As I cycled past it in the park this week, I had to circle around to take a second look.

‘This area has been spot treated for pests!’, read the sign.

I was chuckling to myself as I pedalled along, wondering just exactly what kind of pests it was referring to.  My imagination roamed around picturing varmints, noxious weeds, small children and even a few irritating grown-up-sized people!  If only it were that simple, I thought; to spot treat the pests in our lives.

One of the nice things about biking long distances along pathways, is that other than taking care around the bumps, and watching out for other people, there aren’t too many dangers.  There are no cars or trucks to worry about, no street signs or stop lights.  That leaves lots of room in my mind for thinking.  And so it came to be on my rides this week, I began to think about the pests in my life and how I could use a spot treatment on them.

In my little world, I don’t have a lot of noxious weeks or varmints to deal with.  I only have one small child who I love dearly, and I only hang out with people I like.  I have however, identified some pests that could use a spot treatment or two.  I have the pests that show up in the form of unwanted thoughts.  These are never the kind of thoughts that say, ‘Liz, you are full of grace.  Awesome work with your patience!’  Nope!  I don’t have any of these little pesky thoughts at all.  The thoughts that double as pests in my life are the ones that make me worry.  These are the thoughts based on no reality at all.  They are the ‘what if’, ‘the why didn’t I’, the ‘I should have’ thoughts.  They race around and around gathering speed and certainty as they go.

If I had a spot treatment for these useless thoughts, these pests, I could eliminate the ruminating about worst case scenarios and use the time to think about realistic approaches and solutions.  I wouldn’t wipe out the entire thought, just the part that serves no purpose.

Another kind of pest that could use a spot treatment in my life is my endless list of jobs.  My sister reminded me that we were raised on a side dish of ‘We’ll have time for fun when the jobs are finished.’  In some ways this is a great thing to teach children.  It teaches the idea of delayed gratification, and of responsibility.  It may even help children learn to get the tough stuff done first, and then the rest is easy. There is a catch though; when you are a grown up, the jobs are never done.   I could use a little spot treatment to help me erase the jobs at the end of the list, the ones that really don’t matter at all, so there would be time to focus on more of the fun stuff.

As I continued to think about other ‘pests’ I might like to eliminate, my thoughts matured from just wanting to eliminate certain things to a more evolved way of thinking.  When I think of spot removers in the real world, they serve a separate function other than simple elimination. 

If you go to the dermatologist to have some spots removed, she does not leave a big empty hole where the spots once were.  Rather, once the little scabs have healed, the patient is left with nice clear skin.  In other words, the dermatologist did not so much remove a spot or two, as she did simply reveal the new skin underneath.  The same applies to those little laundry spot-removing pens.  When the pen is rubbed over the spot, what is revealed is the lovely fabric; the one that was always there, but that couldn’t be seen because it was being covered.

This led me to think about how I could use this kind of spot treatment.  When I am feeling afraid, or unconfident, if I could just use my magic spot treatment, I’m sure I could rub off some of those feelings and reveal my bravery; my bravery that is sitting just underneath the layer of doubt.

When I am finding myself acting stubborn, I could gently rub my spot treatment along the ‘stubborn’ and uncover my open-mindedness. 

When I’m questioning the right course of action, I could use the spot remover to release my inner wisdom.

Everything we need to become our best selves is within us.  Sometimes we convince ourselves we no longer, or perhaps never did have, certain traits.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Often, the very traits we long for are just sitting below the spots.  Perhaps all we need is a little sign, like the one I saw in the park, that might say:

‘Spot treatment for pests available here anytime’

This might be just enough for us to remember to look not at the pest, the spot, but at the gem underneath, just waiting for an invitation to show up in our lives.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What pest needs removing?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to navigate bumps in your road.
 

Every morning I get up early and head out on my bike.  You’d think by now, even though I don’t take the exact same route every day, that I would have figured out not only where the bumps in the road are, but how to avoid them or navigate them.  And yet, as surely as the sun rises each day, every time I bike down a certain small hill in Fish Creek Park, I manage to hit the same bump.

This bump is not big.  It would not be hard to avoid.  It sits right in the middle of the path.  To give some perspective, the path is about eight feet wide, with a line down the middle, and the bump is right in the middle.  The bump is only about eight inches in diameter.  By rights, I should be biking on my own side of the path, not in the middle.  I really should not ever hit this bump.  In complete fairness, it is at the bottom of the little hill right where the path turns to the right, and there is an unobstructed view of any oncoming ‘traffic’ so it isn’t beyond the imagination that I would steer slightly left to make the turn at the bottom easy to do without too much braking.  Still, you’d think by now I would have this figured out.

As I hit it for the umpteenth time early this week, I began to think about how I react to bumps in the road.  As often happens when I start to ponder a thing, the universe cooperates nicely.  This time she did not fail me; she provided plenty of real-life examples for me to do my study of bumps in the road.

Tuesday morning, I took the same route, hit the same bump and kept going.  I decided to do a little out and back loop to add to my ride that day.  This section of the path is slightly narrower, but is still plenty wide to accommodate bikes and pedestrians.  It does have the feel of being narrow because the Bow River is on one side, with just a narrow bank separating it from the path, and a chain link fence on the other that spans about a kilometre.  After I turned back at the end of the loop and came to the chain link section again, I came upon a couple of cyclists stopped in front of me.  As I approached, I could see there had been some kind of accident and a female cyclist was laying across the path, trapped under her bike.  I slowed and stopped at a bit of a distance back.  Clearly, they were trying to sort things out and often too many helpers are not helpful after all. 

As I waited and watched, I couldn’t help but think this was a real live bump in the road.  I turned on my observation sensors.  A lot of the bumps we encounter are going to be unexpected.  From what I observed there were several distinct ways people had of dealing with this particular unexpected bump. 

The first two cyclists to stop were the two young men who had been cycling toward the fallen woman when the incident happened.  I later learned she had noticed them approaching, on their own side of the path.  Wanting to be considerate, she moved slightly to the right of her side of the path, where there was the chain link fence.  It seems she got just a bit too close to the fence for a second, just long enough for her right handlebar to catch in one of the links, and send her flying, ultimately trapping her in the frame of her bike.   The two men felt absolutely awful.  They were repeatedly apologizing in a very Canadian way, although it turns out they did absolutely nothing wrong.  They stayed with the woman and tried to help. 

They kept trying to help her up, which was impossible because of the way the bike was laying.  She eventually, although she was in shock, told them how to help her up, bike and all, after which she was able to untangle from the bike.  These guys dealt with the bump in the road by being reactive.  This was not bad; they did their best to make a bad situation as good as they could figure out how to.  This was a kind of ‘patch it up as best we can’ approach.  They left the situation having done their best, but feeling very badly nonetheless.

The second kind of reaction I observed came from one member of a group of six cyclists who cycled up behind me, and behind two other cyclists who were also behind me, after I had been stopped for a couple of minutes.  I’m sure the poor lady on the ground wondered how in the world this little section of the path had suddenly become so popular.  After these six took in the situation, (I can only assume they thought that since an ambulance didn’t need to be called, there was no need to stick around) one of the men, a man in his late 60’s or early 70’s, asked loudly, ‘Can we at least get past?’

Being a former teacher comes in handy in this sort of situation.  I was already close to this man, since he clearly had not remembered to observe social distance when he muscled his way up beside me, so I had the teacher trick of ‘get in close proximity’ in my pocket.  I also employed my very effective teacher ‘look’, and quiet, no-nonsense voice that told him that unless he wanted to cycle over top of the woman, he’d have to wait a minute like everyone else.  This kind of person seemed to see the bump in the road as nothing but a nuisance.  Since it did not apply to him directly, he wanted to get on with far more important things.  I’m guessing he left the situation only thinking about how it had been an inconvenience for him.

The two cyclists who came up right after me took a different, also not bad, approach.  They waited quietly, noticed that enough others seemed to be involved and then passed on through once the path was clear. 

My reaction was different than all of the others too.  I was lucky in that I had time to think about my reaction as I stood watching.  As I heard the others offering to call someone for her to come to get her, and her replying in her ‘shocky’ voice that she would just stand beside the fence for a while until she felt better, I thought I would hang around for a minute.  I’ve experienced laying splayed on the road, once with a broken collarbone and four broken ribs, once with a broken foot.  It’s embarrassing, it really hurts, it’s surreal, it's scary, and it’s impossible to think clearly.  So, once the others slowly pedalled off, I pulled my bike up beside her and said that I was just going to wait with her for a bit until she felt better.  I know that when people are in crisis, they often don’t know what they need, so asking what I could do to help would not have been helpful.  As we stood together, she began to tell me what had happened.  She was in tears and badly shaken up.  Eventually we checked her bike to determine if it was rideable, since she really wanted to get home under her own steam.  I understood this too – the old get back up on the horse theory. 

Once we saw the bike would be ok for her ride home, I told her I was going to slowly ride with her.  I said I would ride in front of her, not behind, because she did not need me watching her as she tested her confidence.  We rode along very slowly for about a kilometre.  She called out that she thought she was doing ok.  I called back some encouragement and suggested we see how her gears shifted as we went up and over a pedestrian bridge.   That worked too. Eventually, when I felt she was doing pretty well, I pulled over.  We chatted a bit and once I thought she was ok to be on her own, we parted ways.  My reaction wasn’t perfect, but I did feel good about it as I went on my way.

Later this week I had another place to practice dealing with bumps.  I was out pedalling and had a flat tire.  Once I stopped and saw the problem, because I had been thinking about bumps, I said to myself not, ‘Oh rats, I have a flat tire!’ but rather, ‘Oh, this is a bump’.  This simple act of identifying the situation as a bump allowed me to understand very quickly that I had complete control over, not the tire, but my way of dealing with it.  I wanted to leave this situation feeling as good about my response as I had earlier in the week.  I pulled over to the side, called Jim so he could provide back up if I needed it, got out my trusty tools, and sat down to get to work.  I have now changed my very first tire all by myself!

We all experience bumps.  This year, the road has been filled with them.  We can practice noticing them, naming them ‘bumps’, and choosing how we’ll respond.  It gives us a sense of control, and like many things, the more we practice, the better we get at taking the reactiveness out of our response. 

May you watch for bumps in your road this week and be delighted with your ability to navigate them.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What opportunity does this bump provide?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to navigate bumps in your road.

Every evening, after the biking and the jobs are finished, and the day is winding down, Jim and I find ourselves in front of the television for an hour or so.  Last week, Jim set the PVR to record The Book of Negros.  He had read it years ago, when it was first written by Canadian author, Lawrence Hill.  I have not read the book, but certainly know of it.

On Monday evening, we watched the first hour of the three parts of the movie.  I have to admit, I found it very difficult to watch human beings treat one another in the way shown in the movie.  I have no doubt the behaviour is correctly portrayed.  This book centres on the slave trade in the 1800’s, and focuses on the life of a girl, Aminata Diallo, who in the first episode, at age 11, was taken from her West African village and sold into slavery, eventually ending up in South Carolina, USA.  Since I found myself looking away from the screen occasionally as we watched, I decided to get down on the floor and do my daily stretches that had not found themselves in the early part of the day.  So, part of the time I was watching and part of the time I was listening.

There was one line, spoken by Aminata, that caught my attention. She was shackled on board a ship with others in her same situation and she struck up a sort of friendship with a young boy on the boat.  As they sat together, she asked him, “How are you known?”

How are you known?

I assume if this movie were set in 2020, the question might have been, ‘What’s your name?’  But ‘How are you known?’ asks so much more, and is such a wonderful question.

I began to think about how I might answer this question if it were asked of me.  How am I known?  I can answer this of course, with some obvious, honest facts.  I am known to be a teacher.  I am known to be a mother.  I am known to be a wife.  I am known to be a runner and a biker.  These are kind of the nuts and bolts answers.  They could describe many, many people.  There is nothing about any of these that really tells anyone much about me. 

Then I thought I might answer the question with traits, instead of job descriptions.  I could say I am known to be organized, to be honest, to be disciplined, to be kind, and sometimes to be funny.  Even as I list these, I recognize these would never give a stranger a clear picture of me.

What is it to be known then?  When others truly know us, they know some of what lies deep inside us.  They know some of our hidden dreams, our insecurities, our history, and our longings.  The more I have thought about this, the more I have come to understand that worse than having a boring answer to ‘How are you known?’ is to get to a place in life and wonder, ‘How am I not known?’  In other words, what unfulfilled dreams do I have?  What unfulfilled longings have I left untouched?  What do I wish I had tried?

Hollywood lost a legend this past week.  Regis Philbin, long-time host of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, Live with Regis and Kelly, and then host of Millionaire, died at 88.  In a 20/20 episode documenting his life, he described that a big regret he had was not hitting his real stride until quite late in his life.  In the documentary, he returned to his high school, where an auditorium had been named in his honour.  He surprised me when he said that during his high school years, he had never participated in any of the performances that went on in that space.  He wanted to, he dreamed of it, he could imagine it, but he was afraid.  He was afraid he might disappoint his parents who did not hold acting as a dream for their son.  He was afraid he might fail.  He was afraid to show his true self.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to be known.  I’m not finished my thinking.  What I do know is it is always a risk to reveal parts of ourselves to others.  I also know that living ‘safely’, not rocking the boat, not showing up in a new way, not growing, will not serve me well, and will not make me proud of myself at the end of my life.  I think Regis Philbin came into his own at the very moment he became brave enough to fully reveal himself; when he allowed others to know him.

I hope the fictional boy on the boat in The Book of Negroes, also figures out how he wants to be known. I am guessing, based on her strong character, the eleven-year-old girl, Aminata, will eventually leave no doubt about how she will be known.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I known?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to make yourself, and your organization, known.
 

I’ve been working my way across Canada, on the Great Canadian Crossing challenge.  This is meant to be a year long venture, or at least the challenge is open for a full year.  The idea is to ‘travel’ across Canada in one year.  Participants choose between running, walking or riding across the province(s), territory or territories of their choice or across the entire 4800km country.  There is also a multi-sport category where all self-propelled motions are viable; ski, swim, hike, bike, run, walk, snowshoe and more!  All categories are multi-age, so there is no separation between male and female, old or young.  You just need to have a bit of a warped sense of ‘fun’.

I chose the run/ride combination.  In reality, I should have just chosen bike.  I am endlessly optimistic that I’ll be running by the end of the year, even though I have absolutely no evidence to support my theory!  So, for now, I’ve been biking.  Even though I have a year to complete this challenge, and even though it is not a race and is based on participation only, there does happen to be a leader board where our progress is tracked.  It’s impossible not to want to take a peek to see how I stack up against others in my category.

Before it started, I had several ideas about how I’d approach this.  I knew I wanted to complete it all outside, on real roads and pathways.  There is nothing stopping a person from logging miles on their indoor trainer or stationary bike.  However, when I have imagined myself riding across Canada for real, it’s always outside.  For that reason, my first decision was to make sure I could cover the entire distance when I could be outdoors, meaning the kilometres would have to be covered this summer, early in the fall before the snow flies, or next spring.

If I had managed to stick to this idea, my daily mileage would have been very manageable.  As it turns out, once I got outside that first day, I knew I wanted to complete it this summer.  If Covid has taught me nothing else, it has certainly reminded me to not take for granted that opportunities will always be available to us at the timing of our choice.  My choice then became, did I want to do eighty days of 60km, or sixty days of 80km.

Alas, I chose to do about 80km that first day, and the dye was cast.  I knew there would be many cyclists who are stronger than me, and who can log many more miles at a time, but I figured my secret weapon of consistency might come in handy.  So here I find myself, three weeks in, part way across Manitoba, with very tired legs, but determined to set the alarm clock again tomorrow morning.

I love to ride early in the morning.  I love being outside before the whole world wakes up.  I love the lighting, the sightings of wildlife and the peacefulness. This is when I do my best thinking.  One morning about a week ago, I was riding in our local provincial park.  I ride here often; there are hundreds of kilometres of paved paths, and it’s a safe place, away from traffic and busy streets.  One of my loops takes me to a little park within the park, where there is a pond.  On that particular morning, a hot air balloon was taking a flight over the city and it happened to be in full view as I reached the pond.  I couldn’t help myself from stopping to take a picture.

The balloon, backdropped against a perfect Alberta blue sky, was perfectly reflected in the glass-like water of the pond.  If I had stood on my head, or later turned the photo upside down, it would have been hard to figure out which way was the true right-side-up.  As I rode along that morning, and on mornings since then, I’ve begun to think about my own refection.  Would I, I wonder, have such a true reflection?  When I see myself reflected back to me, based on what others experience when they are with me or when they observe me, am I sending out an accurate ‘picture’?  I want my reflection to be as true as the one created by the balloon and the pond water.  I don’t want my reflection to be distorted by things going on in my life.  I don’t want to only be able to be my best self when my counters are clean.

During Covid, because none of us had a template for how to navigate the uncharted waters we found ourselves in, many of us began the pandemic trying to gain control in areas we could.  In my house, I cleaned cupboards and scanned pictures.  I like to get my surrounding organized, giving me a sense of control over my life.  I also like to set goals and check things off a list.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with this ordering of my external world.  The balloon image helped me see there is also room in my life for some internal housekeeping.  When I calm my insides, I can send out the ‘me’ I’m striving to become, no matter what is happening outside of myself. 

The stillness of the pond allowed for the perfect reflection of the balloon.   My biking adventure, the Great Canadian Crossing, is giving me time and space to calm my own waters.  I love the rhythm of the pedal strokes, just as I loved the familiar sound of my running feet hitting the pavement.  At the end of it, I’ll really have nothing to show others in terms of my accomplishment.  However, I do feel a sense of peace inside as I cycle through the stillness of the mornings, past spotted fawns, baby ducklings heading off to swim with mama, soaring pelicans looking for the right place to land in the river, and as I give a gentle wave and smile to other early risers and deep thinkers like myself.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How can I calm these waters?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how calm your water.
 

Ok, let’s be clear before we get started, the title is Breaking Wind, not Passing Wind.  I didn’t want anyone to think I was losing my mind, as I gain in kilometres during my Cross Canada Cycling Challenge!  For those of you interested, I’m currently cycling through Saskatchewan, virtually of course!

With staycations on many people’s lists this summer, I spent some time in June trying to think about places we might go that feel like a bit of an escape and yet are close to home.  Luckily for us, we are only about a ninety-minute drive to the magnificent Rocky Mountains so it didn’t take me long to know where I’d like to spend some time this summer.  For the last couple of years Jim and I have both talked about taking at least one day each week and heading into the mountains for some hiking, biking or sightseeing.  Somehow, each summer has come and gone and while we have managed a few trips to enjoy the mountains, we have never managed to make it the priority we have said it would be.

Until this year.

After self-isolating for months, along with all Canadians, it felt almost criminal that we had taken the sights of our own mountain ‘backyard’ so for granted.  I’ve always assumed that the mountains would simply be there whenever I was ready to join them for a day.  One of the lessons of this year’s pandemic is that in fact the mountains are there, but I cannot assume I can always be there to enjoy them.  So once restrictions in our province were lifted in June, I declared I would be spending one day every week somewhere in the mountains this summer.  Jim agreed.  So far, we are making it happen.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been spending our treasured mountain days exploring Highway 1A.  This highway, the Bow Valley Parkway, is a little detour off of the Trans Canada Highway.  It’s only about fifty kilometres long, and it boasts the very famous Johnston Canyon.  With over one million visitors each year, Johnston Canyon is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Banff National Park.  This year, in an attempt to minimize large gatherings and maximize physical distancing, while the hike at Johnston Canyon remains open, the road leading to it is closed to vehicular traffic.  

From Banff to beyond Johnston’s Canyon, at Castle Junction, Highway 1A is completely closed off to traffic.  Beyond Castle Junction, the road is open, but there are very few vehicles on it.  This means the entire highway is a perfect place for cyclists this summer, and it is where we have found ourselves one day out of each of the last few weeks.  This past week, on Tuesday, we decided to attempt the stretch from Castle Junction to the Lake Louise end of the highway.  Just like the sections we rode in the previous weeks, this one did not disappoint!

The scenery is absolutely spectacular.  The road has some challenging hills early on, but it’s manageable.  Our biggest challenge this week was the headwind we ran into as we cycled toward Lake Louise.  Strong westerly winds had been predicted for the morning, and unfortunately, this time Environment Canada hit the nail on the head.  Sometimes it felt like we were in a wind tunnel, and for the rest of the time it felt like we were climbing hills.

Wind in your face is not your friend when you are cycling.  The very nature of the activity causes it to always feel like there is a slight wind.  When the real wind is blowing against you, it can be demoralizing.  We commented that hills are actually easier to navigate than wind.  At least when you are climbing a hill, no matter how high it is, you eventually get to the top.  Many times, you are rewarded with a heavenly coast down the other side.  But the wind is relentless.  There is no coasting down the other side, until you actually turn around and go the other way.

One trick I’ve learned in cycling is the power of the group.  Any time there are two or more riders travelling together, they can greatly reduce the effort of all but one of the riders by following each other in a single line, close together.  The rider in the front has the same sensation against the wind they would have if they were riding alone.  They will be headlong into the wind.  The other riders, however, the ones lined up behind the front rider, will be buffered from the wind by the lead rider.  The lead rider provides a wind break, which effectively reduces the effort the others need to expend.  While this may seem to be a small thing, studies have shown the effort saved is between 27% and 50% depending on variables like number of riders, rider position, strength of wind and the ability of the cyclists.

None of us, not Jim and I, nor our friends we were cycling with, Brenda and Daryl, have ever been invited to join the Tour de France.  We are not pros.  We don’t know the exact technique of breaking wind or drafting.  However, last Tuesday, we summoned our inner cyclist and gave it a try.  Our strategy was to each lead for about 500m, then peel off the front and take up a new position in the back, with the next rider in line taking the lead for about 500m.  Even with our complete lack of expertise in this technique, it was amazing the difference it made.

The first improvement was realizing that when we were in the lead, there would be an end to the work, and it would happen quickly and predictably.  Secondly, we felt like we were making an equitable contribution to the effort of the group.  Finally, the time flew by because it was interesting to stay focused on our strategy, rather than wondering when the blessed wind would end.

When Covid 19 hit Canada in March, we all began cycling into a headwind.  While there have been a few lulls in the wind, generally it has been relentless.  By all predictions, it sounds like it won’t settle down any time soon either.  It dawned on me on Tuesday, likely when I was not in the lead, that all of us could benefit from a little wind break.  We can also all provide it.

In cycling, not one extra ounce of effort is required to lead the pack.  What is required, is first for someone to notice that the members of the group will benefit if everyone works together.  The success of the effort depends on the leader taking up their position, keeping a reasonable pace, glancing behind one in a while to make sure the group is actually able to follow and thus reap the benefit, and then to recognize when their work is done. 

The relief it gives to the others is immeasurable.   There is also a sense of importance in knowing that every single member of the group will at some time take their place in the lead.  Everyone’s contribution is important. No one is better or worse.  No one is leading because the others cannot.  The leader is simply leading because they find themselves in the lead position.  For a short time, they possess what is needed to ease the load of others.

There are moments in each of our lives when we find ourselves in a position where we can easily lead, and take pressure off others.  There are also moments when we can benefit from recognizing others can do the same for us.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What position am I in the line?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to effectively lead.
 
 
 

With a bit more freedom and favourable weather to be out and about these days, Jim and I have been taking full advantage of our short Calgary summer.  Other than to catch up on the nightly news we haven’t had many minutes to sit in front of our television.  This past week we did find ourselves thoroughly enjoying an episode of the newest season of Queer Eye.  In it, the Fab Five stopped in to help a minister with a makeover.

The makeover included new clothes and a haircut and even a renovation for his church’s community centre, part of which he needed to use for a temporary residence.  More important than these superficial changes, it also included a conversation about his confidence, about how he wanted to be the leader his church needed and how he felt he was coming up short.

During a conversation with Bobby, Noah was reminded to make sure the ‘people in the back rows’ could hear his message.  This wisdom had nothing to do with learning how to project his voice, or researching better sound equipment; it was about him learning to show up in his own life with the confidence he often reserved for those in the front rows at church.

I’ve been pondering back rows all week.

Usually when I hear a sentence that really makes me think in new way, I try to think about its application to my own life.  I don’t like to think of my life having front and back rows.   I don’t like to think I reserve the best of myself for certain people and moments, and for the rest, for the back rows, I give lesser of myself.  I’ve tried to be an observer of myself to notice how this plays out for me.  I’ve even spent time thinking about what I consider to be front row behaviour and whether I save this for my ‘front row people’. 

My front row behaviour consists of the behaviour I use when I am at my best.  Since I do quite a bit of public speaking and facilitating, I am conscious that the folks sitting nearest to me (I often facilitate using a circle formation) in any presentation are able to see me in clear focus.  They could easily notice a stain on my clothing or spinach in my teeth.  It is for these people, I suppose, that I pay careful attention to the details of my appearance.

People who are sitting farther away from me, or those who may only glimpse me from a distance, would never notice such details.  The question I posed for myself became, ‘If they can’t see the stain or spinach, does it matter?’

I contend, yes, it matters.

The spinach and stain of course are simply trivia.  I try not to wear either of these with any regularity.  The more important idea is thinking about who we deem important enough for us to show up as our best.  How we look is not the issue.  Looks are simply a side dish to the main course of who we are and how we are behaving.

When Bobby told the minister to make sure his message was heard in the back rows, I could picture the back rows of my life.  In my life, back rows are small daily interactions with strangers.  Back rows are my behaviours on bike paths; whether I slow down to pass others or aggressively ring my bell and blow by.  Back rows are my tone of voice.  Back rows are the effort I use to listen, especially when I am not quite as interested in the topic as the speaker.  Back rows are how I treat those I love after a long tiring day.  Back rows are the effort I put into presentations for small gatherings. 

Back rows are any places I could possibly ‘get away with’ showing up as less than who I like to think I am when I stand in front of an important group, or take my place as the leader in a circle.

Jim and I love to go to see live theatre and live music.  When we buy our tickets, we are always required to choose our seats and to pay accordingly.  Seats closer to the front cost more money.  Back row seats typically cost less.  The theory is the sights and sounds are less clear, the further away from the stage we are.  In the physical sense, this is absolutely true.  It’s hard to see spinach in between teeth from the back row.  However, even in cases where we have sat right in the very back row, I have appreciated the effort theatre groups go to, to make sure the experience is equally satisfying no matter what the row.  Sometimes it involves an intricate sound system.  Sometimes additional screens are installed for more close-up viewing.  Every effort is made to ensure the same message is delivered to, and received by, every single member of the audience.

Whether we like it or not, each of us too, has an audience in our life.

I would like to think the people in the back rows of my life see the same person and experience the same feelings from me as the people in the front row.  Maybe I just need to add more space to my front rows.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Back row or front row?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to create more front rows.
 

Happy Canada Day!  I realize I’m a couple of days late, but I’ve forgiven myself already as I love to celebrate our magnificent country as often as I can.  This year, like for every other family in Canada, Canada Day, and likely all the other days of summer will not feel like those of other years.  If Covid has taught us anything, it is that life can shift in a moment.  I’m missing my regular Canada Day festivities, which always provide a kick off to the rest of the summer.

Our dance group normally dances at Heritage Park to celebrate Canada Day.  It’s one of the spots that annually hosts a citizenship ceremony, and we are always delighted to see our newest Canadians looking so proud at its completion.  This year, there were no live ceremonies, but there was a very moving virtual ceremony for nineteen of our newest Canadians, from coast to coast.

I had been looking forward to a couple of biking events this summer. One was a trip we had planned to Nova Scotia.  I’ve long had listed on my ‘Life List’, Bike the Cabot Trail.  June 15th was to have been the date I took my first pedal stroke along that majestic, iconic road, along with my brother, Daniel, Victoria, my friend Rhonda and her husband, John.  Jim had very generously volunteered to be our support vehicle, eliminating the need for us to bike with anything more than water and a light jacket. 

Rhonda, John and I had also signed up to bike the Ride to Conquer Cancer, in July.  This would have been Rhonda’s and my third year to participate in this.  It felt especially poignant this year because while several people I’ve biked for in the past have recently received excellent news regarding their health, several others did not live to see this summer.

Needless to say, I’ve been feeling a bit lost without a couple of good goals to anticipate.  Luckily, there are some creative Canadians out there, who have been working on ways to fill in the gaps for people like me.  About a month ago, my brother, Daniel, sent me information about a new race, The Great Canadian Crossing.  It really caught my eye.  About one hundred years ago, I was taking my first leadership course, and was tasked with the job of creating a list of 50 – 100 things I’d like to do in my life.  One thing I wrote on the list was to bike across Canada.  As the years have passed by, and the Trans Canada Trail didn’t exactly materialize the way I had envisioned it, I was beginning to think this would be one of the few things on my list I have not done. 

Yet!

This new event, The Great Canadian Crossing, is an event starting on July 1, 2020 and finishing on July 1, 2021.  The goal is to get across Canada.  Participants can run, cycle, walk, snowshoe, ski, or do a combination of all or some.  I’ve chosen to bike.  I haven’t quite figured out exactly how I’m going to tackle it.  We can see the distances for each province and territory and virtually complete them in any order we wish.  We can bike outside or on trainers in the basement. 

I do know I’d like to complete all my miles outdoors.  What I haven’t figured out is if I can finish before the snow flies, or if I’m going to need to save a couple of provinces for next spring.   No matter what, I’m excited.  And I’ve been training.  I love to bike in our local provincial park that boasts hundreds of kilometres of bike paths.  I also absolutely love taking the car ride to the mountains and putting on a few miles there.   This year I’m even more motivated to take the couple of hours needed to get there.  One of the secondary highways, usually crowded with cars filled with tourists heading to see beautiful Johnson Canyon, has been completely closed to vehicular traffic.  Bikers are free to cycle it’s full fifty- kilometre length and back, or go just a few kilometres and bike back from there.  There is plenty of room for every age and ability of cyclist.  My plan is to take advantage of this road at least once per week. 

Last week when we were cycling along this beautiful stretch of highway, Jim and I noticed that although we were working, it didn’t feel like we were climbing.    As we biked along, we discussed how far we would go.  We knew we would be more tired on the way back, simply because our legs wouldn’t be as fresh.  We were a bit concerned that when we turned around, we would be facing more hills than we wanted.

As it turned out, when we turned for the trip back, we found ourselves cruising along at a much faster clip than we had managed on the way out.   It seemed impossible.  What we hadn’t noticed on the way out, was we were consistently, gently climbing.  It was so consistent as to feel just normal.  It was only when we had turned, that we realized the extra effort we’d been making.

As we cruised along back to our vehicle, I thought about how life is like this too.  Often, we get so caught up in what we have to do in our daily lives, we don’t realize the extra effort we are expending.  The climbing begins to feel normal; not necessarily good, but normal.  We keep giving more and more effort.  Unlike Jim and I, who only had to turn around to get relief, usually the rest of us don’t even recognize when we are climbing.  We certainly often don’t have the luxury of turning around.

Most of us will encounter plenty of hills and even mountains we need to climb in our lives.  I believe we are all capable of climbing.  I even think completing a climb gives us a sense of confidence, of accomplishment.  When I think back on ‘climbing’ times in my life, things that have helped me the most were twofold.  Sometimes I needed to have people help flatten out the road for me.  This has come in the form of having others help with the ‘doing’.  Most of the time, though, I’ve managed pretty well with the doing.   What I have found to be even more helpful was to have a good riding partner, to have someone to listen, sometimes to talk, and most often to just be.  Finding a partner like this, feels a lot like turning for home.

As we head into this summer that is ‘not like the others’, let us notice the hills, gentle and steep, others are climbing, recognize the ones we are climbing ourselves, and find ways to partner up to help us get back home.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What kind of climbing partner am I?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to make climbing easier.
 

Next Friday, in any normal year, would be an important day in the City of Calgary.  The first Friday of July always marks the start of the famous Calgary Stampede.  The kickoff to the Stampede is the Stampede Parade.  It’s an event attended by hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists.  It’s jam packed with an incredible variety of participants, from floats, to horses, to horse drawn carriages, to marching bands, to cultural groups, youth groups and dancing groups.  Our dancing group, the Chinook Country Dancers has been a mainstay for many years.  Since I joined the dance group five years ago, the Stampede Parade has been one of my favorite events. 

Alas, the Stampede parade, along with almost all other major events in our city, our country and even our world, have been paused until at least next year.  To say I’ve been longing to put on my red shirt, black skirt and dancing boots, would be an understatement.  I think all the girls in our group are still checking their messages for the one that says, “You won’t believe it but the parade is ON!”  We know it can’t happen, but we long for it just the same.

As I was checking my emails for the fabled one from the Stampede Parade, I noticed an email from our friend, Annie.  Annie’s husband, Herb, and I started teaching on the same day, at the same school.  Herb was teaching music.  He was to be the new band director for students from grades six to nine.  I was the new math teacher.  One would think this would be an unlikely combination for a friendship, but here we are, thirty-nine years later.  I still have such a profound respect and admiration for this man.  I have been very, very lucky to have crossed paths with Herb.  We didn’t teach together for all of those years.  About half way through his teaching career, Herb shook our school community to its core when he announced he was moving to a different school, one in High River.  The man who taught right across the hallway from me for the first half of my career, left a quietness behind him that could not be filled.  We filled the band room again with several wonderful instructors, but the Herb part was irreplaceable.  In a wonderful little happenstance of life, years later, my daughter got her first teaching assignment at Herb’s new school and she taught several years with him. 

Annie’s email was to let me know that Herb was retiring this year, and she was organizing a surprise event to mark the occasion.  It was to begin with a parade in High River and end with a get-together at their art studio.  I had plans to watch Ben on Friday, and knew the get-together would not work for us.  But I could easily drive to High River with Ben and safely be a part of the retirement parade. 

As I thought about my upcoming outing, I spent some time thinking about ‘lessons’ Herb taught me.  He didn’t know he was teaching me.  Herb is just one of those people who always shows up as the best version of himself.  What Herb taught me about life comes in handy these days.  I don’t know how Herb became wise.  I do know he was wise when I met him, and he is wiser still today.  Herb has always understood, and lived with, the belief that there is just as much life to be enjoyed leading up to the ‘big moments’ as there is in being present for those big moments.  Herb brought the same amount of enthusiasm to washing the gym floor as he did to conducting the concert band at the year end concert.  I never knew Herb to rank things, nor did he rank people.  He didn’t seem to think one job, or one person deserved more status than the next.  Whoever was in Herb’s presence was the most important.  Period.

Of all the things Herb taught me, the thing I value the absolute most is that I could, and can, count on Herb to be Herb.  He is one hundred percent himself all of the time.  He is joyful, hard-working, smart, talented, inclusive, understanding, fun, honest, and humble. 

On Friday morning, Jim blew up balloons, and I wrote messages on my car with erasable markers.  We found some streamers to bring along to help attach the balloons.  We tried to explain the idea of a parade to Ben, who of course is far too young to understand. 

Parades are designed to be showpieces; they highlight the very best of cities, towns, and in this case, a person.  I’ve never seen a parade where the positive effort put forth by the participants wasn’t obvious.  Parades celebrate the best of us.   It was the absolute perfect way to provide a send off to Herb, a man who always gives the very best of himself.   I couldn’t wait to see all the different ways people would show up and show off the best of themselves for Herb.

It turned out that Herb’s surprise parade was perfect.  From the fire trucks to all the love pouring out of the rest of the vehicles, it was the perfect send-off for this very special man.

The Stampede Parade will not happen this year.  I will dearly miss it, and all of the other Stampede dance performances we usually love to participate in.  But participating in Herb’s parade has made me think.

What would it be like, I wonder, if each of us could think of our lives as a parade?  We would choose our own float, and we would choose the people to march with.  We would contemplate exactly what traits were the ones worthy of being on display.  We would show up as the best version of ourselves.  We might practice our skills and share our gifts freely with others.  We could play music that reflected our souls.  We would dress to highlight our strengths and not spend so much time worrying about weaknesses.  We could encourage our fellow parade participants to bring their best selves and we could delight in their unique gifts and talents.  There would be room for everyone.  We would wave at the spectators and invite them to join in next time.  We would have photo albums bursting with memories.  And at the end of the parade, we would be peaceful, knowing we gave our absolute best.  Just like Herb.

My inquiry for you this week is ‘How does this improve my float?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to design an inspiring float.
 
 
 

The past ten days have brought some great relief to me.  We are still in the midst of a pandemic, but some restrictions have been lifted; enough to allow my life to start to feel a bit more normal again.  Over the past days, I’ve started to be able to spend time with little Benjamin again.  After three months of only seeing one another using Facetime or Zoom, being together again is like having new life breathed into me.  We’ve had dinner with our kids.  Seeing them in person is such a joy!  There is something about the energy of live visits that cannot be replicated with technology.  I was able to spend a late sunny afternoon golfing with Jim and our friend, Jan, to celebrate her birthday.  And this week I went for a magnificent hike with my friend, Brenda.  All still taking precautions.  Yet, I feel like a new person.

For months, it is as if someone has been standing over us shouting, ‘LOOK OUT! Don’t touch that’.   ‘LOOK OUT! Don’t stand there.’  ‘LOOK OUT!’ Don’t go out.’  LOOK OUT! Don’t walk that direction.’  ‘LOOK OUT!  Don’t buy that’.  ‘LOOK OUT!  Don’t visit with them’.  ‘LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!’

LOOK OUT! 

To quiet the voice, we stayed home, we followed the rules, we physically distanced, and we prayed it would end.  We did it because it was the right thing to do for the health of our society.  This is not, however, a recipe for a healthy life.  It was simply a diet we had to put up with for a time.  We’ll likely have to hop back on and off it a few more times before we get it figured out.  All I know is it has been so refreshing to not be bombarded with LOOK OUT! so much this week.

When Brenda and I decided to go hiking on Tuesday morning, we chose to continue listening to the LOOK OUT! warning as we drove individually to the trail head.  But once there, it was easy to slip into a comfortable two metre distance apart as we made our way up the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the LOOK OUT voice disappeared.  We’ve had a lot of rain this spring.  The forest is brilliantly green, the little wildflowers are bursting with bloom and the air is fresh.   The muddy ground meant we really had to watch our footing in places and we each found ourselves with a ‘soaker’ a time or two on the way.  Every once in a while, we could look away from our feet and out over the view.  ‘Look out there’, we might say.  And we would pause to take in the beauty.  When we reached the summit (for the first time, since we got a bit turned around and hit it again later!), we stopped and plopped down on the soft ground for a snack and rest.  We didn’t really have to say much.  It was perfect just to sit.  And to look out! 

Look out!

This kind of looking out felt so different, so much better than the LOOKING OUT I’ve been doing for the past three months.  As I sat with Brenda, I recognized I need this too.  I need to look out, to look outside of myself, to look toward others, toward opportunities, toward possibilities and to see a world larger than my own.  The view looking out from our little mountaintop reminded me of all the things waiting for me when the pandemic is over.  From this perspective, I could feel hope replacing some of the fear.

As we made our way back down the foothills, and we began to tire, we automatically began to recognize we had to take extra care with our steps.  It would be so easy to have a mis-step, to stumble or to fall.  If we noticed a bit of rock or rough terrain, we would remind each other gently to ‘look out’.  As my mind quieted, I also thought of how we are needed to not only warn each other to look out, but also to take it upon ourselves to look out for others.  This kind of looking out feels like a whisper to me.  It is done inside of ourselves and comes from a place of kindness and love.

When we look out in this way, we are taking a few seconds to do something to put the needs of others above our own needs.  Sometimes this takes no longer than a second.  Sometimes the effort is more sustained.  Looking out can be a phone call.  It can be a smile or a wave.  It can be noticing we haven’t seen someone in a while and checking in on them.  Looking out can be the bracelet I received in the mail from my sister; the one engraved with ‘Whenever you feel overwhelmed, remember whose daughter you are, and straighten your crown’.

Looking out can be standing up for someone who is unable to do so for themselves.  Looking out can be standing with someone.  Looking out can be listening quietly.  Looking out in this way does not give us power over someone else.  In fact, it helps leave the power with the person we are looking out for.  By looking out for others we allow them to become their very best.  We allow them to focus on blossoming. It takes nothing away from us, and adds greatly to the world. 

This week, as I’ve watched little Ben, I’ve been doing lots of looking out.  I’ve had to look out for his safety as we’ve explored new playgrounds.  But I’ve also tried to look out to see the world from his point of view.  We’ve looked out at bulldozers filling dump trucks and cranes lifting heavy loads.  I’ve loved all of it. But more than anything, I’ve loved looking out for him.  I love thinking of little invisible ways to help him feel successful, to help him feel safe and secure so he can explore his world, to feel confident, and to become himself.

The LOOK OUT!’s we’ve had during the pandemic needed to be in place.  They too, were designed to allow us to have the chance to live to experience our best lives.  Looking out from mountaintops and  from car windows allow us to see what is possible.  And gentle looking out, reminds us we are not alone on this journey and we are all better when we are each our best.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘LOOK OUT!? Look out!?  or Look out?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to look out.
 

Last week was one I dubbed, ‘The Week of Finishing’.  I’ve been working away on a few different projects over these past few months.  Last week I could see that several of them were in line to come to their conclusion.  I will NOT be saying I have been grateful for this pandemic.  However, had it not been for the time alone we were mandated, I doubt very much the finish line would be in sight for a couple of these large undertakings.

Some were easy.  I always do spring cleaning anyway, so this year I just had free time to work away at it.  While I can’t say our house is perfect, it’s certainly as perfect as it would be any other year after spring cleaning.  So that’s one.

I will whisper the following: ‘I think I have scanned the last of the photos!’  I’m whispering because I have a sneaking suspicion that when I open up my cedar chest upstairs, the one I did not spring clean, I have a feeling I may stumble upon a few straggling photos.  I’m ok with that.  The album upon albums I was trying to get through are complete.  At some point I’m going to count up all the photos, but for now let’s just say there are tens of thousands of them.  Eventually, I’ll sort through their new digital versions, discard the ones of no meaning and of poor quality, and create some meaningful books.  But not right now.  I’m totally satisfied with what I have accomplished here.

The other project I’ve been working on for the last few months is a quilt for our daughter and son-in-law, Kaitlyn and Matt.  About 5 years ago, when Kaitlyn had graduated with her B Ed degree, we celebrated by taking them on a one-day excursion to Churchill, Manitoba to see polar bears.  There is a narrow, three-week window from the end of October to mid-November when the bears gather on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, waiting for the ice to ‘come in’ so the bears can travel on it to get to their hunting grounds; the open water where they can fish for seal.  During this time, excursions are organized out of a few Western Canadian cities to travel to our majestic far north to safely observe them without disturbing them.  Out on the magnificent tundra it feels like being on safari.

As I was trying to figure out what to feature on my quilt for Kaitlyn and Matt, I realized I wanted something meaningful; something that would stir a memory.  I looked through my pictures of our polar bear excursion and found one I thought could serve as the base idea for the quilt.  Jim helped me by tracing the small picture of a mother polar bear and one of her cubs onto a piece of graph paper.  I then created a large sheet of grid paper, one the size of the finished quilt top.  I copied the design from each little square onto the big squares, transferred this onto a lightweight fabric to use to attach the material, and then set about creating.  Using hundreds of strips of coloured fabric, the bears, and then the northern lights came to life. 

I finished the top of the quilt about three weeks ago and sent it off to my quilting friend Janet, to work her magic with her long-arm.  This is a fancy machine used to quilt the top of the project to the batting in the middle and then to the backing.  Janet is incredibly creative and I was excited to see what she had in mind for my quilt.  When it arrived back to me, it did not disappoint.  Between her swirls in the sky to remind us of wind and snowflakes, to her colourful stitches to magnify the northern lights, she hit the nail right on the head.  Her quilting is magnificent and I was thrilled with the result. 

The final step to the project was to add the binding.  This is the little border that covers all the raw edges and gives the quilt a framed look.  It isn’t difficult to do binding.  I prefer to machine stitch it to the front of the quilt and then hand-sew the back using an invisible stitch.  The only little tricky part is when you attach the binding, you have to start somewhere and end back at the same spot.  This means that when you get back to the beginning, you need to tuck the raw edge of the beginning part into the ending part to hide the raw edge.  This is how I’ve always done it and it has always looked just fine.  However, I watched a little YouTube video of a method that eliminates having any tucking at all.  The binding ends up being one continuous piece that fits perfectly. 

The technique looked manageable and I thought I could do it.  The only scary part was cutting the fabric at the end.  It’s a ‘cut of faith’.  If it’s done wrong, well, I’m not sure.  I guess I’d have to start all over again.  My problem didn’t end up being the cut.  It ended up that my spacial awareness failed me and I twisted the binding when I sewed the pieces together.  Out came my stitch ripper and I tried again.  On the second attempt, I got the binding untwisted, but the length of the binding was off by just a hair.  I knew that with a little finesse, I could make it look pretty good; certainly, good enough that no one would notice.  So, I did.  The problem was I knew it wasn’t quite right.  Again, I took out the stitch ripper.  The third time was a charm.  A perfect fit.

That one hour of sewing and stitch ripping and sewing again, has given me a lot to think about this past week.  I hope that quilt brings Kaitlyn and Matt good memories for many years.  I’ll be proud of the finished product forever.  It took me less than an hour to correct my mistake, and it would have been absolutely adequate without my ‘fixing’.  I’ve been thinking about how many interactions I have had, how many little conversations, that have gone really well, but that I’ve walked away from knowing that had I spent just a few more precious minutes, could have had an even better outcome.
We all have these.  We have those meetings and conversations we come home from and when asked how they went, we reply, ‘Pretty good’.  I wonder what the answer could have been if during the interaction, we had decided to rip out a few stitches and made it clear we wanted to get things really right.  I have lots and lots of conversations that I can leave at ‘Pretty good’.  But there are some relationships, some people in my life, for whom, ‘Pretty good’ isn’t actually enough.  These people and these relationships deserve the effort it would take me to notice my miss-steps, go backward and make things right.

As our province eases some restrictions, we are going to be able to have more in-person conversations.  These, undoubtedly will be with important people in our lives who we haven’t been able to see for months.  I’m going to pack my proverbial stitch ripper with me.  After all these months apart, if I have a chance to talk in person, I want to be able to say it went better than ‘Pretty good’.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What stitches could I remove?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to become a masterful stitch ripper .