guest blog by Betsey Martens, Boulder, CO

The idea to take our kids around the world existed long before they did.  In 1986 my husband, Dave, and I quit jobs that we loved, rented our house and set off with a round-the-world ticket.  The ticket required only that our travel be continuously in one direction.  We chose west.  Other than a plan to stay with a good friend who lives in New Zealand as our first stop, we had no reservations anywhere.  Our most pressing obligation was to stay in front of the monsoon that moves through Australasia in the spring.

Of all the things we resolved to do as a result of that trip, two stayed etched in my willfulness.  I really wanted to have children and I wanted to do a trip like this with them. Two years later, Brian was born.  Two years following Brian came Emma.  And three years following Emma, Isabelle was born.  Two weeks later, Dave had a vasectomy.  There’s a limit to how many children you can drag around the world.  Three was it for us.

We spent years trying to knit together a realistic plan to get away, and saving as much money as we could. After much calculus we decided the year would be 2003, when the kids would be 15, 12 and 10. At that point it was three years away, a sufficient planning horizon for a huge trip. When 2003 rolled around the world was a much-changed place. The events of September 11, 2001 seemed to have imprinted on our national psyche a deeply embedded fear of leaving the country. Travel was down, worry was up, but for us there was no turning back. Read more…

What can you say about a woman who left a successful catering business in New York City to volunteer for the Peace Corps in the hopes of empowering African women and children and in the process cut off the head of a poisonous snake –  in her kitchen, with a machete! Well, you could say that Bonnie Lee Black has swagger. And you’d be right!

Bonnie had her own catering business in New York, serving the rich and famous. After ten years in the business, she was tired of New York and tired of waiting on rich people. A breast cancer scare prompted her to look at her life and ponder how she would like to live. Bonnie wanted to do something new with her life, something gratifying and purposeful.

So she decided to join the Peace Corps and was sent to Gabon, in Central  Africa to work with women and children on improving their nutrition and health. Ten hours away from the Peace Corps office, in Gabon’s capital Libreville, Bonnie worked independently, using all her creativity to engage the women and children in the small town where she was posted. She made puppets to entertain and teach the kids and taught nutritious cooking to the women.“It was like a play for me. I felt so creative. I had a purpose and felt useful,” Bonnie said.

Read more…

Have you noticed that while some people seem to achieve their goals and live their dreams, others who appear equally talented do not?

In my life working with non-profit and for-profit agencies, as well as college students, I have watched many people advance in their careers and seem fulfilled in their lives, while others are left behind wondering what happened. As I think about the reason for the differences, I remembered something a work colleague once said to me. “Those who succeed have the will to complete what they start.”

So here are my suggestions for how to be someone who completes a project they begin and succeeds!

Read more…

Guest blog by Rachel Prinz

At the end of 2010, in the midst for trying to reframe my life’s work, asking myself if I was actually doing what I REALLY wanted to be doing, I sat down for a couple of weeks and read. I read every book I could get my hands on that dealt with finding and then cultivating your true purpose.  When I read everything the library had and everything I could get them to borrow from other libraries, I sat with it… and I started observing my life as if watching from the outside.

The lost, the found, and the connectors

One of the first things that I realized was that I was surrounded by one of two types of people: I called them “the lost” – people who had no idea what they were doing or why, and in vastly greater numbers in my case… “the found” – people who not only knew what they wanted but were voracious at going after it.

I realized too that I was “a connector” in the modern parlance – I had lots of connected friends and I put them together regularly to help them achieve goals. Wow. That was awesome. But was that all I was here for? Wasn’t I supposed to be DOING something myself too?  I had successfully built a network of “manifestors” but I myself wasn’t one. Nor did I know how to become one. Because, if you ask a manifestor how they became that, most will look at you quizzically. If they can come up with an answer, it is usually something like “I just tried everything until I got good at (a few, or one) and I committed to that with every fiber of my being.”

An opportunity

Then, a dear older architect friend of mine who is often more mentor than friend sent me a link to an award she thought I should apply for – a scholarship named after my best friend Jason Pettigrew, who died several years ago on the eve of his 30^th birthday. She thought that I would be a natural fit for the award, which would pay for the study materials and the exams required for the Architect’s Registration Examination, which besides being prohibitively expensive is also the hardest endeavor an architectural designer can make, taking months if not years of study and 7-9 extremely rigorous tests in everything from structural engineering to architectural design to civil engineering to architecture history.

Not only do I find the test extremely intimidating, but ANYONE finding me worthy of an award in Jason’s name, I thought was completely undeserved. Jason was not only thriving in his practice, but successfully finishing the exams, a leader both in state and national AIA, active in his community AND finishing up seminary when he died. He was one of those rare leaders who made everyone want to come along, made everyone feel empowered and capable, including me. Which is why, when I found out I was going blind, I moved halfway across the country to be near him. If anyone could save me from myself as I grappled with my diagnosis, he could. And he did.

In my mind, I wasn’t worthy of any award in his name. I saw myself as just another architectural designer, of no real note or even purpose. But I wanted to see if I could be worthy of such an award.

My purpose

Then, it all started to come together… I already knew from my time sitting in the silence of “what am I here for” what I was. I was 100% sure that I wanted to be an architectural educator. I LOVE architecture. I love talking about it, and from many perspectives – how light and shadow make us feel comfortable, or tense, and how we can use that tension to make people awake, alert, centered, hopeful… or the reverse.  I love how architecture relates to psychology and art and science. I love the flow of it. How traditionalists and modernists battle for a voice in the vortex of spatial mediocrity we find everywhere around us. I knew my objective. And I had a collection of friends who were good at making things happen. I remembered the advice… “commit to that with every fiber of (my) being.” I didn’t think I could get a job teaching architecture in the academies without some credentials, but a friend gently prodded me one day, saying “So what? You want to teach? Then TEACH.”

Action and response

So I started talking. And writing. I approached anyone with anything to do with anything architectural, asked them how we could share ideas that would connect us in our purposes. I put the ideas out there, for free. Through blogs, through tweets, through Facebook… I shared my knowledge. In the year since I started sharing, I have been invited to speak to community groups, to the Historic Preservation Commission, to the Arts and Culture District, to the state archaeology convention, to 200 non-architects at the design series Pecha Kucha… eventually I even got invited to speak to an audience of 700 at TEDxABQ , which was posted on youtube, then picked up by one of the architecture newsreels and eventually seen by thousands of people. From there I was asked to come to colleges and speak to students of art and historic preservation.  I started collecting new friends from all over the world on Twitter and Facebook, and through sharing our ideas and our ideals freely, we started seeing ways we could work together to achieve real changes in our communities. I was working too, and whenever I could, I would connect the people with a problem with the people with a solution. I was cultivating both my connector and my manifestor, and I didn’t need to be a professor to do it. I was teaming up with great people, bringing architectural education to everyday people, all over the world.

My own unique voice

So this year, the time has come again for the applications for the AIA Jason Pettigrew scholarship. And this year, I might just apply. Because I learned how I could REALLY make a difference, with my own unique voice, and in a powerful and uplifting way. I learned how to go for it even if it made no sense to anyone around me. I didn’t need permission. I just needed to look for opportunity and then be brave enough to try. More often than not, I was actually able to manifest making a difference. I think Jason would have liked that very much. I know I do.

Find out more about Rachel and her work at http://www.archinia.com/. To those whom my life may touch in slight measure, May I give graciously Of what is mine….

Links:  TED http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmkIE0hfVko

Pecha Kucha http://vimeo.com/26635579

Do you ever feel like you are emerging from a fog?  Maybe the fog has been brought on by working too hard, being dominated by someone else’s agenda, or maybe it is just that our bodies and minds experience cycles of clarity and cloudiness.  I am working on embracing the times of cloudiness, as a necessary part of the creative cycle.  However, I really love the times of clarity.

The beginning of a new year can be a great time to raise your eyes up from the day to day and think about what you want for the future.  With every thought, action, and word we are creating a new future for ourselves.  If you have a vision of what that future will be, your unconscious will begin to direct you toward that vision.  If you couple the power of the unconscious with intentional goals, you will begin to move in direction of your dreams.

Here is one possible way to approach the process:

1. Take some time to day dream.  What would you love to have more of in your life? What do you want less of? Who feeds your energy and your creativity, who drains it? If you were looking back on your life, as you were dying, what would you be most proud of that you have done or that you will do?  Make some notes or draw some pictures or cut out pictures from catalogs and magazines to post someplace you can see it.

2. Write or draw your vision. What elements stay with you from your day dreaming? What was most exciting to you? Where do you feel your energy rise and where does it fall?

3.  Identify a time period for action. I like to have one piece of paper for the coming year – 2012, one for the next year – 2013, and one for a point in the future, like five years – 2016. On each page write down the steps you will be taking that year to achieve your goals. Read more…

A correct relationship to your self is primary, for from it flow all possible right relationships with others and the Divine.

Ralph Blum The Book of Runes

Do you respect yourself?  Do you meet your own needs as well as you meet those of your significant other, your children, your boss?  Women often love and nurture those around them, at the expense of their own needs.  As a mother, wife, and employee -I’ve had days where I gave all I had to others and left nothing for myself – no energy, no perspective, and certainly no sense of fun or sense of humor.  Although I thought I was doing the right thing – I wasn’t enjoying my life and I probably wasn’t very pleasant to be around.

One summer, I took a leave of absence from my job and lived alone. I wanted to see who I was, what my body needed, what I liked to eat, how much I needed to sleep – when I wasn’t busy meeting the needs of everyone else.  Many of my guy friends thought that this was a very weird thing to do and told me so.  However, when I described my plan to my girlfriends they said without exception – I wish I could do that or that sounds like heaven.

Turns out I need eight hours of sleep – not the six hours I had been getting.  My body wanted to go to bed at 11 pm and get up between 7 and 8 am.  I figured out that I needed a light breakfast, exercise every day, and time alone.  As I settled into my new life, I began to recover my sense of self – along with my sense of humor, fun, and adventurousness.  I started to write poetry and short stories and I began to dream very vividly. My spiritual self awakened. Read more…

Several years ago, at a time of an important transition – I was looking for a couple of pieces of inexpensive furniture.  At the local art co-op, I found a table with tall, spindly legs painted in delicate purple colors.  The tag on it said Walks Tall Table.  I liked the sound of it!  The name made me feel better.  When I opened the drawer – I saw this message – Live Your Dreams, Love Your Life.

At that moment, I was thinking of leaving my partner.  The relationship had become abusive.  I was afraid of what might happen if I left. But in that moment – looking at that message, I knew that I had to leave and I got the courage and confidence to do so.  The desk and I moved into an apartment and I started a new life.  It was hard and lonely and I was afraid many times, but that step led me toward living my dream of becoming a writer.

Are you facing challenges? What would your life look like if you were living your dreams?

Read more…

Do you have a personal mission statement?

A personal mission statement is a short summary of what you believe and what you hope to accomplish in your life. If you have this kind of statement, you know how powerful it can be – if you have lost your way or are having a hard time prioritizing the demands in your life.

If you don’t have such a statement – perhaps you would like to develop one?  I’ve found that taking time away from regular life – whether it is an hour at a coffee shop or a week-end in the mountains is the best setting for thinking about what is important in your life.  You might do some free writing about what you want to accomplish or try some of the exercises discussed in the blog on Standing on Top of your Life http://www.girlsguidetoswagger.com/?p=878 or some of the others focused on manifesting your dreams.  You might draw or sketch your ideas.

There are many resources available to you, as you begin your thinking.  You can refer to the work done by Stephen Covey in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or his subsequent books.  If you get a calendar system from Covey, there is usually an insert that helps you figure out your personal mission and then develop goals and activities that support it.  Another effective tool is described in the book and workbook for The Path by Laurie Beth Jones.  Meant to be used individually or in a workshop, these tools guide you through thinking and writing that lead to a mission statement.  Another book I love is Life Mapping by Bill Cohen.  In this book, Cohen helps you discover your basic beliefs and goals and turn them into a life map with activities and schedules. Cohen cites a study, in which Yale graduating students were interviewed to determine which had written goals and plans. The same people were interviewed 20 years later.  The three percent of students who had written goals had achieved more professional success than the other 97% combined and also seemed happier.

When I taught at the University of Colorado’s College of Architecture and Planning, we began the semester by looking at our values and using them to help guide our personal mission statements and to establish goals.  For some of the students, it was the first time they had focused on what they really wanted professionally and personally.  We used the information they discovered at the beginning of the semester to guide their research and projects for the rest of the class.  I saw this process have a transformative effect on some of the students.  As they gained clarity, they gained confidence.  Their enthusiasm increased, as did the quality of their work.

How can a personal mission statement help you focus and achieve?  After developing my statement, I began to use it to set yearly goals. I look at it each week, as I make my schedule and appointments.  I prioritize the tasks that are aligned with my mission and those that move me toward my goals.

I developed this mission statement several years ago.  It has guided me to where I am now – living in Taos NM and writing about nature and women and confidence.  You can read the statement below and see if you think I am living my mission.

I believe that humans, acting from selfish motives, have taken a wrong path. On this wrong way, women have lost their confidence and their inner voice. I believe that an inner commitment to serve and a desire to align with the laws of nature is the basis for a better world.

I want to be part of returning to the right path and the healing of nations, which is possible through realignment with the laws of nature and the restoration of the voice of women.

Have a comment or experience to share? Join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GirlsGuideToSwagger.

How long does it take to realize a dream?  Can you remember back to the inspiration – the creative flicker that set you on your current path?  Have you recently had a flash of insight that may become a dream and then a plan and eventually a reality?

In 2002, while on a trip – I was writing in a journal.  I was thinking about my job developing affordable housing and how much I had learned about confidence in the previous ten years.  My first time running a construction site, I was young and fairly inexperienced.  I was constantly tested by the site superintendent.  I finally found a way to be confident.  To see how I found my confidence, you can take a look this short clip on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyhMOLuv-Y and look at Girls Who Swagger and then Swagger at Work on the website.

By 2002, I had moved from developing 35 townhouse units, a childcare and community center to overseeing the development of 27 acres  with more than 300 units of housing, neighborhood businesses, and a park.  This project, known as the Holiday Neighborhood is now a thriving, award- winning project – www.holidayneighborhood.com.  I had the confidence to coordinate seven different developers, multiple architects, bankers and lawyers.  I loved what I was doing and was feeling good about my abilities – but there was something in the back of my mind that kept surfacing.

At first swagger was just a whisper, a note on a page.  Then it was an idea that I began to quietly discuss with friends.  Next, swagger was a thought that I shared with other professional women.  An amazing thing happened – those women began to tell me their stories.  I started to collect the stories and the idea for a book was born.  After building a website and making connections through social media – I saw that swagger was bigger than a story or a collection of stories or a book – it was a part of a growing number of organizations supporting girls and women, working toward gender equality.  These organizations are creating momentum toward social change and the swagger movement is part of that sweeping wave of change.

It is 2011 – nine years since that first creative flicker.  In the picture above, I am back where I worked developing affordable housing – but this time, I am talking about swagger!  Amazing how life turns back on itself, spiraling and changing, crossing back and moving on.

What is your creative dream?  How will you achieve it?

Note:  photo by Liz Wolfert

Dear Friends – due to an overwhelming number of Spam comments, we will be closing the blog to comments for now.  To post a comment, please join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GirlsGuideToSwagger. Thanks, Cindy

Los sueños primero parecen imposibles, después probables, después inevitables, un dicho por la  Gallery doorway –  Taos, NM

Tú piensas que es posible manifestar tus sueños? Tu propósitos y tus sueños, como los puedes hacer realidad? Como moverse desde lo imposible, lo probable hasta lo inevitable?

Hay una teoría que dice que una vez tú te propones un sueño o una meta, una tensión se crea entre donde tú te encuentras y entre a dónde quieres llegar. Laurie Beth Jones llama esto “foto dentro de una foto” como la pantalla de televisión.

Tu vida en este momento es la foto principal pero siempre esta una pequeña ventana abierta que nos muestra nuestro sueños, porque nosotros siempre estamos conscientes de nuestras metas, y tu consiente e inconsciente te mueve hacia tu metas. Read more…