Greetings from the the Tulsa airport. I have never written a blog post so quickly, but I want to capture this before I get back on a plane headed for Minneapolis. This summer has found me extremely busy with 4-H work and doing a few consulting gigs on the side, hence why I am in Tulsa. That means that book writing has taken a back seat. I’ve actually felt bad for not making more progress on the book, but I just haven’t found the inspiration to write and I don’t yet know what format of book I want to write. Like my mentors have told me, “it is all there. It just might need to be reformatted.”
So, I find myself speaking at the HR conference in Tulsa and I attended some of the workshops. The last one I attended was on dealing with employees in distress. I was an employee in distress for over 2.5 years so I was curious to hear what they would be talking about.
I related with a lot of what they were saying and it got me thinking about the process of coming through it all. At the same time, I am preparing for my first keynote address talking about my assault and being a victorious survivor. Being in that workshop brought up all the ‘feels’ and instead of crying, I decided to start writing and blocking out my keynote that is in 2 weeks. I was riding in my Uber to the airport when it came to me.
Little Victories
This is the title of my keynote and I think my book as well. Start from the beginning about my assault when life brought me to my knees and go through the struggle, pain and victory that I accomplished. Getting to this victorious survivor point did not happen quickly and there were many times when I didn’t think I would get through the darkness, but little by little I made it to another day. A little victory here. A little victory there. Add them up and my goal of overcoming became more tangible.
You guys!! I am so excited about this! I’m going to be writing on my flight back and dive right back into this book and my keynote…even though I have a 4-H livestock auction and the state fair coming up in the next 2 weeks. It is all good and when inspiration strikes, you need to take it.
The cool thing too is that one of my favorite artists, Matt Nathanson, wrote a song called Little Victories awhile back and I have always loved it. When I saw him perform it live in Minneapolis about 6 years ago I distinctly remember being in tears listening to it for no particular reason. I think that reason is because somehow I knew that I would be facing the struggle of my life and this song foretold it.
So, stay tuned for more speaking and writing about Little Victories.
Thanks Matt Nathanson for speaking directly to my soul over 6 years ago at the Cabooze in Minneapolis with this song:
Stop This World 