My trail crew

Simon Sinek says, "Start with Why."

Here is a quick introduction to why leadership and leadership skills are so important to me: my husband and our son. With a pre-teen in our house mindset, challenges, and leadership skills are every day conversations.  Although I have coached and developed thousands of employees in various capacities throughout the years, my most difficult challenge is parenting. Family members who live with you know your every weakness. A pre-teen navigating life's changes is adept at negotiating. 

Our family seeks refuge in the mountains a few times a year, hiking in National Parks and Forests. During these times, we challenge our minds and our bodies. Not every adventure turns out as planned. However, we try to learn from these adventures.

The summer of 2020 was no different. After a harrowing event on the water in which part of the craft broke off, my son and I realized that we could work together peacefully under extremely trying (and little frightening) conditions.  When talking through the events of the day, we realized that we often used strained voices during frustrating but comparably unimportant times with each other. However, while recovering from our event, there was no screaming, no blaming, no frustrated voices. To remember this moment, we resolved to use a code word "Paddle."

We use the code word to help us remember that when life is on the line, we can work together, so we should be able to work together peacefully during simpler life events...so when times get tough, press pause, find your code word.

Our code word is Paddle. It draws us back to a moment of success. It draws us back to a moment of family unity. It draws us to focus on the truly important: life, hard work, love.

Looking forward to sharing more leadership success stories with you.