.  Whether you choose to accept it as the Word of God or not, you will not have a true understanding of the world without reading it at least once.  I would say this also goes for the rest of holy books of the world’s major religions.  I have the Torah and the Koran and the words of Buddha scheduled as part of my “required” reading for this year.

Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead  – A very dear friend gave me this book 9 years ago and it literally changed the course of my life.  The words in this book sung to the entrepreneurial spirit in me and prompted me to take the leap from 25+ year, very stable, very successful career to radicalcareeringworking for myself. The simple to follow insights led me to questions about what I really wanted from the activities that were going to fund my life.  It was the both the scariest and best move I ever made.  It would not have happened had I not read this book.

 

 

amazing thingsAmazing Things Will Happen by C.C. Chapman –  We all have moments when we are unsure, when we are scared, when we are convinced that nothing is going to work out.  I was at that point when C.C. published this book.  I will be honest and admit that I originally ordered the book and planned to read it because I respect and admire C.C. and consider him a friend.  Then I opened the book and began to read… All of a sudden all of the uncertainty that had been swirling in my  head and heart began to settle.  C.C.’s words reminded me that what I was feeling was natural and that if I just took the time to look at them and then work through it, that amazing things would happen.  Not only was it an inspirational book, it was actionable.  It gave me step by step what I need to figure out how to keep amazing things happening my life and to quiet the voices that tell me that they can’t happen.

All three of these books are well-worn. I am on my 5th new Bible.  I have actually gone through 2 copies of Amazing Things Will Happen and am on my 6th copy of Radical Careering.  I wore out the previous copies.  I have given these books as gifts more times then I can count.

A new book has recently been added to this list – Seth Godin’s  What To Do When Its Your Turn. godinbook
The visual style of the book is stunning and the words profound.  Reading it I realized how often I still “wait” to take my turn.  How often I still wait for permission.  No more!  Another twist in the path of life, but one that heads to a better destination.

 

 

This is by far, not an exhaustive list of the books that have had an impact on me.  It is a list of the ones that have had a more then profound impact on the direction of my life.

So what are YOUR life changing books?

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What is your One Thing?

First of all, to all of you who previously read GloKay’s Blog, welcome back.   To those of you who are new, please feel free to go purusing through some of my prior thoughts, musings, observations and rants. Hopefully they will entertain you.  I know I have been away for a long time, but I am very happy to finally have found my “voice” again.  I also want to send thanks out to a very dear friend, JJ Reich for some of the inspiration to go seeking my “voice” again.

I started this morning with a tweet asking “Stop & think back on this week. What was the 1 truly good thing you did for your business & the 1 truly good thing you did for yourself?”   I posed the question to others because it was one that I had asked myself just last night.  Too often we forget to stop and think about whether or not we are doing truly good things for our businesses and ourselves.  We get caught up in going through the motions and redundancies of life.  We don’t stop to consider whether those motions are forward movement or even productive stillness.

In looking back over my own week, I realized that the one truly good thing I did for my business was to stop and honestly evaluate my commitment.  I discovered in this self-reflection things that I did not really want to admit to myself.  Taking an honest look at my goals and dreams in comparision to the commitment demonstrated by my actions, or more accurately my inactions, was not one of the warm fuzzy moments of my week.  What it was, however, was liberating.  When I admitted these inadequacies to myself, I found the strength and re-dedication to move past this point and take steps forward.   With all of that said, I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to JJ for his post, “It’s the Pursuit of Our Goals That Shapes Our Lives“.  JJ’s willingess to be so open and honest with his own self-discovery and experiences started my own wheels spinning.  Thanks JJ.
As often happens when you open your mind and start examining yourself, you find other things that give you pause.  Out of this additional self-reflection, came the one good thing I have done for myself this week.  I gave my heart a good “cleaning out”.  Removing alot of dead weight, cleaning out cobwebs and making room for whatever possibilities decide to present themselves in my future.  This was a long overdue “not quite spring” sprucing up of the capability I have to empathize, sympathize, examine, care and, hopefully one day, love again.

So I enter the weekend and the week ahead with a new perspective, a new commitment and an open heart.  Who says spring is not here yet?

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Changes & challenges

It seems that 2 words can describe my life lately – changes & challenges.  In the last few months, I have changed where I live, who I live with, my vision of the future and of how I see myself.  All of those changes have come with challenges — sometimes as major as just being able to get out of bed in the morning, sometimes as minor as trying to figure out where and how to hang a picture.  Today brought about another major change.  A person that I thought would be my friend forever has decided that it is better for him to end our relationship.  And this week brings up 2 more major challenges.  Facing the first birthday I have had alone in a lot of years and to top it off, it is my 42nd birthday.   The day after that I start out on my 3-day, 60 mile adventure in the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day.

So how do I face these challenges and the many more that will come into my life?  I wish I knew.  I wish that there was a guaranteed plan to tell me what to do when each change comes along and when I have to face each challenge. So far, none has shown up.  Everyone keeps telling me that there is not a manual.   At this point I am only putting one foot in front of the other.  Or some mornings, one foot out of bed.  I can honestly say that if it were not for my sons and my friends, I would not even be doing that.   The thought of my sons having to face being without me is what makes me keep going.  My friends are the ones who give me the support, encouragement, love, shoulders to lean and cry on and just, in general, keep me upright.

Well, to face the most recent change, I guess I just move on.  I can't force someone to want to be a part of my life. (As much as I would like to be able to.)  The most recent challenges are another thing though.   My birthday – I would like to just say I will forget about it, but birthdays have always been a big deal in my family, so they are to me too.  Once again some of my friends come to the rescue.  They are making sure that I don't spend my birthday alone.  Dad and (what a nice surprise), Sis came through too – the cards are already here.

Friday morning dawns very early for the other big challenge of my week – the 3-Day.  Fortunately, one of my dearest friends will be by my side as we take off on our little hike.  It is a really challenging undertaking, but one so very worth every step.  (See my earlier post on why I walk)

Thursday night, as I celebrate my birthday, my friends and I will raise a toast and mine will be to changes and challenges and finding the strength and faith to get through them.  To my friends, my sons and the rest of my family.  Thank you for being there to make sure I get through all of these things.

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Choices – move or stay

There comes a time in our lives when we realize that we have to make choices.  Many, many different choices, including whether we either move on and up or sit, stagnate and be miserable.   Recently, I figured out that I was at the Make a Choice point.  I need to examine my life and make choices about my future.  There has been a lot that has happened, at lot of it out my control, that has impacted my vision of my future.   What I kept forgetting is that our visions of the future don't mean anything. They are just that – visions, stray clouds floating around our environment.  Until we build a solid base of  dreams & hard work under those visions, we have nothing.  We build our way to the clouds with the passion of our dreams, the desire to achieve them and the hard work we are willing to expend to get to them.  And when that vision has to change, it means that somewhere a rung was missing from the ladder or a brick from the wall. Maybe not one that we forgot, but sometimes one that we gets removed.

So I have a vision of my future that appears to no longer be viable.  The people and places that I had imagined are not likely to be in the new future that I now have to envision and build.  What now?   Thus, I am at my choices.  Do I stay here where I am emotionally?  Letting these feelings rule what my future shall be.  Or do I find a way to navigate through these emotions so that I can begin to move forward and start to build something underneath a new vision of my future.   I know that some people would say that it is an easy decision.  It seems so obvious.  Move on.  Don't let yourself be mired in misery.  But as all of us who have been through this particular set of choices knows, it's not that easy.   I just have to figure out how to do it anyway.  

The question now becomes, how do you go about changing your vision of your future?  Suggestions?

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