Leaning Back

Last year Facebook Billionaire and COO, Sheryl Sandberg launched her book Lean In.    For as long as I can remember, and well before my own career started, I've been leaning in.  Leaning in for me is my comfort zone.   I've taken early risks, built a powerful network, sat at the table, and have had my heels on the gas for 16 years. I love to grow and I love helping other women grow, even more.

However, just in the past 6 months, I've been doing the complete opposite: leaning back and out.

I worried for a while that if I leaned out and back that this might send a message I didn't care or I wasn't full of "busyness". 

Quite the opposite. Leaning back, while initially very unsettling, has provided me the opportunity to see the world around me very differently.

When we lean back and let things happen, remarkable things come our way.

In Bronnie Ware's, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, one of the resounding cries was "I wish I hadn’t worked so hard."  Those interviewed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a "work existence.”  I couldn't agree more.  I've been blessed to have more balance lately so I've embraced it.  I am sleeping, eating well, have lost the weight I needed to drop and I feel more focused than ever. I am visiting my daughter's classroom more.   This spring I will begin the Center for Houston's Future forum and I'm a contender in Houston's Fittest Executivewellness competition.  (Vote for me!)

I am doing more "me" things.  I'm investing in the best stock I have: ME.

All because I'm leaning back.  

Happy Friday!