One would never know by looking at them that these Alice in Wonderland-sized papier-mâché fruit carry a powerful story with them about the COURAGE to CHANGE. The story starts a very long time ago.
I had seen some papier-mâché fruit in a very upscale French country home shop in San Francisco years ago. What I remember most was really liking them and being totally stunned that each piece cost over $200. Imagine that? Funny, I never forgot them for reasons I can't explain.
Fast forward...The Back Story
This year, my business partner and BFF and I are celebrating amazingly our 20th year in business. Sally and I have been friends since high school. What we didn't imagine at the time was that a bold leap of FAITH so many years ago would lead to this celebration. Back then, we were two women going through rough divorces. We remember making a very conscious decision: To limit our time in court rooms and instead to focus on healing ourselves through achievement.
We started a business no one believed would work. Sally was an accomplished graphic artist/fine artist with a 12-year business and I had a successful leadership career with IBM backing me. We put this odd pairing of skills together, which gave us a little specialty --- independently, we were pretty good, but when we worked together, we could do extraordinary things neither of us could do alone. A series of small miracles followed and we landed a few great customers. We've always known that God blessed our leaps of Faith at every turn. He provided everything we needed...a special kind of abundance we never imagined would be possible.
I know, I know --- what does this have to do with the Alice in Wonderland-sized papier-mâché fruit? Well, to commemorate our 20th year, we decided to CLEAR OUT and CLEAN OUT our business stuff. This required huge amounts of shredding of early business papers --- imagine gigantic bags full of early courage. It was fun to reflect on all the hard work we had done in those trailblazing days, years ago.
Dreams Do Come TRUE...
After hearing me tell the story of the upscale French papier-mâché fruit probably dozens of times over the years, Sally took some of the shredded paper from our early work and made me my very own set of fruit. It is of course, far bigger and better. Like Alice in Wonderland, their size reflects our growth --- --- and they permanently hold the story of having the COURAGE to CHANGE our lives and start a business no else believed in.
How about you?
What EARLY COURAGE can you draw upon to celebrate and build a new sense of momentum in your life and work? Achievement is a personal and reflective moment in time and always a place for us to learn something real and true about ourselves. In my book, I wrote this about the experience:
"Arriving at the milestone of achievement—even a seemingly small one—has its momentary parallels to standing on top of the mountain that took you to a new pinnacle of personal attainment. There is no band playing. It’s just you—often exhausted from the climb, perhaps banged up a bit from slipping on the rocks a few times, but elated as you take the magnificent view and yelp inside, “Yes!” If you know this moment, feel blessed..."
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, BEGIN IT!
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
-- Goethe
Warm regards,
Debbe
Debbe Kennedy
founder, Global Dialogue Center
home of Women in the Lead
author, Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
** 2010 Axiom Business Book Award Winner**
Bronze - Human Resources and Employee Training
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