Is there anything more hopeful than Main Street

I love walking through the business district of small towns and take a careful look at the buildings. Here in Minnesota, many of these buildings are well over 100 years old, and they were clearly a source of pride to the townspeople that built them.

Take a look at the top of these buildings and you’ll notice masonry details like toothing / dentil courses, artistic stone work, and family names added to the building. These towns built elegant and ornate municipal buildings to host public performances and lectures, and you’ll often find a library building that was funded by Andrew Carnegie.

Land Returning to the Upper Sioux

The soon to be former Minnesota Upper Sioux state park will be transfered back to the Sioux community next week, so we took advantage of the crazy warm weather to visit. We weren’t alone in that thought as there were many people out, on what would normally be lovely spring weather.

The State DNR had already closed the offices in preparation for the transfer. I had a severely pulled calf muscle, so climbing hills was out for me. I went to view the former Agency site, while Jane and Penny took a walk through the back trails.

What I Learned While Working in Barcelona for a Week

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. – Mark Twain

I recently had the great pleasure to travel to Barcalona. It was a work trip, and we spent most of our time in the hotel working, but the experience gave me some important perspectives that I’d like to share here.

Intentions

Recently I’ve had a lot of things pop up that remind me to continue to set intentions and to follow through on them - and that both steps are required to get results.

The way to achieve anything in life is to value the goal, understand the steps required to reach the goal, and the consistent pursuit of it.

It’s as easy and as difficult as that.

The Rich Life

I was most recently reminded of this when watching How to Get Rich on Netflix. Now, I’m not looking to have a financial fortune, but I am looking to live the life I want, which is really the point of the show.

What’s Wrong With That

This week, I participated with members of my management cohort in a retrospective of a training course we took on sharing feedback. What struck me the most about our discussion was how we took the idea of giving feedback from a one-way communication to one that is more… human.

Giving someone feedback can be tricky. Receiving it can be too. Putting thought into how someone else may feel, and how best to prepare to have a meaningful conversation is at least as important as what you’ve got to say.