I don’t know about your house, but in mine the kitchen is the most used, but also versatile space. Any given moment, the kitchen serves as the dining room, the family room, romper room, homework station, home office, and even counseling office. Maybe for that reason it has been referred to as the heart of a home.
In my youth, the kitchen was the meeting place for the Rea family. It is where we ate breakfast in the morning, did homework afterschool and ate dinner each night with the family. I spent many hours washing the dinner dishes while talking with my mother or sister about the day, life, or whatever. The kitchen was also the room where we spent hours on end cooking for holidays, or creating jams and jellies from our fruit trees or baking cookies for Christmas.
My folks had a strict rule that food did not get eaten outside the kitchen. Of course, this rule did not apply if we were barbequing and eating outside. And, I conveniently ignored this rule when I won the Girl Scout Cookie Sales Championship which resulted in 100’s (maybe 1000’s) of boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the downstairs' freezer. I’m not sure if it was the depleting cookie stock or the fact that I put on 10+ pounds in two weeks, but my mom eventually caught on and banned Girl Scout Cookie sneaking and eating anywhere.
I wouldn’t change the kitchen from being the home’s heart either. What other room in your home can one communicate around the kitchen table, give sage advice at the bar, make memories around the oven and also eat and drink? The chaos that was my mom’s kitchen from my youth is now my kitchen as adult. It is the heart of my home.
Everything that forms in the kitchen is rooted in love. That includes the relationships and the products. I think it is why I bake. In fact, I would say baking is one of “my things”. I find joy in it. I find joy in sharing what I have created with others. Where else can you have stress management, make memories, show appreciation, role model love, honor your mother, share tradition and end up with a great homemade [fill in the blank]?
I recognize that baking isn’t for everyone, but everyone has something they do to show love. I leave you with the hope that you will share what you love with others. It could be sewing or fly fishing or technology or working in the community. The sharing of one’s authentic self, not only allows you to connect with others on a truly personal basis, but also encourages others to do the same. In essence, it enables us all to be a fully operating, walking kitchen. And, you know what they say about kitchens—they are the heart of every home.
Must stop typing and start baking.
Happy Holidays all,
~Stacy
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Living a Leadership Legacy
Developing outstanding leaders is fundamental to my company's success. Not only because strong leaders have a positive, profound, and measurable influence on making the company a great place to work, but more importantly strong leaders inspire commitment through demonstration of leadership in action.
When I was little my mom recounted a conversation between a mighty oak tree and an acorn. The acorn was feeling undervalued and insignificant. The mighty oak urged the acorn to be patient, because with the right conditions the acorn would evolve into a mighty oak and be part of the larger ecosystem contributing shade, and housing and even food for forest inhabitants. And, when at last the oak was fully mature it would produce acorns. Acorns that would possess a spark of life to be passed on from one tree generation to the next. Even at a young age, my mom was promoting a life focused on living, not just leaving, an authentic leadership legacy.
How do you live a leadership legacy? Kouzes and Posner, authors of Leadership Challenge surface five practices of exemplary leadershipTM foundational for living a leadership legacy:
1. Modeling the Way— Setting an example through your day to day actions.
2. Inspiring a Shared Vision—Passionately believing you can make a difference.
3. Challenging the Process—Searching for opportunities to change the status quo.
4. Enabling Others to Act—Creating an environment of mutual respect where trust, authenticity and dignity are the most important tenets.
5. Encouraging the Heart—Keeping determination alive by rewarding peers for their efforts and celebrating accomplishments even the small ones.
Taking it further, living a leadership legacy is about daily, genuine servitude. It is about helping those who choose to work with you take root, find their path, discover their own unique gift and then celebrating it. In essence, that is the leadership challenge. Whether or not you leave a legacy depends on if you have succeeded at becoming and living life as an extraordinary leader.
To help leaders develop their full potential and live their leadership legacy, my company is committed to using Extraordinary Leader (Zenger Folkman) as their leadership framework. We can see pieces of this in our core competencies as well as our Managing through Premier Performance model.
I encourage you to read both Extraordinary Leader and Leadership Challenge as the next steps on your leadership journey and ask you to answer to yourself these two questions: If you were measured by your actions today, what leadership legacy are you living? What leadership legacy will you leave?
- Stacy
REFERENCES
Leadership Challenge, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131053.html
Extraordinary Leader, Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman, http://extraordinaryleader.net/extraordinary-leader-book.html
When I was little my mom recounted a conversation between a mighty oak tree and an acorn. The acorn was feeling undervalued and insignificant. The mighty oak urged the acorn to be patient, because with the right conditions the acorn would evolve into a mighty oak and be part of the larger ecosystem contributing shade, and housing and even food for forest inhabitants. And, when at last the oak was fully mature it would produce acorns. Acorns that would possess a spark of life to be passed on from one tree generation to the next. Even at a young age, my mom was promoting a life focused on living, not just leaving, an authentic leadership legacy.
How do you live a leadership legacy? Kouzes and Posner, authors of Leadership Challenge surface five practices of exemplary leadershipTM foundational for living a leadership legacy:
1. Modeling the Way— Setting an example through your day to day actions.
2. Inspiring a Shared Vision—Passionately believing you can make a difference.
3. Challenging the Process—Searching for opportunities to change the status quo.
4. Enabling Others to Act—Creating an environment of mutual respect where trust, authenticity and dignity are the most important tenets.
5. Encouraging the Heart—Keeping determination alive by rewarding peers for their efforts and celebrating accomplishments even the small ones.
Taking it further, living a leadership legacy is about daily, genuine servitude. It is about helping those who choose to work with you take root, find their path, discover their own unique gift and then celebrating it. In essence, that is the leadership challenge. Whether or not you leave a legacy depends on if you have succeeded at becoming and living life as an extraordinary leader.
To help leaders develop their full potential and live their leadership legacy, my company is committed to using Extraordinary Leader (Zenger Folkman) as their leadership framework. We can see pieces of this in our core competencies as well as our Managing through Premier Performance model.
I encourage you to read both Extraordinary Leader and Leadership Challenge as the next steps on your leadership journey and ask you to answer to yourself these two questions: If you were measured by your actions today, what leadership legacy are you living? What leadership legacy will you leave?
- Stacy
REFERENCES
Leadership Challenge, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131053.html
Extraordinary Leader, Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman, http://extraordinaryleader.net/extraordinary-leader-book.html
Friday, February 17, 2012
Finding my heart’s desire in a Gualala coffee shop
On my last adventure, I came across a simple, yet refreshing find, called Trinks. Past Bodega Bay, past Jenner, past Sea Ranch on the coast of Mendocino County is a beach town named Gualala.
Perfectly located at the mouth of the Gualala River and the Pacific Ocean, Gualala got its beginnings as a logging town after the 1906 earthquake. Highway 1 runs through the middle of the unincorporated town with a population of about 1,900 people. Now, instead of lumber, tourism is the main industry.
The main strip includes two grocery stores, three quaint hotels (no Hiltons or Marriott’s here), a couple gas stations, realtors (too many to count), a couple little art galleries and Trinks.
I came by Trinks on my trek to find a hot spot. I know it’s lame. But, I was on vacation and had just a few things I needed to do over the weekend in preparation for my work week. The rental didn’t have internet services, nor did the grocery store, or the art galleries, or … the hotels did, but they wanted to charge $125 for me to use it.
Discouraged, driving up and down the Gualala strip with Justin searching for a wireless network. The only one popping up was “Trinks”. To truly realize my frustration, imagine your laptop open on the console while your 9-year-old holds in the air an iPad in one hand and an iPhone in the other. I finally stopped at the gas station and asked them what Trinks was and where I could find it.
Of all the things Trinks could have been, I was relieved it was a coffee shop. But Justin and I soon found out it wasn’t an ordinary coffee shop.
As we swung open the car doors, we could smell Trinks. My nose zeroed in on the coffee, Justin’s nose found peanut butter cookies. As I opened the front door, Justin’s jaw hit the floor. Huge peanut butter cookies were being brought out of an oven and placed next to homemade scones with fresh berries popping out of them.
Even better than the smell was the enthusiastic woman who greeted us at the register. “What brings you in this morning?” she said. My response? “ WiFi”. She laughed.
I ordered my husband a coffee and was informed that the beans were roasted locally in Healdsburg and the two scones contained “raspberries and blackberries picked straight from the bush.” Justin ordered a hot chocolate and not one, but two peanut butter cookies. She ended our conversation by giving me the WiFi password and hopes that the coffee and scones would bring us back in someday.
As Justin ate and I worked, she wandered the tables with a pot of coffee and a big smile. She had such a presence and made everyone—locals and tourists alike—feel warm and welcomed. I was awestruck by her sense of pride in her creation.
I wanted to bottle up her passion. Stash it away when I needed a motivational boost. Sell it on eBay and become a millionaire.
It certainly created a moment for self reflection. Questions filled my head on passion, value, significance. As I answered each, I thought back to a time when I had passion, value and significance. I wanted to know where it went, when it left and what I could do to bring it back. It wasn’t until I cleared my head that I realized that right now, it wasn’t about the journey, as so much as being in the present and answering the question “what is my heart’s desire?”
Not going to share with you the results of the conversation with myself, but I will share that I walked out of Trinks renewed and inspired. While a tad cliché, I guess you could say I found my heart’s desire in a Gualala coffee shop.
Perfectly located at the mouth of the Gualala River and the Pacific Ocean, Gualala got its beginnings as a logging town after the 1906 earthquake. Highway 1 runs through the middle of the unincorporated town with a population of about 1,900 people. Now, instead of lumber, tourism is the main industry.
The main strip includes two grocery stores, three quaint hotels (no Hiltons or Marriott’s here), a couple gas stations, realtors (too many to count), a couple little art galleries and Trinks.
I came by Trinks on my trek to find a hot spot. I know it’s lame. But, I was on vacation and had just a few things I needed to do over the weekend in preparation for my work week. The rental didn’t have internet services, nor did the grocery store, or the art galleries, or … the hotels did, but they wanted to charge $125 for me to use it.
Discouraged, driving up and down the Gualala strip with Justin searching for a wireless network. The only one popping up was “Trinks”. To truly realize my frustration, imagine your laptop open on the console while your 9-year-old holds in the air an iPad in one hand and an iPhone in the other. I finally stopped at the gas station and asked them what Trinks was and where I could find it.
Of all the things Trinks could have been, I was relieved it was a coffee shop. But Justin and I soon found out it wasn’t an ordinary coffee shop.
As we swung open the car doors, we could smell Trinks. My nose zeroed in on the coffee, Justin’s nose found peanut butter cookies. As I opened the front door, Justin’s jaw hit the floor. Huge peanut butter cookies were being brought out of an oven and placed next to homemade scones with fresh berries popping out of them.
Even better than the smell was the enthusiastic woman who greeted us at the register. “What brings you in this morning?” she said. My response? “ WiFi”. She laughed.
I ordered my husband a coffee and was informed that the beans were roasted locally in Healdsburg and the two scones contained “raspberries and blackberries picked straight from the bush.” Justin ordered a hot chocolate and not one, but two peanut butter cookies. She ended our conversation by giving me the WiFi password and hopes that the coffee and scones would bring us back in someday.
As Justin ate and I worked, she wandered the tables with a pot of coffee and a big smile. She had such a presence and made everyone—locals and tourists alike—feel warm and welcomed. I was awestruck by her sense of pride in her creation.
I wanted to bottle up her passion. Stash it away when I needed a motivational boost. Sell it on eBay and become a millionaire.
It certainly created a moment for self reflection. Questions filled my head on passion, value, significance. As I answered each, I thought back to a time when I had passion, value and significance. I wanted to know where it went, when it left and what I could do to bring it back. It wasn’t until I cleared my head that I realized that right now, it wasn’t about the journey, as so much as being in the present and answering the question “what is my heart’s desire?”
Not going to share with you the results of the conversation with myself, but I will share that I walked out of Trinks renewed and inspired. While a tad cliché, I guess you could say I found my heart’s desire in a Gualala coffee shop.
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