What's Holding You Back? Move Forward (In Life) with These Tips.

The Venue: The Fifth Social Club - comfortable and classy as well as warm, cozy, high-end and chic; a very inviting atmosphere.

GBR (Golden Brick Road) Society is a community for authors and readers alike.  February marked the two year anniversary party and author and book awards presentation in Toronto!  It was a quick trip, but well worth it!

The event, held on 21 February 2019, brought authors from various book projects together, many for the very first time.  Several of the ladies I felt like I've know for many years, when in reality we've only ever met in our social media collaboration groups and have been collaborating since 2016.  To my point, I mentioned to Sabrina Greer that she reminded me of someone only to realize moments later that she reminded me of herself!
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​​The book I co-authored with GBR, On Her Plate, launched in the last publishing year and won the GBR Brilliance Award for it's content and how quickly it became known in the literary world relative to other publications. I, along with my fellow co-authors, was awarded the Author Growth Award for the significance of our work and contributions to the project. ​
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Prior to the festivities were the workshops.  Several speakers shared their stories and how they 'bossed-up' their lives and businesses. 

Here are some takeaways and thought provoking questions I gleaned from each speaker as well as thoughts and questions that struck me.   Perhaps you'll find them useful as you navigate your way through your own "boss-hood". (my term - I just made it up!)  Use them to get focused so you can Live Your Dimensions!

Sarah Swain: Founder and Visionary, The Great Canadian Woman
* Make a choice about how to respond to the fear I'm feeling - the fear that can hold me back from doing great things.

Cassie Jeans: Author & Soul Whisperer
* What do I desire?
* What do I want my legacy to be?
* Why am I still beating myself up for thinks that happened eons ago? Just release it.
* How often can we step into something new in our lives? ANYTIME we want to!
* Be me and show up as me with my whole heart every day!
* Conversation and small talk starter: "What are you craving today? What do you desire today?"

Sabrina Greer: Author/ East Coast Director for Mommas Charity and YGTM Inc. Community Developer - spoke on Growth.
* Growth our professional lives can involve pain. Like a child who with growing pains - growth can hurt. It is physically uncomfortable.
* What am I doing for my growth mindset?
* What am I afraid of when it comes to growth?

Book by Carol Dweck: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Growth vs Fixed Mindset
Thriving vs. Surviving Mindset

Growth requires work. Excuses people give to avoid work:
1. I can't do that.
2. It's too hard.
3. It's too much work.
Question: What can I do that will make me significant? It all boils down to DOING the work. Am I willing to do the work?

The opposite of FEAR is LOVE

Dierdre Slattery: Health and Fitness Consultant/ Fitness Model/Author
* connect to what others see pouring out of you as your calling and look into that deeper.
* set a goal and ignore any shame that crops up in your mind that might keep you from seeking to attain that goal.
For example:
1. My goal for fitness and health
2. What's my timeline (set a hard date)?
3. What is the meaning and purpose of that goal?
4. Share my goal with someone I trust...accountability.
Celebrate myself and my energy!

Become a powerhouse when these three are aligned:
Physical well-being
Mental well-being 
Business

Jennifer Jayde: Spiritual Growth/ Speaker/ Coach/ Founder & CEO of Jennifer Jayde International Inc.
* success and self-worth are wrapped up in each other
* listen to your calling from within and get in alignment with it
* she left her 9 to 5 to follow her passion for photography
* she's a practitioner of how to turn the small voice of intuition up in volume in your life. 
* Ask yourself, is this a YES for me? If the response is flat when you listen in the quiet, with no feeling then it's not in alignment with what you should be doing. IF the feeling is flat AND you feel a bit nervous about it, then perhaps it's worth considering.
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"The basis of your life is absolute freedom, the goal is joy, and the result of that perfect combination is motion forward, or growth. Your goal is to find objects of attention that let your cork raise."
- Abraham Hicks

What do you think about this statement: A belief is a thought on repeat?
* practice differentiating between a thought and guidance.
Guidance will not make logical sense.
* guidance comes to us everyday 24/7
* find a way to connect with God EVERYDAY!

Here's a bit of the backstory to my trip for some lite reading!
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My trip was short and I wish I could have stayed longer, but between the workshops, hanging out with my sister Kirsten, and celebrating at the awards ceremony and after-party, it was just the right amount of time.  The only person missing was my mom who had not ONE, but TWO flights out of  Washington D.C. canceled due to winter weather.  Thanks to technology today, she and my dad were there to support via FaceTime!  

I began my trek to Toronto on the 20th of February and was quite surprised that my flight hadn't been canceled considering there were about 8 inches of snow on the ground that hadn't been plowed for quite some time.  It made for a slow drive to the airport on the streetlight-less back country roads here in Kansas and winding through Missouri. 

The night before my trip was packed with activities and trips to Walmart and the J.C. Penny salon where I took my girls to have their hair done.  Two-strand twists while I'm away always means low to no maintenance for dad!  Needless to say, since I didn't begin packing earlier, it made for a short night.  I got about 35 minutes of sleep and departed for the airport at 3:30 AM only to find the roads looked like they'd hardly been touched with a snow plow. . . at all.  My flight was delayed, but not directly due to weather.  Apparently, the local crew didn't get the "It's snowing A LOT" memo and didn't to get to the airport on time.  Once the crew finally arrived, the de-icing of our neighboring plane took forever.  It took a bit to get off the ground, but eventually, I made it to Toronto. 

I grabbed a bite to eat and not long after dinner, my sister Kirsten and I met up. She flew in from Nashville.  Upon the recommendation of the servers the dinner spot, we went two doors down for $5 CAD martini night.  My litchi fruit martini was tasty!  So tasty that I decided to have another.  The calamari Kirsten ordered was not good.  I'm not kidding, the calamari shared a likeness to a very thin rubber band and while I've never eaten a rubber band I'm pretty sure I now know what a dried out disintegrating rubber band tastes like now!  Without a doubt, it was the WORST calamari I’ve ever had!

​​​I'm glad that our server had a good sense of humor. S​he commented how she's actually never tried the calamari because she's vegan. She told us how people order it all the time and really enjoy it. At one point I told her I think it would be ok if she tried some because, "If I'm not mistaken, rubber is a plant." She got a kick out of that. I was laughing so hard I could hardly stand it. Tears rolling down my eyes I was cracking up all over the place! Kirsten tried to stop me from saying anything initially, but she knows me and naturally she began laughing pretty hard too!