Business Keeps Booming

I never expected to train a room of 330+ people or lead a team of 400+ consultants. I also never expected how much I'd come to love it! How much I'd come to love THEM and how fulfilling it would be to grow in ways I'd never imagined!! 

It's been a journey, one of ups and downs again and again. The downs make me stronger and teach my children that growth comes through hard things. The ups come mostly from watching those I coach triumph and succeed!

The gifts keep arriving and my team keeps growing. 

Eighteen months ago I'd never heard of R+F, now I have 444 people on my team.

It's crazy.

It's amazing.

It's incredible.

I've grown.

I've demonstrated to my girls that they can do ANYTHING they want to in this life and THAT is most priceless gift of it all!

From My Best Friend Paige

I leave Ohio today after the most AMAZING week with Leah Lewis Youngand her family. The Youngs are one of those families you watch in amazement. They are organized, their kids are proactive and polite, accomplished and talkative and their home is run like a well oiled machine. I've copied about 10 of the systems that are going to make our lives so much better!

Leah is a friend who makes me feel like I'm The Best. Somehow when I'm around her my ideas are brilliant, I'm gorgeous and could earn a free Lexus and become a millionaire! Like my friend said "I love how Leah loves you" and that is how to sum it up. We have witnessed each others darkest moments and celebrated each others greatest achievements since we were 14. She knows the best and worst of me and somehow finds a way to mirror only the best. I feel like I can be anything and do anything with her in my life. I wish a friend like her upon everyone.

Each time I'm around Leah I become a better person, a better Mom and now better at my job! I have gleaned as much as I possibly could from her wisdom and INSANE organization and parenting skills. We have gotten on 3 way calls, grown my team and I've picked her brain about how she has grown a team of almost 500 and earned her Lexus and an income I am now dreaming of. Best of all we've laughed and laughed and cherished each moment we could connect and be together.

Thank you Leah, Cody and you amazing Young Girls. 

I love you and can't wait for our next time together!

Third Grade, Middle School + High School Begins!

Because of you, my brave growing girls, I can feel myself slowly but surely becoming the me I have always dreamed of being. May you spread your wings and fly

RESOLVED.

Kindergarten, 3rd grade, middle school and high school - this week they go back, which means it's time for me to review my back-to-school resolutions:

Resolved - I'm going to stay out of the homework business. My child's homework is not my responsibility. I will do my "home work" and they will do theirs.

Resolved - I will not drive back to school if they forget an assignment. I allow my children to benefit from learning lessons the hard way.

Resolved - I am going to remember that trying to prevent my child from "failing" only makes it inevitable that someday she will fail. When something is bound to happen sooner or later, the sooner the better.

Resolved - I am not going to expect my child to excel or event be at everything. For example, if she's an excellent reader, but not so good at math, so be it. The more I accept her weaknesses along with her strengths, the more accepting she will be of herself.

Resolved - I am going to concentrate on teaching my children the three R's of respect, responsibility and resourcefulness. This is the best way to support the teacher in teaching the three R's of reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic.

Resolved - Loving them the best way I know means doing the right thing, even when it feels like the hardest thing in the moment. It's my job not to satisfy them in the moment, but to teach them how to live a life of full life of true joy.

The Tears Did Come

Perhaps it was sitting by the trampoline and watching her friend jump, or when I dropped off her older sisters to dance at the Irish Festival, only the most exciting dance performace opportunity of the year, but today it became real.

She cried and cried as she listed off all the things that she can no longer do. She's scared to start a new school year and be different. She's scared about the surgery. She's scared that if she feels this way now, how is it going to be when she can't walk after surgery.

I hugged her and we cried together. I told her that it was okay to cry - that tears and pain are often part of the pathway toward growth. I told her that she is going to be able to help others and love others in a unique way because of what she has been through and is about to face. With her face buried in my chest I could feel her nod in agreement.

Thank you for the outpouring of love and concern - oh how thankful we feel for all of you!! Thank you to Amber Adams Sharipov and family for unexpectedly hand delivering a basket chock full of creative activities for the long car rides and to Sharee Ottena Barker, our sweet neighbor, for the special new comfort blanket as Aspen faces and conquers this upcoming mountain...and that she will - through smiles and tears.