I was the opening keynote where I spoke a little bit about my career and how building my personal brand helped create opportunity.
In this video, you’ll hear 3 examples where my personal brand helped me get booked for jobs.
Excuse the audio, I was using a handheld mic and this is recorded on my iPhone. I will note that Sean wanted to shoot on a camera with a lav mic but I insisted on using the phone. Next time I will let the pro handle it!
Thanks, Bobby & the LinkedIn Local team for having me!
Looking for a speaker or host for your upcoming event? Send me an email or contact my speaker agent at The National Speakers Bureau.
I had to look up what day it was, Wednesday! The last week has been so nice. A great mix of perfect weather, bathing suits, casual clothes, no makeup, naps, and sitting. It’s just the two of us up here and we’re on day 6 of 12.
I’ve spent less time on my computer than I thought I would and more time making things in the kitchen, driving the boat, and reading by the lake. We got a couple of new small appliances recently and this week I made ice cream, hummus, and buttercream frosting in the food processor. Sean is really into cooking meats with the sous vide. I didn’t understand it at first but then he made me a sous vide steak and I fell in love. I even look online for the best home sous vide to get him for his birthday so he would cook me sous vide meals more often! He’s used it quite a few times and I’m always really happy when I see him pull out the machine.
Have had lots of fun with cottage friends, wakeboarding, surfing, and sunset drinks on the dock.
This is the all-star lake surfing team, a double wakeboarding mother-daughter team, Sean’s first wake surf, and Scott surfing behind the boat. I have wakeboarded but tbh, I’m most happy in the boat and being the photog.
Tomorrow is Sean’s birthday and I’ve been giving him one present each day since we arrived. Today I’m decorating a bit and then will attempt to make a magical birthday cake! Yesterday I made a cute HBD stencil and painted the walkway. I haven’t used this stuff before so I really hope it comes off lol. The pressure washer should do it. ?
Reminding you today to take time for yourself, create space for personal projects, and slow down a bit. It’s not a race, the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
I’ve been going through old hard drives up at the cottage and wow, I’ve taken a lot of photos. There are multiple drives with hundreds of folders and nothing is organized properly. Many people would be stressed TF out by this but I’m really trying to take inspiration from my chaos. I’m finding so many things, texting old photos to friends, making notes, and making a new list of old ideas.
Each morning here, I get up, make coffee, some type of snack, and sit down at my computer in the kitchen overlooking the lake. I’m often wearing big noise-canceling headphones with nothing playing, I like silence or muffled sound when I’m trying to concentrate. Searching my drives is an endless adventure of, what could this be?! Folder names go from date_nameofclient to ‘iPhone2014 dump’ or ‘new folder4’, it’ a mess!
I love having all my memories in photos and videos, it’s so easy to forget the daily details of life. One of the things I’ve really noticed is just how many selfies I take in relation to how many get posted. There are a lot of deleted selfies.
Yesterday, after putting the boat in the water I came back and was feeling cute. Grabbed my tripod and set it up outside, snapped a bunch of photos with my remote and voila, the ones you see here. To be honest, I looked at so many of them, hitting delete and not feeling happy with how I looked. Yes, it was early morning no makeup, but how I felt before the photos (cute) vs how I felt after the photos (not cute) didn’t match up. This happens all the time but I’m trying to not be so hard on myself. Today, looking back, of course, there were some bad ones, it was self-photography in thenatural morning light!
DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. We all go through this and trust me if you feel that way today, you are not alone. Not one bit. Going through all these old photos I’m seeing how many different hairstyles I had, how skinny I used to be, and the story behind every selfie.
Archives, the Art Hives
I originally started my blog as a way to keep memories. Having a diary is one of the best things, I feel, you can do to move forward, learn, and grow. I’m on a mission to be a better human, to love myself more, and to consistently find happiness in simple things. I’ve always been a pretty positive person but this past winter with my shoulder injury, nerve damage in my face, a mishap with my hair, and some other stuff, I got really down in the dumps. HOWEVER, THE TIME IS NOW. I’m crawling out, finding my creative spirit, my strong Taurus energy, and sunshiney vibes.
Having a diary is one of the best things, I feel, you can do to move forward, learn, and grow.
Loving yourself is a daily process and becoming your best self takes work. The last few days, I’ve been listening to the Papaya Podcast by Sarah Nicole, aka @thebirdspapaya. Although I don’t exactly relate to the postpartum mom stuff, I enjoy the talk about self-love, body confidence life in general. You can find the podcast on iTunes here.
Sending you love and sunshiney vibes. I’m about to go drive the boat and take Sean wakeboarding.
Yesterday I wrote a blog about my new speaker and I seriously considered not reviewing the product here because it wasn’t sponsored and would people be thinking, “is this sponsored“? But, in all honesty, I jus really liked the thing. I like a lot of things. I hardly post sponsored stuff and sometimes my blog is about bike riding on a sunny day or speaking at an event. I used to blog about everything I liked, I’ve blogged for over 10 years. There are thousands of blog posts here about nothing in particular other than a thought or a feeling.
Almost gone are the days of people blogging because they love blogging or just want to get their thoughts onto the blog. But really, those are the blogs I love the most. The old blogs. The diary blogs. The blogs that tell a story and make you have feelings or brighten your day.
I want to bring back the blog, the writing, the thoughts, and all the feelings.
Today is a new day, a new month, an opportunity to make a change. Mercury is longer in retrograde and Leo Season is upon us. You’re in charge here.
Sedona, Arizona, shot on film
Blog Goals for August 2019: Write Something Every Single Day
I’m putting myself up for a challenge to write something new each day for the whole month of August. I love to write and the last few weeks months I have been in a bit of a slump. I needed to take some time to relax my brain and body. To find that place inside where creativity comes from and open the door. It took some time, but I managed to crack that door and I’m making my way in.
I’ve packed up years of hard drives and developed all my disposable cameras. Over the next 12 days at the cottage, I’m taking a deep dive into the archives, the art hives as I used to call them. I’m looking for inspiration in my own digital history and hoping that together we can make something new.
These photos are from a disposable camera I had on a press trip in Arizona years ago w/ some friends. The blog post from that trip here.
Here’s to a new month, new moon, and new creative adventure!
