I see you there, with your screwed-up face and your well-coiffed hair and your impatient gesture each time someone in the line in front of you dares to order one more thing. I was much like you for many years, and once in a while, I see your eyes looking back at mine from the mirror. May I remember that Kindness is Never Wasted. I hope you learn this, too, my Lady.

The theme of my life for the last several months has been about becoming brave. My life has become less about protecting myself, and more about how my life can bless others. Sometimes, the things I have done have cost me. But for the most part, they have helped my heart and my courage to grow. Here are some lessons I've learned on the way.

Patience is what happens when we are presented with opportunity. Because no opportunity worth having ever comes easily.

Sometimes it is easier said than done to be gentle on yourself. Use this wallpaper as a reminder. Happy Friday.

I know that sunflowers think their job is to propagate their species by creating seeds. But today? It was to teach me that even when we've been hammered by life, and everything seems wretched, and we are broken all over the ground, we can still be beautiful.

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what the sunflowers do." Helen Keller

There is no perfect time, condition, or situation to pursue your dream. Conversely, if you aren't making progress, it isn't because of external circumstances. Yes, these can put road blocks in your way. But if your dream is something you intend to do, no matter what, you will find a way around them.

Bitter or better? We can choose how we heal from loss. It's all in what we focus on.

Stories matter. But stories like this--that show real humans being brave and loving and compassionate--they are what matter most.

"Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down." - Kobi Yamada

The story of how I got started in business, and the reasons behind my current branding choices.

Are you trapped in the tarry black hole of dwelling on loss? Are you jumping trains trying to hide from it? Or are you figuring out how to keep moving forward with loss as your travelling companion? How to avoid a train wreck on your road to healing, and your dreams.

Obstacles will always be there, right in front of everything you want to achieve or do, from painting a room to building a multi-national company. At the beginning, when there are the most obstacles between you and your goal, it is tempting to focus on those and decide that the end result just isn't worth the effort.

When everything extraneous has been stripped from your life by a loss, and you are left naked and broken, sometimes just getting your pants on in the morning is a big deal. But you look for those moments that you see progress, too. Moving forward, whether in small steps, or giant leaps--in the end, that's the only thing I can really ask of myself.

As a reader, I always thought that the ending was the goal. And it is. But it never occurred to me that it was the well-written middle that actually got me there as inevitably as a cart on a roller coaster track.

If only life had someone writing me out of my "swampy middles."

I am a strong believer in being the best person you can be. Not in some humanist, "you-aren't-living-unless-you-achieve-your-full-potential" way. But in an "I'm-grateful-for-the-person-I-am" way.

Are you grateful for the talents you have?