Every Sunday, I get December 2009 Quest Maker’s Sandy Dempsey’s The Dreaming Café’s e- newsletter. In a recent issue, Sandy recommended a book on learning how to watercolor.

That made me jump up and go hunting for a favorite sketching/watercoloring book of mine, Sketchbooking: How to create a delightful journal of your travels at home or abroad by Barbara M. Stecher. And I got nostalgic for Barbara, who had moved to Maryland from Massachusetts. We’d lost touch after her move.

I’d met Barbara when I invited her to give a talk on her book at a local store. She inspired me – someone who believes she couldn’t draw – to take her sketchbooking class. I discovered I could and enjoyed  sketchbooking on my travels. Then the sketchbooks got moved and out of sight out mind I didn’t pick them up for several years. On the spur of the moment, I decided to call her, fulfilling my coupon (see earlier post). We connected and had a lovely chat by email and then by phone.

After we rekindled our friendship, I unearthed my sketchbook journals and paint kit to keep them close at hand. Another coupon to add the the Body, Mind, Soul, Spirit and Outrageous Vase!

While I was on retreat in mid-Janaury, one of the books I read was A Weekend to Change Your Life by Joan Anderson. I came across an exercise she calls couponing.

“In order to make ourselves whole, we must make time for our souls, spirits, bodies and mind. Make yourselve a set of coupons. Label them soul, spirit, body, mind. What are some of the things you could do each week that would enliven your soul, spirit, body, mind? Write one answer on each coupon.

Keep the coupons handy and attempt to use one in each category once a week. . . .Gradually you will get used to pleasing yourself.”

So I got to work. I chose one of my favorite vases, found brightly colored paper and created coupons, adding one category Outrageous / silly / spontaneous / fun / sparkly.

In early February I began pulling out coupons. Here’s what I pulled from the vase this first week:

Mind: Read a book that challenges you. No mysteries, no frothy sassy novels. Instead I’m in the middle of reading Paris from the Ground Up by James H.S. McGregor, a sweeping history of Paris from ancient Gaul to the present.

Body: Give myself a manicure. Not something I do very often, however, I set aside an hour to treat my nails with tender loving care and paint them Love Her Madly red.

Spirit: Play at full blast AND sing along to “Sometimes You Bust Out Later On” composed and recorded by March 2009 Quest Maker Louise Grasmere. I think of it as the Your Next Quest anthem. It energized my spirit and had me smiling all day.

Soul: Call Nancy, my kindred spirit, for an hour-long chat. That was kind of cheating as we do this every week. Except, it is soul nourishing to have a freewheeling conversation on the big and little issues of life.

Spontaneous: Invite someone to dinner on the spur of the moment. Well, the thing is sometimes the invited can’t spur in the moment. I regrouped. Instead I got in touch with a friend I had lost touch with when she moved out of state. One rekindled friendship!

Kathleen Bohn

I first learned of Kathleen when one of my mentors, Valerie Young of Changing Course sent an email with this subject line: “Someone for you to interview.” Included was a link to the Austin Civic Orchestra’s website where I saw this picture along with: “And the donkeys brayed, ‘Bravo!’ Kathleen Bohn, winner of the Austin Civic Orchestra’s Member Concerto Competition, is known to serenade her donkeys and her neighbors on her ranch…” Valerie was right; I did want to hear about her quest!

Kathleen knew she wanted to retire early from her high-powered job in high tech. In her 40’s, she started to plan ahead. By her early 50’s, she had reconnected with her passion – playing the clarinet – and had moved from the city to a ranch in Dripping Springs located in Texas Hill Country. Last year, when the company she worked for was purchased, she – along with 30,000 others – was laid off. Early retirement had come to her and she was more than ready to broaden the things she loves in her life.

Meet Kathleen Bohn.

Printed with permission http://www.sxc.hu/profile/clintonix

On this the first day of the new year, I’ve chosen to live the day as I envision the year unfolding. Just as a baby gosling imprints on the very first creature it sees upon emerging from its shell, I am imprinting the year with deeds and thoughts and actions and feelings to carry me forward on my quest. Today will be my vision board in action. Writing. Walking. Connecting. Learning. Growing. Being in the moment.

The day begins with walking. I know how much my pup Lily Lu loves a good ramble, most especially when it’s cold and there’s powdery snow on the ground. It means unfettered running, snuffling and making puppy angels as she ecstatically wriggles her back into the snow with all four legs waving in the air. With weather like that, today called for a long morning’s walk along the Mystic River.

As we crossed the road to reach the river, I drank in the scene. Tree branches fringed with snow feathering a dove grey sky. Black rippling water, reflecting the browns and greys and startling white. A pair of swans, then four more swans glided on the water’s in a way I’d never seen before. Their wings were partially unfurled, they were the Swan Boats in the Boston Garden. My heart ached with joy and I laughed. “Six swans a’ swimming!” Where was the seventh to make the carol come true? Seeing sideways, I caught another blur of white. Off to the left was a solitary swan. I had my seven!

I was torn. I wanted to walk the 10 minutes home to get a camera, even turning to head back across the field.

I stopped and I remembered when I lost a breaching whale’s magnificence because I chose the camera’s view finder over the moment before me.

I turned back to the river and the swans.

Suddenly one of the swans stood upright and propelled him (her?) self through the water towards another swan, chasing it away from that patch. Then two other swans began to beat their wings and lifted off the water. Flying low in the sky, they glided to a smooth landing a bit further down.

For some reason, I looked up and spotted my first ever bald eagle soaring overhead. I knew bald eagles nested further down the river, and try as I might; I’d never caught sight of one. Until today.

All around me, signs for this new year were flying, soaring, gliding. Signs that had I turned away from this moment, I would have missed.

I surrendered to being right where I was in all of my senses, with all of my being. I reveled in it with abandon just like Lil revels in the snow. Slowly I walked along the river’s edge, at times walking backwards. The river’s gift to me?

Another pair of swans taking flight and winging around the river’s bend. The sound of their wings making the air thrumb. An eighth swan calling in a raspy trill. A ninth swam swimming towards me from under an arched bridge. Two white sided ducks with black heads (ring-necked duck? greater or lesser scaups?), a heron coursing across the sky.

This walk with its nine swans  a’ swimming, one eagle soaring, two ducks to identify and one heron coursing embodies the theme I’ll carry into the new year—one of soaring, of being in the moment.

In a survey I recently sent to subscribers of my free monthly e-newsletter Your Next Quest Chronicles, one question in particular generated the most comments:

“When you think about pursuing your own quest, what is your biggest challenge?”

Would you be surprised to learn the biggest challenge for most women was a toss up between money and time?

Money to finance a business. Money to afford workshops and classes. Making money from doing what they love.

And time to devote to one’s quest. Some of them are raising children or are going to school or have one or more very demanding jobs or even have parents to take care of. For others, it’s all of the above and more! Time to follow their own quest is a constant challenge that they struggle with and which seems to fall to the bottom of the pile more often than not.

For others the challenge is grappling with the huge gap between where they are now and their ultimate goal. “How do you start without knowing all the steps to get to the finish line?” A lack of self-confidence and fear of the unknown before setting out on their journey test other readers’ resolve.

What about you? What’s the biggest challenge you face in following your own quest?

“Faith and doubt both are needed -  not as antagonists, but working side by side – to take us around the unknown curve.”

-Lillian Smith

The unknown curve is ahead of all of us on the quest to fulfill our dreams, isn’t it? Lillian Smith perfectly captures what we all face when we leap. We need to have faith, deep and abiding faith, in ourselves that we can accomplish what we set out to do. I agree that faith is tempered by doubt that we have what we need to make it happen. We have a choice. We can let doubt paralyze us. Or we can let it lead us to the right people or resources or skills.

As a voracious reader and an entrepreneur, I inhale books that tell stories. Books like this cause me to say, “Aha! That’s how she did it!”  Stories of real people and real companies, solving problems and coming up with creative ideas or ways to express themselves. They paint a clear and vivid picture in my mind of how they got from there to here. Books like that  stretch my brain. Would you like to stretch yours?

Here are three “must-read” books that can start you on the road to solve problems, make your ideas stick and create a memorable brand – you and your business! What these books have in common is their respective author’s powerful storytelling to illustrate their points.

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

You don’t need to know how to draw; you don’t even need to go out and buy paper napkins to learn how to solve problems and sell ideas with pictures. In an engaging and witty style, Roam illustrates how this style of thinking can lead to fresh insights and creative approaches for unraveling knotty problems and arriving at elegant solutions. Find the book at Dan Roam’s website.

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
What makes things stick better than that adhesive workhorse, silver duck tape? The authors share examples of companies, entrepreneurs and teachers who create their own version of mental duck tape using several or all of the six traits the brothers Heath believe make some ideas survive and others die: they need to be simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and/or emotional. Find Heath and Heath’s website here.

POP! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything by Sam Horn
Communication/creativity consultant Sam Horn’s book is chock full of fun, creative exercises for you to work through. When you’re done you’ll have crafted a pithy story for your product and figured out how to describe in an original and evocative way who you are, what it is you do or sell. Horn brings the same fun and style to this book as she did to her concept and book, Tongue Fu! Find Horn’s website here.

I am blessed that where I live, Arlington (home of the oldest children’s library in the US!), has the best small business librarian in the world, Nancy Gentile, who introduced me to every single one of these books! So head to your public library to borrow them. Or buy them at the authors’ websites linked for you above or by using the Indie Bookstore Finder where you can find an Indie bookstore near you. Please join me in supporting independently and locally owned stores and building vibrant communities!

“See into life – don’t just look at it.”-Anne Baxter, Academy Award-winning actor

Reading that quote transported back more than 30 years. My sister Kim and I were on board a boat headed out to open waters for a whale watching cruise, my birthday present to her. Sun block? Slathered on. Sunglasses? Shading my eyes. Camera? Ready to capture memories.

I was intent on photographing any whale or dolphin that hove into view. There I stood at the railing straining to see a dorsal fin or a water spout. Every time the naturalist, with her more trained eye alerted us to a sighting, I clapped that camera to my face, peering through the tiny viewfinder.

Then this happened.

Breaching humpback whale

A breaching whale, the only time it happened that day, and there I was fiddling with the camera and not present to the powerful and majestic moment. Was I inhaling the tang of the salt air, feeling the wind on my face, reveling in the power and beauty of the humpback as it leapt into the air and dove back into the ocean? No.

At that moment, I had come to the same realization that Ms. Baxter did. When I put the camera between me and the here and now, I wasn’t seeing into life, I was looking at it.

That was the day I decided that the only camera I need to capture that kind of beauty is my whole being engaged in seeing into life.