As I reflect on our time spent in Southside Virginia during our last VALOR seminar, I am reminded of our training on crucial conversations. A crucial conversation can be one that is difficult, challenging, and/or important. These types of conversations occur in every part of our daily lives. In many cases, it is a conversation… Continue reading Crucial Conversations
I’ve spent my career as a marketing and communications professional, crafting and delivering messages both on paper and in front of the camera. Being interviewed has been part of my job for more than 25 years (don’t do the math please!), but I’ve never been so ill at ease talking into a mike than I… Continue reading Interviewing 101–Nailing the Message
Yes, it is true--when you decide to make your passion your "job" you don't work another day in life! There are great rewards to entrepreneurship: in control of your time, meeting influential people, traveling to different places, being given a platform to share your talents. It does seem that entrepreneurs "don't work...have it easy...happy-go-lucky." This is an… Continue reading The Entrepreneur’s Journey
Virginia, roughly shaped like a triangle (per my fantastic drawing above), is home to two distinct population curves. The more common one, called the Golden Crescent, is home to approximately 6.1 million people, and if it were a state, it would be second in the nation for college degrees, wealth, etc. It stretches from the… Continue reading I Expect MORE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DdR--F21Vk The ecological thriller, based upon the television series of the same name, explores the deep philosophical questions about how does life on the mainland impact coastal islands. Do we take for granted the environment we live in? Should our actions be taken with a thought to those who live offshore? Should we make the… Continue reading It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel peckish.
Our recent experience in the Shenandoah Valley was certainly an eye opener for me. I grew up a "farmer's daughter" in Loudoun County. I drove tractors, rode in the combine with my Dad, made hay, brought in straw, bush hogged fields and helped to fix fence, but I never had the opportunity to go inside… Continue reading View from the “Farmers Daughter”
I’m always captivated by a good story. I think that most of us are; when you hear humor, or details, or just plain emotion, you connect with the storyteller at a deeper level. Let’s take this to a deeper level. I meet you. You meet me. I tell you that I’m from Virginia, have 2… Continue reading A Great Story
