Peace and power come from silence and solitude
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on September 30, 2010. A friend of ours is an avid outdoorsman. He hunts, hikes, and takes several trips each year in which he goes off – way off – into the woods, the wilderness, or to a secluded island. Sometimes others go with him, and sometimes he goes alone, occasionally spending a few weeks at a time in total solitude with no other human contact. He is always in awe of how powerful and rejuvenating it is to be alone and silent for long periods of time. He recently told me about a time when he once took a chair down to the water’s edge, brought a cooler with drinks and snacks, and spent the day there. Literally, the entire day...
A funny smell brings out some serious thoughts
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on September 23, 2010. Insights, observations, and life lessons sometimes come from the strangest places. Like my refrigerator. Not long ago, I noticed a funny smell coming from the fridge. Although it doesn’t happen very often anymore – not since the days when both of my kids were living at home and the refrigerator regularly held way more food than it does now – every once in a while some little bit of fruit or leftovers will get pushed to the back and hidden behind a larger container. There it will sit, quiet and forgotten, until it turns into a “science experiment” and makes itself known...
Book project offers new challenges and opportunities
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on September 16, 2010. I got a phone call recently from someone asking if I would be interested in contributing a chapter to a book about networking. My first reaction was the temptation to ask, “What mailing list did you get my name from, and what are you trying to sell me?” But as she explained the project to me, I started getting more and more interested in it...
A soft voice carries a powerful message
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on September 9, 2010. She’s quiet, low-key, and soft-spoken. That didn’t surprise me. Quite often, the ones who speak the most eloquently and powerfully are also the ones with the softest voices. Her name is Tabitha, and she was a guest at our Toastmasters club about a month ago. I was giving a speech that day, and she told me after the meeting how inspired she was by what I had said. As she told me a little more about herself and about the dreams she had, I was the one who was becoming more and more inspired by her...
Geometric shapes get to the heart of the matter
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on September 2, 2010. At two unrelated conferences I attended recently, I was in breakout sessions in which we were asked to choose which of several geometric shapes we were drawn to. Then we were given a description of the characteristics of people in each group. My initial choice was a triangle, although I couldn’t really tell you why. But when the characteristics were described, it was clear that I was in the wrong group. I’m a circle, no doubt about it...
Birthday coins add up to a milestone
The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on August 26, 2010. When I was in my mid-20s, I always had fun sending birthday cards to my friends on their 25th birthday. Inside the card, I would glue a quarter and a penny, and then write around and between the coins so the message came out, “Happy quarter of a cent-ury.” I was in my 30s when my husband and I belonged to a church group that included several couples who were a bit older than we were. I remember when one of the women was getting set to celebrate her 50th birthday. We gave her a card, and I thought about using a half-dollar to wish her a happy half-century, but that didn’t seem to express the same type of sentiments as it did at the 25-year mark. That was just fun and a bit clever. This felt more like I was reminding her of how old she was getting. So I just wrote a note wishing her a happy 50th birthday. And I saved myself 51 cents...