Stop Asking Why. Start Asking How. Asking why keeps you parked. Asking how gets you home. Have you ever thought about what it must have felt like inside Apollo 13 when the oxygen tank blew? The spacecraft was headed to the moon with three astronauts, when an oxygen tank ruptured, crippling the command module, the main part of the ship they needed for the trip home. Just like that, the mission changed from landing on the moon to simply surviving the trip back. The crew climbed into the lunar...
9 days ago • 4 min read
When Giving Becomes Losing Yourself You can love people with your whole heart and still be slowly disappearing in the process. We lived in a house that was considered upscale in a moderate, rural Iowa county. Six thousand five hundred square feet of top-of-the-line living space. An indoor pool and hot tub. Six acres with two ponds stocked full of fish. My dad had purchased it for about sixty cents on the dollar because he had the cash and the owners weren't receiving offers. That was my dad....
16 days ago • 4 min read
Your Objects Are Holding More Than Memories A small suede bag. A strand of cream pearls. And a man who closed his eyes and felt my mother. It was April in Iowa, which means the kind of weather that can't make up its mind. I slipped on my jacket before heading to my friend Katie's house, and before I left, I did something I hadn't told anyone about. I took my mother's pearl necklace, a simple strand of cream pearls with a tarnished clasp tucked inside a small suede bag and slipped it into a...
23 days ago • 4 min read
The Invisible Force Behind Every Experience You Have Have you ever walked into a room and felt something before anyone said a word? That is energy. My dad raised my brother and me mostly on his own after my parents divorced before I started kindergarten. He was old-school in all the ways you might imagine. Asking for help wasn't in his vocabulary. Neither was coddling. As the older sibling, and the girl, I carried a lot of household chores. Dishes were one. Most nights, that was just the...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
What Losing My Cell Signal Taught Me About Intentional Living Your attention is building your reality right now. Intentional living starts the moment you realize you are the one who gets to choose where it goes. Every August, the small town of Knoxville, Iowa, transforms. The population of 7,300 swells to tens of thousands as sprint car racing fans, teams, and families pour in from all over the country (and some other countries) for the Knoxville Nationals: four days of the best racing on...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
You Haven't Missed Your Moment The dream didn't go anywhere. You just got busy. Tonight we fix that. It was my first full day in Panama City Beach, Florida. I had arrived the day before in a 1994 RV, after selling or leaving behind almost everything I owned, no car in tow, and honestly, no real plan beyond knowing this was exactly where I was supposed to be. I was standing in Walmart, buying a beach chair for my new life, when I decided buying a car needed to be my top priority. Then it hit...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
You Don't Need a Plan. You Need a Direction. Somewhere there's a poster board with curled edges and an inspirational quote that fell off. It knows what you really want. Do you? My first vision board collected more dust than results. Sound familiar? I made it about ten years ago: poster board, magazine cutouts, a lot of hope, and little strategy. I had pictures of places I wanted to go, a life that felt bigger than the one I was living, and words like "freedom" and "abundance" that I'd clipped...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
How I Made the Biggest Decision of My Life By Accident Most people never decide. They just eventually run out of reasons not to. The Difference Between Dreaming and Deciding I called it a writing retreat. That's the name I gave it while it was still finding its shape. Something small and manageable enough to start. Florida for a few months. My happy place. A part of Florida I'd never seen. Space to focus on writing the book about my dad's disappearance that had been living in my heart for...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Feel It First Fact: 95% of your daily thoughts, habits, and reactions are running on autopilot. No wonder change feels so hard. By 2017, I had been on my spiritual journey for several years. I had read books and followed the teachers, absorbed everything I could get my hands on from Abraham Hicks, Bob Proctor, Mike Dooley, and others. I was intrigued and fascinated by all of it. But I hadn't yet put it to a real, deliberate test. Then came the raffle at work during Hospital Week. It was the...
2 months ago • 4 min read