Hey YOU! Happy Holidays to you.
I’ve been enjoying a very slow final two weeks of 2021 and I can’t tell you how needed it is. It’s been a year.
So I thought I’d share my own Year in Review – and a glance at the year ahead. As I write this, it’s a Friday and I’m at my co-working space downtown and I’m looking out the big wide windows at the quiet world. And at the same time, my teenagers went off to school under some mysterious warning of a possible school shooting.
It was courageous to send them to school. But honestly they didn’t even ask to stay home so I didn’t want to project my fears onto them.
So here we go — My 2021 Year in Review
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JANUARY
Moved boldly into clarity, capacity and courage coaching by launching The Brave Yes. This was my first month not running a membership community in 8 full years so I think I mostly felt lost with not having 24/7 responsibility. I saw my creativity begin to flourish again and it was beautiful. The girls turned 15. And we got a puppy! My girl Jasmine “Jazzy” Jazzercise.
FEBRUARY
Oofph. This was a hard month. Dark, snowy, cold February in a pandemic and the kids not in school — especially the one who needs people in her life daily. I don’t want another month like this one in the future. But, I launched my Brave Yes Voices series on the podcast and really started to love those courageous, personal stories.
MARCH
I started to really find my voice in my new body of work here and began planting some seeds. I also enlisted a coach to help me find clarity and find some support to regroup.
APRIL
The girls were back in school four days a week this month and I was able to start to imagine what my work life and business — and coaching programming — would look like. I spent a lot of time writing and re-writing the copy on my website. I spent so much time on this … and I’m happy I did. I get a lot of comments on how much my words are resonating.
MAY
I enjoyed a lot of public speaking this month — including at a trauma conference where I was able to share my Strong Model for building Resilience. I also started leading labyrinth walks at my church as a fun spiritual wellbeing practice. They weren’t well attended so I stopped eventually.
JUNE
I swam in the sea. Frolicked on the beach. Journaled in a tree house. Did yoga daily on the deck in the woods. And found my waves necklace that I wear a lot. This was a beautiful month where we stopped masking and started living a bit more in the world. This was also the month that I realized that working with corporate America and career women coaching was not my path.
JULY
HOT. This was just a hot month. A lot of swimming in the pool and the familiar juggle of motherhood and working motherhood — loaded with guilt of not doing enough to enjoy summer. However at the end of the month, I did take the girls on a 1500 mile road trip to see my family for the first time in two years and we had a beautiful time. It was the first time being with my one and only nephew. He’s 2 now. I broke down sobbing when it was time to leave.
AUGUST
This was a month I’d love to forget. At first, there was a lot of back to school muck. A new school that didn’t work out. The whole masking and not masking thing made things harder than they needed to be. There were floods. In the middle my husband turned 60. And then 2 weeks later he had a heart attack and I saw him go into cardiac arrest for 45 seconds.
SEPTEMBER
More life struggles continued here. I lived in survival mode the entire month just trying to heal the shock and fear and find our new normal. But by the end of the month, things started to even out and started to see a new passion for my work — being a coach for creative entrepreneurs and CEOs who want to uplevel in their life or business.
OCTOBER
This was just a recuperation month where we started to see everything calm down. Kids were in school 5 full days a week. The puppy turned ONE and she started to be a little more calm, too. 🙂 I also began hosting masterminds for entrepreneurs for a friend’s business this month which has been such a joy to do each week.
NOVEMBER
The big thing this month was that my Sister in Law asked us over for Thanksgiving and I didn’t have to cook or do anything. I know you know how delicious this was.
DECEMBER
I went on a solo trip to Richmond this month and PEOPLED hard. It was energizing and exhausting. And I’m now ready to enjoy two weeks of laying low and working on a few big projects that I haven’t had time to do until now. I’m also resting a lot. It’s been a strange, beautiful and scary year. I’m ready for it to be over. I’m ready for a fresh start.
A LOOK AHEAD
All year in 2021, I offered my coaching to a wide variety of women with the hopes of helping women make a BRAVE YES career change or uplevel. And while that was some of my clients, what I saw most was that my work resonates more with creatives and creative entrepreneurs and CEOs.
And so … in January 2022, The Brave Yes Show is going to be renamed to Brave Yes CEO. And my new newsletter will be focused on what it means to be a Brave Yes CEO.
This, of course, is a Brave Yes in the making as I write and share this. I know this means a good-bye to so many who have been following me over the years.
But if you are an entrepreneur — or if you know one — please subscribe to my new newsletter and start to be a part of the energy I’m creating around stepping up as leaders of our businesses. Of course if you are a leader, this work will still apply to you and may want to follow along as well.
But my coaching will not change. I’ll still work with my current clients but I’ll be focusing my coaching work on helping highly creative and super scattered CEOs and entrepreneurs find the clarity, capacity and courage to uplevel and put their work into the world.
As for my personal life, well: The girls are turning 16 in January so that means a big celebration that right now — fingers crossed — includes going to NYC for a long weekend and, of course, that rite of passage of getting their driver’s permits. We’ll also celebrate Jazzy’s Gotcha Day on Jan. 9.
→ And my big goal for this year is to write my next book — and invest in the resources I need to make it beautiful and successful.