by Heather Plett | Jan 24, 2011 | Leadership
When I was in the dreaming stages of this website, I was a little reluctant to use the word “leadership” in the title. Many of my readers and the readers I want to attract (and especially many women, I might add), would deny that they have any leadership qualities or that what they do on a daily basis has anything to do with leadership.
In the end, after much deliberation, it was exactly because of that gap that I decided to use the word. Part of my purpose in writing this blog is to let you know that, even if you never leave your home, never work as anyone’s boss, only work alone in a basement studio, or feel like the only thing you do all day is wipe snotty noses, you can be a leader. ALL of us can be leaders – at the boardroom table or kitchen table or art table or card table or… in the woods where there’s no table at all.
A leader is anyone who dares to step forward with even a small amount of courage to challenge the status quo, stand up for another person, change what needs to be changed, encourage those who need to be encouraged, make space for those who are hurting, invest in another person, seek excellence in your art, or simply make the world a better place for at least one person.
You are a leader if you are:
– a mother who teaches her children to be true to themselves
– a teacher who creates a safe place for students to learn
– a writer who puts her best work forward, despite the risk of failure
– a dancer who believes dance can change the world for those who dance and those who watch
– a soldier who sacrifices personal comfort to protect people in conflict
– a lawyer who strives for justice
– a child who dares to befriend the classmate who is different
– an entrepreneur who believes he has giftedness worth sharing
– a teenager who follows her own path despite peer pressure to conform to others’ expectations
– a development worker who leaves his comfortable home to live with marginalized people in a remote area
– a student who ignores the easy route and follows her interests into a course of study
– an explorer who forges new paths into unknown territory
– a man, woman, or child who dares to be authentic
– an artist who creates art that emerges from her heart rather than simply to suit the market
– a visionary who dares to stand alone
– an environmentalist committed to saving just one tree
– a poet who trusts words to shape the future
Don’t wait for someone to tell you that you are a leader. Take up the mantle, place it gently on your shoulders (it’s not as heavy as you think) and go forward, changing the world one small commitment (or even just one snotty nose) at a time.
Do it now. For all of us.
by Heather Plett | Jan 22, 2011 | Community, Friendship, Joy
Because my word for the year is joy, I’m keeping a joy journal, and I’ll be sharing some of that joy on this blog. Here’s hoping joy is contagious and you catch a little piece of it.
The painting above brought me joy today. It’s not about the finished product (I’m not even sure I like it that much, though it’s growing on me), but rather about the process. I started it last night at my painting class, and then spent this afternoon happily lost in a world of colours and patterns. Joy, joy, JOY!
But to be honest, when I think about joy this week, it’s all about the people. My “joy people”.
A few months ago, when I was moaning about how I didn’t like networking and I wasn’t sure how I’d build a clientele for my business, my straight-shooting friend Desiree, who’s way smarter about some things than I am, said “Girl, you’ve gotta stop thinking about it as NETWORKING. Instead you’ve gotta think about how you’re going to attract your JOY PEOPLE – the people you want to be connected with. The people whose business you want because you love what they stand for.”
She was right, of course. It’s about my joy people. And let me tell you, this past week I seem to have attracted a lot of them! Not that I have a bunch more clients, but I DO have lots of good people who want to help me or work with me in some way or another, or just hang out and be my friend. Plus a few who want to hire me! It’s been pretty darn amazing.
Here’s a little taste of my joy:
– My friend Jo-Anne who sat with me over chai lattes and listened to me talk about my book, and loved it like she would if it were a real live baby, and then helped me see some wisdom that I’d been missing.
– My friend Michele who came to speak to my class last week about the amazing work she’s doing and reminded me of why I’m so fond of her.
– My friend Desiree who gives me the straight goods in such a loving and humorous way and helps me see my path. Last week she said “You don’t really want to be a consultant, you want to write a book. So write the damn book already!” Okay, I’ve been told.
– My friend Susan who has been such a great support in the last few years as we both went a little deeper in our leadership journeys, and who believes in my crazy dreams.
– A few Twitter and Facebook friends who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to encourage me and share wisdom with me.
– My talented designer friend Segun who offered to do some work for me AND accepted a last minute invitation to be a guest speaker in my class. (Which he ROCKED, by the way!)
– A client who hired me to be her story coach and then was so excited about my feedback that it made me want to help more cool people with their writing projects.
– A few online friends who’ve become in-person friends who sent me lovely affirming/connecting emails.
– The powerful women in my circle of practice who made last week’s conference call such a warm, amazing experience.
– The people in my journal club who challenge me to ask deep questions and think deep thoughts.
– A favourite author
who is just so kind and gracious and responsive to emails.
– My students who challenge me and affirm me and let me know that they appreciate my teaching efforts. AND the administration who trusts me enough to hire me for a few more teaching opportunities!
– My art teacher at Forum Art Studio who has such a genuine spirit and wonderful humanity about him, I can’t help but feel a lovely sense of trust in his guidance.
– All of the people who have commented, emailed, tweeted, etc. to say “You really MUST write that book! We WANT it and it needs to be out in the world!” You’re all amazing. Yes YOU.
– A bunch of people (too many to name) who are contributing to an exciting little project that I will be revealing in a few weeks.
That’s a lot of people! I can hardly tell you how blessed I’m feeling.
How about you? Who are your joy people?
And if you’re wondering “HOW do I attract my joy people?”, it’s pretty simple – just be yourself. Be authentic and the people who value what you stand for will be drawn to you.
Oh… and there’s one other thing… start saying your dreams out loud. Let people know what you want to do and how you want to serve the world. It’s been amazing how people have been responding when I’m honest enough to admit what’s in my heart of hearts.
To paraphrase a certain movie, “if you speak it, they will come.”
by Heather Plett | Jan 18, 2011 | Leadership, Wisdom
the centre of the circle
Sometimes, it’s nice to have your paradigms shifted.
I have a “healthy” distrust of conference calls. In my working life, I saw them as necessary evils, and in my last job, I tried for years to make them work with my national staff. But no matter what new ideas or formats I brought into them, I almost always walked away feeling discouraged. It seemed nearly impossible to have meaningful conversations with people spread across the country when some of them didn’t engage and others chose to engage in less-than-healthy ways. They got a little better when I stepped out of the chair position and circulated the responsibility, but still they were seriously lacking. The dysfunctions of our team seemed most apparent when we gathered on the phone and didn’t have the benefit of non-verbal communication.
And so it was that when the organizers of the circle/story retreat I was at in October asked if people wanted to hold a conference call to explore the extension of our community of practice, I was skeptical. “Can anything good come out of a conference call?” I wondered.
At the same time, I was eager to reconnect with the amazing women I’d spent four days with at the side of a lake. There’d been such incredible energy around our circle that I was willing to try anything that might continue to extend that into my life.
The call was on Sunday, and… well, let’s just say that my paradigm was significantly shifted. It worked! Beautifully! The whole time I was on the call, I felt held in the warm embrace of this circle of women. One person suggested we open our photos from our gathering time, and so I did, scrolling through while I listened and being reminded of their faces and what they’d come to mean to me.
It was so beautiful and meaningful in fact, that the next morning, just before I emerged from sleep, I had a dream in which each of these women offered me a little gift of advice, wisdom, or story.
Why did it work? It worked because we had been intentional about meeting in circle during those four days in October.
What does it mean to meet in circle? It’s a beautiful, simple concept that is as old as human communication. Long before anyone dreamed of conference calls connecting us across the miles, our ancestors gathered around fires in the evening to share stories of the challenges and triumphs of their lives.
Here are some of the elements we committed to in circle:
– we are intentional about the shape in which we meet – each person can see each other person’s face and there is no heirarchy or power imbalance
– we are all leaders and all take responsibility for holding the rim of the circle
– we honour the space by adhering to some simple rituals
– we pass a talking piece around the circle and only the person who holds it has the authority to speak
– we use a bell to ring us into and out of the circle, thereby clearly demarcating it from other conversations and experiences
– the centre of the circle is like the hub of a wheel – it holds objects which symbolize the intentions of those around the circle
– we are intentionally inclusive, and honour each other’s contribution to the circle
– we speak into the centre of the circle, and trust that the circle will hold whatever is shared
– we build trust by deeply listening to each other’s stories
Because we had worked hard at establishing this circle when we were together, we were able to transfer the elements of it onto our conference call. Several of us lit candles, one person let her voice function as the talking piece, passing it back and forth around the circle, a bell was used to ring us in and out or to mark a pause when we just need to catch our breath, and we all showed up prepared to honour and trust each other.
For more on the circle and how you can use it in the groups you lead or participate in, read The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair
by Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea. (Note: Christina was our teacher when we met in Ontario in October.)
One of my commitments, coming out of this learning, is that I want to host circle conversations. I think they have the power to transform and I want to be a catalyst for that transformation. Talk to me if you have some ideas of how I can serve your group by hosting such a conversation.
by Heather Plett | Jan 15, 2011 | Spirituality, writing
This morning there were butterflies in my bathtub. Their presence was all the assurance I needed that I am writing the book I’m supposed to be writing.
Let me explain…
The book I’m writing is about spiritual transformation. More specifically, it’s about how the experience of giving birth to my stillborn son Matthew brought about my own spiritual transformation.
But what does that have to do with butterflies, you ask? Well, there’s the obvious correlation between butterfly metamorphosis and spiritual transformation, but there’s more. Much more.
In the weeks before Matthew was born, I was in the hospital trying to prolong my pregnancy so that he’d have a greater chance of surviving. During that hospital stay, my friend Stephanie would often visit, and on one of her visits, she told me about a story she’d read in which butterflies had helped a young woman cope with the death of her father. After he died, butterflies always reminded her of her dad.
About two weeks into my stay, I had a very strange experience that has taken me ten years to process (and that I will probably keep processing for many years to come). Though the doctors later referred to it as psychosis, probably brought on by the steroids they were injecting me with (I did a lot of really crazy things for a 24 hour period), it was clear to me that there was a very spiritual element to what was going on. I won’t tell you everything right now (you’ll have to read the book for that!), but suffice it to say that it was scary and transformational and – in a strange way – very beautiful. It was that experience that really helped prepare me for my son’s death a week later.
When I finally emerged from whatever place my mind had gone, a nurse walked into my room holding something. “Someone must have left this outside your door,” she said. It was the butterfly story that Stephanie had mentioned, and clipped to it was a small butterfly clip. Stephanie must have visited me that day, but nobody was allowed into my room, so she’d left it at the door. I wore that butterfly clip for the remainder of my hospital stay.
In the next few days, butterflies started showing up everywhere, including one that managed to fly up to my fifth floor hospital window. After Matthew died, they kept showing up, whenever I needed a reminder of his presence. Most memorably, the following Mother’s Day, we were eating lunch, when a surprisingly tame butterfly joined us and started landing on people’s heads around the table. I think it was my mother-in-law who first said “It’s Matthew.”
So I shouldn’t have been too surprised when butterflies showed up last night.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon talking with my friend Jo-Anne about the book and about my spiritual/psychotic experience (I still have a hard time knowing how to refer to it), and she said “I have a book 
you HAVE to read.” She gave it to me and I proceeded to read the whole thing before going to bed. It’s written by a doctor who’s done a lot of research on near death and pre-death experiences, and many of the experiences resonated with what I experienced. I went to sleep with my brain a-buzz, knowing that my conversation with Jo-Anne had been serendipitous and that there was much to learn from all that I was processing.
Then, this morning… butterflies. In the bathtub.
My friend Jayne had given me a butterfly mobile when Maddy was born, eight years ago. Since then, it has hung in the room that was Maddy’s and is now Julie’s. Last night, for no particular reason, Julie took it down from the ceiling. It was covered in dust, and she didn’t know what to do with it, so she put it in the bathtub.
This morning, after a brief but synchronistic and exciting Twitter conversation with two friends who affirmed my decision to write the book, I went to take a bath. And there were the butterflies. At first I was just puzzled by how an odd thing like that had ended up in the bathtub. But then I realized it was BUTTERFLIES! Of course!
I think Matthew wants me to write this book!
(The butterflies are now hanging in my studio, under the light. A daily reminder of what I’m supposed to do.)
by Heather Plett | Jan 14, 2011 | Uncategorized
It’s not Thursday, but here are thirteen random things none-the-less…
- In case you haven’t seen it on Facebook or Twitter, I now have short and sassy red hair. Just reflecting my new attitude! Smile. (Maybe I’ll add “sassy” to my word for the year. What do you think? It goes well with “joy”!)
- I’m writing a book! Really truly! It’s happening and the words are flowing and I’m having so much fun. Chapter three is beginning to emerge this afternoon. (It may mean, however, that you won’t see a lot of profound writing around this little ol’ blog for awhile. Bear with me.)
- I’m also working on a little collaborative e-book that’s shaping up to be a lovely piece of work and I can’t wait to share it with you. In a few weeks.
- AND I’m working as a story coach for two people writing their own books, and I’m loving that too. It’s a line of work I didn’t think I’d get into, but I’m enjoying it so much I’d be happy to take on new clients. Know of anyone who could use my wisdom? Send them here for more info.
- Martyn Joseph is singing one of my favourite tunes to me right now and I am in love. “In the veil of circumstance, waiting for grace.” Mmmm… lovely.
- I ran today, even though I was so tired I wanted to crawl back into bed. More than 4 miles – the furthest ever! Do you think I can make it to 13 miles by June for the half-marathon?
- I started taking a new art class. Acrylics this time. At Forum Art Institute. I am LOVIN’ the vibe at that place. Don’t know why I didn’t go there sooner.
- Speaking of classes, it looks like I’ll be taking on more of them at the university. Classes that actually sound even MORE enjoyable than the one I’m teaching, if that’s possible. It seems my students raved enough about me to the administration that they want me back for more. Grin.
- On the flip side, for the second time since I started this self-employment thing, it looks like a government contract is being put on indefinite hold. Do you think perhaps I’m not meant to go back to government work? (This one may still pan out – just not right away.)
- Now Bruce Cockburn is singing “come all you stumblers who believe love rules, stand up and let it shine” and I’m lovin’ that too.
- I am becoming rather addicted to kalamata olives.
- An hour from now, I get to hang out with a good friend over chai lattes. A happy thing to do on a Friday afternoon.
- Olives, writing, teaching, coaching, running, red sassy hair, good music, good friends… it all adds up to a pretty contented version of me.
When I was in the dreaming stages of this website, I was a little reluctant to use the word “leadership” in the title. Many of my readers and the readers I want to attract (and especially many women, I might add), would deny that they have any leadership qualities or that what they do on a daily basis has anything to do with leadership.
