I remember last year at this time, I gave Birds Eye the gift of mainly working on our business from Thanksgiving to Christmas. That time was spent doing what we do for others for ourselves, in order to enter our busy season of January anew, and I ended up vowing to do it every year. Ha! In reflection, I think that time ended up generating what feels like a whole new world of well-aligned business that therefore made it impossible to take this time again. But even as I squeeze in just a fragment of that kind of time, I can confidently restate that any time spent working on your business is a gift to you and yours (as our Whoville friends can testify… “no matter how small!”).

So, here I sit in my favorite Birds Eye perch in downtown Asheville, and it is with a growing joy, and a grand exhale, that I can write that last year was one in which we lived many of our dreams into reality. The year began with us adding “Adventures” to our name as we committed ourselves to showing up in the more wilderness points of our client’s journeys. We found ourselves sitting at crossroads with values-led entrepreneurs and leaders in settings ranging the piedmont plains and kitchens of Warren County up into the rugged hills and basements of Ashe County, and down into the marshlands and porches of our home away from home, Folly Beach, SC. And time and time again, we witnessed pilot lights of self-guided leadership gain flame as participants in our classes, retreats, coaching, and consulting dug deep and made difficult, yet liberating, decisions for their businesses and their lives.

And so what lies ahead in the world of Birds Eye?

We will look to our four compass words to set our course:

Trust. Love. Reclaim. Ignite.

What are yours?

Keep them in your pocket.

Pull them out when the timbers of your venture or heart begin to rattle.

If defining these is the only thing you commit to doing before you set sail in the new year, I have faith they will serve you in unpredictably beneficial ways.

Setting Your Compass