My favorite mentor Dianne Connley told me years ago that when you have a calling, a sense that you're meant to do/be something greater in your life-- to listen. She'd say, "If you feel called, someone or something is doing the calling. Listen. Listen to the "yoo-hoo" of the call then act on that calling. You cannot go wrong".

Sometimes it is easier to answer the call than to ignore it. Just this week while coaching a client, her experience of taking a BIG LEAP was crystal clear. Hard, yes but super clear.

She commented that if we had not been coaching for so long that she'd probably still sit and stew, and continue to "take crap" and "manipulation". This week she acknowledged she stood up to her power. Something pierced the veil and that something was her. So proud!!

She stood up bravely for her values, her creative ideas and into her strength. "I don't think I'd be as bold, brave and confident without having coached with you", she said. "I feel I've truly found my voice, my creativity and a sense of peace. I'm empowered to act upon my calling because you helped me listen as well as speak. I am so grateful for you and coaching, Annelies. Thank you."

This true client story is one of several this week that tell a similar story. Leaders who learn to lean into their power, creativity and voice more fully. Their transformation expands across their personal and professional realms.

They truly become better people, managers and leaders because they say yes to coaching and most importantly "yes" to themselves.

Just like you, I too wonder what tomorrow will bring. I don't have all the answers however, I do have a few useful tools in my heart's pocket to help you better navigate change.

I'd love to support you in your journey. Will you join me?

• Let's transform re"tire"ment to re-fire and re-wire!
• Let's gently tend hidden grief associated with change.
• Let's nurture ideas to better define your legacy and leadership.
• Let's listen closely for your life purpose.
• Let's emerge and figure out what's next.

Speaking of saying yes... If you are like me, you are fully embracing social events again post covid. Maybe you're a bit tired from all the buzz again or simply not ready to emerge with grand finesse. Yesterday I had three events in one day plus a funeral and travel back from a brief vacay. Although life's been full and somewhat back in full-swing, I am practicing a good bit of "No" too. My boundaries are firm to let in what feeds and fuels, and keep out what depletes. How are your boundaries?

In general, I shun from screens and prefer long old school phone calls to texts any day. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's my hunger for true value on my deeply human path. I love a good dinner party or a walk and talk along the greenway. How do you connect nowadays?

I'd love to hear how you are emerging, to learn about how you are tending and what things you're choosing to let go. Here for you as you need.

Love and light, Annelies

PS. I'll leave you with this thoughtful poem by Naomi Shihab Nye titled "Kindness". Take what's useful.

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.