Recipes for Success in 2020 "How Women Rise"

On my recent vacation, 5 days at sea without cable, internet, phone service or a computer, allowed me the opportunity (forced me) the opportunity, to read 5 books! They were actually quite amazing and I have a journal FULL of take aways. So my next several blog posts will be letting you in on everything I learned!

This blog is based off of learnings from a book called, “How Women Rise” by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith.

RECIPES FOR SUCCESS IN 2020.

1) Don’t pass judgement

LESSON: It is better to listen first than weigh in immediately with a response.

Now this isn’t just in the circumstance of passing negative judgement on a person based on third party information or an assumption you may make about their behaviour or appearance. That’s an obvious DON’T. But it’s also when you’re asked your opinion on a decision, situation or circumstance. I had to learn this and am still learning this throughout my time in the workplace.

I’m an eager beaver. If you know me, you know that. When we would have brainstorming sessions, I’d be popping out ideas faster than popcorn could pop. This is a strength of mine, yes. BUT it can’t also make for others to see me as the type of person who doesn’t think before she speaks and is impulsive. (Which sometimes I am :P) BUT I was told that sometimes in meetings, actually intentionally try to NOT be the first person to speak, so that when I do speak it would hold a little more weight.

Back to the passing judgement on others. This is a stupid thing to do. It harms your reputation, and the person’s character that you are talking about. People don’t trust people that gossip and judge others. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but if someone is gossiping to you about someone, they’re probably doing the same thing behind your back. Be the kind of person that shuts down that kind of talk, and doesn’t participate in it either. When it comes up, which it’s bound to, a simple, I’d rather not talk about that. Will shut it down pretty fast.

So there’s the first lesson from my first book! A good one for us all to implement to make this world a better place and live life as a person who is thoughtful & respectful.

Behaviours

You ever find yourself doing something that you clearly inherited from a close family member?

The other day I found myself saying, “yes, no”. And I laughed.

My mom used to do this unique thing with my brother and I when we were kids. When we would ask for something that was just outlandish she’d use the, “yes, no.”

Let me explain.

She used to acknowledge what we were saying with a yes, and then immediately say no.

She’d say yes, and you’d think maybe she’s saying yes, and she’d follow it with no.

It’s a “yes, no.”

“Yes” I hear what you’re saying but, no.

Now whenever she would say this, it was warranted. “Mom I really want a third bag of chips” , “Mom I really want another new sweater for the third time this week.”

I have only ever heard my mom say this, but now, I’m saying it.

Yes Joshua, I know you are hungry but no, we aren’t ordering pizza for the third time in one week after 8 pm.

Yes, no.

It got me thinking about behaviours.

Behaviours are contagious. Most of the time you adapt to the behaviours of the people you are around the most.

What behaviours of yours are positively affecting those around you, helping them thrive? And what behaviours are negatively affecting others, getting in the way of their success and growth?

Let’s stewart our behaviours not only for our own good, but for the good of others. Good behaviours and habits, breed good behaviours and habits. Bad behaviours and habits, breed well, you guessed it, bad behaviours and habits.

It’s like the pizza example. I’m not ordering pizza anymore until post vacation, which means 3 months of no pizza. My disciplined behaviour will affect my husbands’ behaviour to not order pizza (well, maybe, let’s hope.) And so on!

Yes, no. Pizza. Behaviours.

That’s all for today folks,

Ash

My fake Louis

I break suitcases. I’ve probably went through 10 minimum. I think this says something about my personality... I try and fit too much in sometimes. Less is more doesn’t come easily to me (haha).

My most recent experience was with a fake Louis button duffel bag that I got in China. Boy did that thing look SHARP. It looked undeniably real, but it wasn’t. I packed that thing with as much as possible still being able to squeeze it shut between my legs and quickly zip it up. Perfect.

All my bags were set and ready to go by the door. And finally it was SHOW TIME.

We gathered all our things ready to go to the airport with our family, I got five steps outside the door, and pop, pop, pop, both handed tore off and the zipper popped from the weight.

An illustration comes to mind here. My bag looked the part, but when weight was added, it immediately broke and couldn’t not function to do its ONE job. Carry my things.

If it’s fake, it’s not going to be able to carry the weight of responsibility, the weight of its job when it’s show time.

I once heard Christine Caine speak a message I will never forget. She used the illustration of an old fashioned photo lab. That photo that is completely undeveloped, goes into a dark room for a certain period of time in order to fully develop before it brought back out into the light in order to show its true beauty.

This is much like us as people. God brings us through journeys of development so that we can be the real deal. Not fake. Tried and true and ready to carry weight.

Christine went on to say that if you took a photo out of development too early the photo wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful as the result it’s intended to have.

Same goes for us. If we try and get ahead of our season of development before our character has grown, before we’ve matured, before we’ve learned and put in the work, if we try to get ahead of God’s timing, we are like a semi development photo or a fake Louis Vuitton bag.

Let’s stick out the journey, let’s be the real deal, let’s become fully developed as we prepare to step into the big things that are next in our lives. Let’s be like a real Louis.

I bet you’ve never heard that motivational quote before.

“I’m like a real Louis Vuitton.”

Xoxo

Ashley

I QUIT!

I quit.

And I have to caveat, for any of my colleagues that may be reading this, I love you all, and I had a fantastic time and team. Sometimes we’ve just got to follow our hearts!

Sometimes you have to say no to a good thing, in order to say yes to your dream.

If you’re anything like my mom you’re re-reading that sentence with a dropped jaw. (Love you mom)

Yes, my safe, salaried, job with a reputable company with great benefits, I quit.

But sometimes you have to release one thing, so that you can receive another.

I remember once I was dating a guy who wasn’t for me, and this is totally wrong, but I kind of had the mindset that if someone better for me came along, I’d still see them and at that point could stop dating one person and go date the other. I know. Horrible haha. BUT come on ladies I am SURE some of you have been in that dating scenario.

Obviously that’s not how life works.

My dad always told me in that season, “you can’t receive something if your hands are full with something else. They have to be open and available.”

So dad, thanks—your relationship advice helped me not only meet the man of dreams who I’m about to marry, but years later also helped me make a decision to quit my job (ha-ha, he won’t necessarily like that :P)

But in all seriousness, I have often said growing up that I wanted to be Joyce Meyers. Not sure who she is? Google.

She is a firey passionate leader, speaker, author, mentor, all around gospel preaching life inspirational woman, wife and mom. And she’s 69 and STILL going. So I figure she’ll soon retire and I’ll have to take over. LOL.

But I have long had a passion inside my heart to spend the majority of my time speaking, writing, and creating content to inspire others’ to live their best lives, the fullest live, full of faith hope and love. A life chasing after all that GOD has for them.

So that is what I’m going to do. I am going to be volunteering a whole lot more at my amazing church, Slate Church, I am going to be kicking off VLOGS and a podcast in the fall, all geared to inspire others to live the best life possible as we learn and grow together. I want to emphasize the learning and growing together, because of course, I am by NO MEANS an expert haha. I’m equally as human with my meltdowns, and mistakes and needs of pick me ups and ice cream tubs and PMSing. But I have a desire to give each day the best I’ve got, and I want to bring others on that journey with me, so that together we can live our best lives.

I’m also excited to say that in conjunction with all that good stuff I will be running my media company, Bonne Media full time! I will be working with my current clients to really enhance their community presence, connect with the right audiences and bring all you folks great products and services that also inspire and help you live your best life. From beauty to food to plumbing, we’ve got a great variety of personalities on the client roster and are excited to add more! Only requirement--- be looking to add value to people’s lives.

I can hardly believe I’m doing it, but I’m doing it. Is it a risk—YES. Is it exciting—YES. Am I sure? YES.

Funny thing is, I’ve known that I was supposed to do this for a long time. About 2.5 years ago I was sitting in the basement living room of my pastors, and I was telling them how I knew in my heart I was supposed to quit my job, and pursue more speaking, writing and ministry opportunities. But then I didn’t. I played it safe. I did the “responsible” thing.

And now 2+ years later. Nothing has changed with that. I still knew what I was supposed to do. And now I’m FINALLY doing it. And I had the same conversation with my same pastors a few weeks ago. (Thanks for sticking with me guys :P )

Sometimes it takes us awhile to take what we know we’re supposed to do in our hearts, and make it a reality through our actions. Sometimes we know that God has spoken to us about something in our lives, but we try and pretend we didn’t hear it. Our hesitancy and stubbornness only delay the promise that God has for us on the other side of our obedience. And it delays the rest of the world from getting to benefit from what it is you’re supposed to do. This could play out in a simple relationship of knowing you’re supposed to encourage someone, or forgive someone, right to whether or not you’re suppose to make a huge career decision or buy or sell a house.

Seek God’s direction and voice through prayer and listening, look to His word, seek the Holy Spirit and wise council. And when you know in your heart of hearts that you’re supposed to do something…

In the words of NIKE, Just Do It!

I love this bible verse:

I will HURRY without DELAY to OBEY your commands. Psalm 119:30

I’m so excited to share some hopefully inspiring content with you all soon! And hey—if you’re a business looking to market yourselves in authentic relational ways through digital media in order to add VALUE to the lives of others, HIT ME UP!

XOXO

Ash

How's He Doing - The Marathon Series FINISHER

Here’s the last instalment guys! Well, for now. HEHE.

I’m a huge romantic so at least half of the race I was thinking about Josh. Naturally. LOL.

But it’s true. At the beginning of the race we started by running the first 1-2 KM together, and I gave Josh the thumbs up to take off. I did so gladly, not wanting to hold him up, and wanting him to exceed to his best!

Watching him take off and pass literally hundreds of people down the long flat stretch of road ahead of us was quite incredible. I could see his cute little red half zip sweater making his way though all the people until eventually he disappeared so far ahead of me.

If we compare this to the marathon of life that we’re all running, I think we can have 2 different responses to a scenario like this.

A) Dejected by the fact that we can’t keep up pace with the person.
B) Excited by their success and motivate to do YOUR personal best as they rock out THEY’RE personal best.

Option B empowers everyone. And option A tears down everyone.

When we get down on ourselves about the successes of someone else when our success looks “lesser” in the moment, we limit ourselves, and we limit the other person by burdening them to feel bad about their success. How unfair we can be sometimes! To ourselves and to other’s who we should be cheering on in their success making sure they’re enjoying and savouring every moment of it! Imagine someone working their whole lives to achieve something, and then we rob them of the joy of achieving and experiencing it because we want them to feel bad for us. We’ve all done it. But I think we an all realize how yucky that is.

When we CHOOSE even though we don’t always feel like it, to motivate ourselves by the successes of others and be inspired by their work and growth and achievement, we empower ourselves and we empower that other person.

It’s crazy how sometimes we actually allow, and make other people’s positives, negatives for ourselves, when we can choose for it to be a win win for everyone!

Even when Josh was SO far ahead of me I couldn’t even see him, I still thought about him. And I didn’t resent the several KM’s ahead of me he was. I was genuinely SO HAPPY for him and would actually get GIDDY thinking about how good he was doing and the amazing time he was going to achieve. And it made me run faster!

I would think about how he was killing it, and how for me and my ability to run, I was killing it! It just looked a little differently. But I also knew how proud of me He was going to be when I did cross that line. Even though it would be at a slower pace than him, it was going to be amazing and He was going to celebrate with me too.

Let’s think of other’s on their races, even when they’re ahead of us, positively, happy for them, and inspired for us. Win win!

All my love,

Ashley XOXO

Run with Me

I remember running up the initial incline of Crowsfoot road. If you live in the KW area, you know what I”m talking about. Throughout the race every KM is spray painted on the pavement, and every single one I made just to stomp on. Felt kinda good you know? Another one under my FEET. Shortly after I made it to the top of Crowsfoot and it started levelling out I made it to about 12 KM and all I could see is a long stretch that looked never ending ahead of me. All of a sudden my music was interrupted with the sound of my phone ringing in my ears.

“Hello?”

It was my brother Andrew calling me to see how I was doing, to give me encouragement and tell me how proud he was of me. Just that 30 seconds of encouragement breathed life into me for another 10 KM.

Sometimes it’s like Phone a Friend on who wants to be a millionaire. But it’s up to us to PROACTIVELY make that call to that friend who might just need to hear a simple “Hello, how are you doing, I love you, You’ve got this, you’re awesome.”

There is power in the “phone a friend.”

So on I went until about exactly 23 KM, and the 22-26 KM stretch was the hardest for me. My phone rang again.

“Hello?”

At this point I could barely muster the breath to carry on a conversation, but it was my parents. And they were cheering me on even from thousands of miles away, right there in my ear.

My tank was filled up again to push through the second half of the race. Who might need their tank filled up by some words of encouragement or act of kindness around you today? What might take you 30 seconds could get them through “many KM’s” of life.

It was about 28 KM and things were starting to hurt at this point. I had broken away from the pack and had found myself on the road by myself. Well besides the random tumbleweed on the country roads. And all of a sudden I saw these two crazies waving at me from a car <3 … It was my future Mother and Father in law, Lisa and Mark. I instantly felt l wasn’t alone and a burst of energy came over me! But you won’t guess what happened next.

Mark got out of the car. (Lisa had to be the much needed get away driver :P)

How many times do we want to just “help people from the car.” But when we GET OUT OF THE CAR and actually start running alongside people in their journey’s that’s where we make real impact. Mark actually ran beside me, encouraged and coached me along for probably just short of a KM. It impacted my heart so profoundly I had more in the tank to keep going.

You know sometimes someone does something once and it’s amazing. But when they are a consistent source of encouragement, it’s like a fountain of water that refreshes constantly. Sometimes it’s easy for us to say, “Well I did it! I did what I was supposed to do. I was there for them. I was there for them like 10 times. That’s enough.”

Do it again.

40 KM in. Mark shows up again. “Ashley you only have 2KM left! You are so close, you can do it!” He runs with me for a little, and when he knows I”m SUPER close he says he’s gotta get back to the finish line to get the other’s ready for my arrival!

Just amazing.

After the race I was debriefing with Josh and he shared an incredible story with me that I’ve asked him if I could share here.

Josh had run the marathon, much faster than me. He pushed his way through, maximizing every step he could with efficiency and speed. He got to 40 KM and his hamstring seized. All of a sudden his strong stride turned into a limping jog. Josh wasn’t even sure he was going to be able to finish running feeling instantly dejected.

It’s the LAST 2 KM of the race. People have been training for their times for a long time, they’ve endured 40 KM of running and they’re close to the end, this is where they kick into high gear to get their best time, they’re putting themselves “first” in their efforts.

But a lady stopped, slowed down, and said to Josh, “You are finishing this race. Come on.” Pat him on the shoulder and made him start running with her again. Somehow the pain left. Josh picked his pace back up, and raced ahead of 3 more runners to the finish line.

Josh didn’t know who that woman was, but was almost brought to tears thinking of the sacrifice she made when she could have been gunning for the finish line herself, to make sure that he made it too.

Let’s not be so obsessed with reaching our own “finish line” goals in life that we miss the people also running with us along the way. Your small sacrifice can actually be the difference between someone finishing or not finishing at all.

Thank you to everyone who “Ran with me” and inspired me to "run with others” in life.

All my love,

Ashley XOXO

MARATHON SERIES III : How'd I get that bruise?

I turned the corner, finish line in view, strangers and family cheering me on as I finished what would be a great accomplishment— 42 KM of straight running, no stopping. A final burst of energy and adrenaline came over me as I sped past a few more runners taking that intentional step across the finish line. As my sneaker made it’s way to full contact on that last step across the line I thought, “YES!”

A few minutes later after my awesome fiance & future Mother & Father in law greeted me with hugs and water and smiles I started to feel this weird sensation on my lower back, an intense bruise. I quickly realized that the small “runners fanny pack” that I had been wearing around my waist for the past 42 km had overtime, actually intensely bruised my back.

The funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it during the run. I was distracted by the task at hand, and the work I was exerting to reach my goal.

It’s also interesting that this fanny pack is as light mesh as you could get, it doesn’t seem heavy, it wasn’t necessarily a concern of mine, but it did have a huge impact on my back as the small weight of it throughout 42 km compounded on my back over time. For the next week, I was left with a very tender bruise.

Okay Ashley, so you got a bruise on your lower back. Tough cookie? My point isn’t that the bruise was a big deal, but what this experience represents is a big deal.

In life, it’s important that we continually evaluate what we are carrying that maybe we need to set aside and lay down. Things that we need to trust in God’s hands and not our own. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, sometimes this is something we have to do everyday. Lay down our worries, or cut unhealthy things out of our lives that we are carrying as weights. We need to free ourselves from that which may weigh us down even in the slightest bit. That little stress, or that slightly unhealthy relationship may not seem to be sinking your ship right now, but compounded over time, you may be left with a bruise and wonder… “Where did this come from?!”

I love how Hebrews 12 says let us strip off every weight that slows us down. What proverbial fanny pack is tied around your waist that you need to cut loose, you need to lay aside, or place in God’s hands.

Whatever that may be, I encourage you to evaluate what it is you are carrying so that you can free yourself up daily, trusting in God’s provision and not your own, cutting the negativity our of your life and focusing on the positive, so that you don’t find yourself 42 km in with a bruise.

Maybe you have a bruise already. Well good news. Bruises heal. <3

All my love,

Ashley XOXO