Just a ...?!
It's been quite a long time since I've written a blog post. Life's kept this family busy. The kids are all out of elementary school now, growing up very fast and doing well! This leaves me perhaps with a little time to spend on blogging again, which is something I enjoyed doing in past and have missed!
For as long as I can remember, there has been a recurring topic in our world that has bothered me. Maybe it bothers you, too? Ever find yourself talking to someone and he or she says, "I'm just a ..., so I can't do that!"
More and more, I find myself wanting to challenge those norms, and even interested in helping other people challenge those ideas - especially my kids. It really bugs me when someone tells me he is not smart enough, so cannot do something. After all, I'm in my 40s now... I'm just getting old and cannot do new things now, right?!
No. And you out there? You're not "just" anything either! Would love to work with you all somehow, to make this world better every day! We can do it perhaps in small steps - share ideas with each other?
In March of this year, I decided I was not just an overweight, high stressed mother. With a subscription to Beachbody on Demand (
https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/), I started working out in my own home, dancing to "Country Heat Swing" and doing "Piyo" workouts. I joined a project called "100 Virtues for 100 Days" and focused on the virtue of DILIGENCE. I'm now 20 pounds lighter, much healthier and stronger!
During July, I decided I was not just a dumb female who couldn't take care of a lawn mower without needing to pay expensive bills. I taught myself to clean a carburetor. Managed to get our self-propelled lawn mower going again after watching a simple YouTube video!
Starting in mid-August, I decided I'm not an old woman who can never learn to shoot a basketball properly. I started going to the gym again, shooting hoops for about 2 hours a day with my son, which is now an obsession that I've really come to enjoy at start of each day. This week, I managed to shoot a few 3 pointers!
For a very long time, I've been thinking I want to do something more with my professional life, too. I'm an advisor in an IT company, and I love my job, but often I feel like there is something missing in what I do. There is a lot of focus on technical skills, as expected, but my passion, after all, has always been organizing fun activities to help people focus on their strengths and achieve goals that make our world better.
Haunted Hall of Horrors, Race on the River, Betsey 250 Celebrations, Holiday Markets, Spring Flings, ... MANY others!
This week, I stumbled onto an audio book that caught my attention about a year ago. At that time, I thought it was interesting, but was not quite sure what I wanted to focus on. The book is called "Crush It!", by Gary Vaynerchuk. This book is about using your passion to build a personal brand for yourself. This again got me thinking about what my passion is... I keep coming back to the same. I love organizing events or activities where people come together to make our world better!
Anyway, the book suggested a first step in building a personal brand could be to create a fan page in Facebook... and then blog and use social media to make people more aware of who you are and what you love to do. I've been dabbling in this for a while, but figured I'd try out the idea!
Do I have any fans out there?
https://www.facebook.com/Christine.Marie.MacKenzie/ is my new page.
If you have enjoyed my posts in past and want to hear more, let me know what you would like to hear more about please!
