Four ways to survive overwhelm when your dream gets daunting.

I almost drowned once.

I was 12.

One hot summer day my dad took my sisters and me to a swimming hole in a nearby river on Vancouver Island, British Columbia where I grew up.

The safe cove for swimming was within few yards of the rocky shore, away from the strong current of the main part of the river. My sisters had life jackets on and paddled off to the little waterfall ledge, glistening in the sun.

I wasn’t a strong swimmer, mostly because the world was a blurry…

5 Lessons From a Succulent.

Wading through the final gruelling stages of editing my book, I turned to happy thoughts: envisioning what the book cover would look like.

I could have chosen from many images that represent concepts and metaphors in the book:

• a crossroads
• a signpost
• a compass
• pages of a book
• gremlins
• a blossom
• a pros and cons list.
• a glass of water

Instead, I chose a succulent.

Do you have a hard time describing what you do for your job, business — or as a stay-at-home-parent?

“What do you do?”

It’s the go-to question when someone first meets you.

It’s the question you dread when you’re in-between jobs and haven’t been hired as soon as you want to be.

It’s the awkward question you fumble with when you’re venturing in a side hustle or trying to explain to a different generation that doesn’t quite understand how you make money online.

It’s the question moms downplay or dramatize when they’re cleaning up messes, making meals and driving kids around all day.

It…

How confident are you in knowing your life purpose? How intentional and effective are you at living your life purpose?

Let’s start with a quiz! Which statement below best describes you?

1. Not even sure I have one or am worth having one
2. I’m sure I have one but I’m not certain what it is
3. I know what I’m about and I have a few ideas of how to carry it out but haven’t landed on one yet
4. I’ve got it and looking forward to the journey ahead as I figure out how to live it out in a way that’s…

Eighty-three percent of Canadians who changed careers say they’re happier because of it, according to a survey done by Indeed.ca. This isn’t something you take lightly! The average time the majority took considering career change was 11 months.

Most people who mention they want to find a new job or career are taking the passive approach — checking job boards weekly and maybe reaching out to a couple of connections. Unfortunately, this leaves many seekers in the same situation over time, thinking, “I guess it’s not meant to be.”

The good news is that there’s a more effective approach to…

If you are serious about getting started on your dream or stepping deeper into your calling, then knowing the kind of resistance you’re experiencing holds the keys you need.

The big takeaway of this list of breakthrough opportunities: Just because your dream isn’t easy doesn’t mean it’s not meant to be. When you identify what resistance is pushing back, you can recognize the best strategy to move forward with ease.

The most important thing to understand with this is that if you keep trying harder you’ll get discouraged.

Naming your resistance helps you spell out the difference between success and…

Tim Grahl describes his first novel, The Threshing as The Matrix meets The Hunger Games. For any fans of either book or movie, that would be incentive enough. However, when I have a precious time and focus available to immerse myself into someone else’s world, sci-fi would not be my first choice.

Yet, I devoured this book in the first 24 hours of my COVID-19 quarantine — and not just because it was a great read.

The Threshing begins with twelve-year-old Jessie breaking into someone’s home to steal credits. …

Would you consider yourself a big dreamer or a non-dreamer?

Of course, there are more nuances to people than how we dream about our future. However, how you interact with others each other’s style of ideation and implementation, as well as what they value and how they express it, can have a huge impact on your confidence and progress. Inevitably, dreamers and non-dreamers not only attract each other, they need each other.

I’ve spent the majority of my career years around visionaries, ideators and innovative leaders — big dreamers. Their vision drew me in and their passion energized me. As…