Articles/Blog

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July. This weekend, take time to celebrate the people in your life who have served or are serving our country. The freedom we all have in our country contributes to our happiness and well-being. I am so grateful for the freedom that we are blessed with. I often think of my family…

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Leading by Fergi – Lesson #5

Passion and Performance I was commenting to a friend during agility class this week about her border collie’s amazing drive when he gets in the ring. When he’s running a course, his head is down, he barks like crazy, and he flies over the jumps so fast one wonders if he even sees them there…

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Everything you need to build resilient relationships. . .

. . . you learned in kindergarten! I love the phrase “common sense is not always common practice.” It is so true! I believe if we thought logically about how we would like to act or show up in our relationships, our actions and interactions would be different. Our relationships would be positively impacted by those logical beliefs…

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Does being grateful necessarily mean being satisfied?

I work with several clients who, immediately after discussing an area of their lives they feel is somehow lacking, delve right into all the things they are grateful for – healthy children, their job, etc. It’s almost as if they feel guilty for wanting more, when in fact it was that very “wanting” which brought…

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Integration and Focus, Not Balance

We hear more and more about balance and the balanced life these days. But be careful – this is an illusion, a trap, something that will have you frustrated most of the time. And balance may not even be what we’re seeking. Much of the problem stems from our definition of balance and what we…

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Leading by Fergi – Lesson #4: What the Heck Are You Saying?!

You might think that after 11 years of agility training, seven of them with Fergi, we’d be masters of the sport, covered in ribbons and accolades, our picture on the cover of Clean Run magazine (a publication dedicated to the sport of dog agility), but that’s not how it works. At every class we learn…

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Connectedness in your relationships

Recently I have been intrigued with the concept of connectedness. The online definition intrigued me further:united, joined, or linked. joined together in sequence; linked coherently: connected ideas. We are all connected in our relationships and interactions. Everything we do – every action or reaction – has an effect on all the people around us, even…

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Leading by Fergi – Lesson #3: When Will We Get There?

Mondays are agility training night for Fergi and me. Agility is a sport that requires a dog and his handler to negotiate an obstacle course, racing against a clock and completing the obstacles correctly and in the designated order. It’s funny; we call it “dog training,” but it’s primarily “people training.” Classes are intended to…

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Finish

What is it about finishing? I find myself asking that question a lot lately as my son finishes his junior year of high school. While it is not always easy to get started, it seems that many people have even more trouble finishing. Many of us are in a hurry to leave whatever we’re doing…

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Leading by Fergi – Lesson #2: Let me fail, I will succeed. Just trust me.

In the agility world, a significant amount of training time is spent on “handling.” Handling includes hand signals, body positioning, or other moves I use to show Fergi where we are going on the obstacle course; there is a variety of such signals, positioning and moves that all mean different things. We recently learned a…

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