If you were invisible where would you go?

 If I was invisible I would want to be in the dressing room of an NHL hockey team or on the ice during practice to hear the conversations had with professional athletes. I refer to a hockey team as I have had the privilege of witnessing what head coach Kris Knoblauch of the Edmonton Oilers has brought forward in the 2023-2024 season. But really I would do this same exercise with any professional team sport.

What is gained from a coach before, during, and after a game holds so much value in the athletes minds. One person is able to sway the tempo of the game for the good or bad with words. Words hold so much merit, weight, or encouragement to bring a group together for a common goal.

The same holds true in working world. If you are leading a group of professionals to a workplace target you need buy-in to get the entirety to the finish line. A group of individuals not knowing where they are going are lost, showing up for work and going about their tasks not knowing the end result. But a group of individuals showing up to the team meeting sharply at 8am listening to the days objective and re-grouping near the end of the day to see the results will maximize their time punching the clock.

As a leader, the way you show up matters. Leaders are not allowed to show up at work wth their bags filled of home-life garbage. I get that you are an individual trying to make a buck but that is not what you get when you are leader. Everyone who looks up to you comes first. Your demeanour, attitude and behaviour is sensed by your colleagues the minute you walk through the door. 

The same holds true for coaching athletes. You need to show up prepared, ready to teach, and show them the way and the why. If you can master this you are well on your way to leading people. Be prepared to Lead the way as individuals are always looking to follow someone!

Fill Your Jar With Kindness

 "You really are amazing at making people smile with your genuine approach in getting to know them."

"Every time you sit down to complete a task and remove the distractions you crush what you set out to do."

"The ability to remain calm in high-stakes situations is admirable."

"Damn you look good in jeans and cowboy boots!"

Do you have a jar filled with positive statements about the specific things you are good at or positive affirmations to bring you up when you are feeling down?

Imagine what it would feel like to dig into this jar and pull out a few good statements when self-doubt begins to rear it's ugly head.

I can see the warmth spreading with a smile on your face now. It feels soooo good to be reminded of your goodness. You can be the one to give yourself positive affirmations! Brighten your own day! Make the difference you need in the moment.

You know that on a good day you are marvelous at many efforts in your immediate world. The struggle comes from the moments of weakness, that little voice in your head suggests it's too hard, or you're not good enough, or others are better than you. We need to stand tall in these moments, reach into our jar and pull out some specific positive statements about what we are good at and remember the awesomeness that lives in us.

You know it takes all our unique personalities to make the world go around in an interesting and fun filled way. Could you imagine being married to yourself, having yourself as your best-friend and all your co-workers having the same personality as you. It doesn't work. We need chatty Kathy, Positive Paula, and Realistic Ralph.

So pull your head from your ass, grab some personal kindness to yourself and get on with your business!

Taxes

 phew 😓

Taxes complete. Another day another dollar.

Taxes can be straightforward when you have one T4 income or a couple but when you start adding investments, self-employed income, or any other complexity it adds to the burden of reporting.

This past year my husband started delivering bundles one day per week to earn some extra cash, but the income was considered self-employed, with no T4 to be issued. So, to make this work logically I started putting some cash in his RRSPs to offset this earning. 

On another note, I started running courses for BC Soccer and they issued me a T4. But during input into the tax program, it advised that wages reported on a T4A in Box 38 need to be reported as self-employed income as well.

Here I was, left to declare that both my husband and I were now sole proprietor business owners!

What comes with this task?

Receipts, Receipts, Receipts!

What did I not have?

Receipts, Receipts, Receipts....

Ok, so we faked the receipts. Logically I might add. We tracked kilometers that his route took and logically calculated how much gas that would be, along with insurance pro-rated to usage.

As for me, I gathered a few minutes of travel and a couple of meals and that was the end to that.

Now, what is the probability that we are getting audited? Cross my fingers and pray to the audit man upstairs that we are in the green.

Needless to say, taxes can be stressful. The thought of owing money to the government to earn money makes me sick to my stomach. I would rather put the money in RRSPs, go to school (pay tuition), make a bad investment, or find another way to save my way out of owing.

Hopefully, you have all filed your taxes for 2023 and you can now get on with a prosperous 2024!

Confidence

 You have it or you don't.

Really?

Or you can gain confidence with practice and experience?

My take on confidence in my immediate world right now is to have the belief in myself that I can do the task at hand. The extension I offer to the people around me is that I believe in them to get the job done to the best of their ability and they need to believe in themselves enough to complete the job as well.

It's funny how confidence or lack thereof never goes away. Professional athletes experience this problem, children playing grassroots sports come across a lack of confidence, the Grade 3 student at the local elementary school doesn't believe in themselves, and the adult going into the meeting around the corner is not feeling it. Why? Why does the inability to believe in your ability fall short of the mark?

As we are wired, we remember the cutting remarks someone once told us and for some reason, it always holds merit in our minds. Or we recall the way we were treated and feel that our shortcomings will bring out the mal-treatment from another in the same way.

As the saying goes, life's not fair. 

It's fair to note that our primitive brains take over as well. From hunter/gather days we were bread to fight for our lives, like there is always an attack against us. So, when we are in the middle of something we experience in our everyday lives or a high stakes, gotta win-it-all kind of moment our brain automatically runs through worst-case scenarios, leaving us with a low belief in get-er-done.

Your brain's natural response does not need to be center-stage in your life. A simple series of positive affirmations can set you on the right track to exude confidence and complete the task.

This past December I decided to take control of the pattern playing on repeat whispering between my ears and make a goal with myself to have 365 days of positivity. To be clear, I am not a negative person on the outside, the message was to clean the thoughts up going on inside my head. And to really send this goal home, I asked a peer at work to hold me accountable. 

WOW! What a difference the past few months have been.  I show up to work in a positive mindset which has allowed me to show up in my personal life with the same positive outgoingness. Naturally one spilled into the other. I highly recommend this.

This is one example of creating a new outlook to build confidence up and be there for yourself. Once you can be there for yourself, and believe in yourself, your confidence will increase in other aspects of your daily outings.

In short, you need to tell yourself an amazing story; sell yourself to yourself. What would your greatest cheerleader say to you at this moment? In this moment you are amazing, capable, strong, determined, and disciplined, now go and get it done the way you know how, the way you were meant to do it!

YLW to YYC

 4 a.m. Jitters... or should I say, I laid in bed waiting for the clock to be 2:45 a.m. for me to get out of bed and get ready to head to the airport for 4 a.m.! What fun travel can be... Wait in this line, then this line, then this line, now take all your belongings off put them on the conveyor belt, go through security scans, and collect all your belongings to find a seat and wait to board a plane.

Our first flight is to Calgary with a final destination point of Cancun. Flight crew at YLW airport are urgently requesting guests to check their carry-on as the plane is full, along with a threat that the plane will board 30 minutes late if 15 passengers don't check their carry-on.  Not sure the threat tactic will work. Why not reduce the fee for checked bags under the plane and then all of us passengers will not carry our luggage on flight.  Great start this AM.

Now back to what makes this all possible.

Thank you to my wonderful family who supports my over-achieving work tactics. And thank you to my workplace for putting up with me for 14 years, I am sure that is not always an easy feat either. And without my wonderful top-producing staff to assist me in the daily operations of the dealership I would not be sitting in this airport today. I am blessed to be a part of this team and look forward to what the future brings us.

My insatiable need to travel and explore the world brings me back to this environment time and time again. 

And this picture seals it all for me. This 6 a.m. sunrise from the sky is worth the sleepless night!

Now in Calgary, with a Starbucks drip coffee, good eats, and my laptop to entertain my thoughts of travel as a written documentation of my exploring. Soon I'll cozy up in my chair and read a novel for the duration of the five-hour flight to Cancun. 

Join me here again soon to hear of our exciting Mexican adventures!

Thought

 Life should be a little nuts or else it is just a bunch of Thursdays strung together.

To Move Through The Day

 Why else are we here if not to live with passion for certain aspects of life?

🦋