Countdown to CalOpen – 19 Days: Reflections

Our story begins with a podcast that has nothing to do with ballroom dancing. But since it is the thing that put me on the path to writing this post, I am starting there. Lewis Howes was interviewing Lisa Nichols. You may have heard of them if you’ve gotten into personal development, life coaching or entrepreneurship. They’re both very successful and worth checking out if you’re interested in those things.

Anyway, I was listening to the podcast at work, and at one point, Ms. Nichols was talking about the different types of relationships you will experience in your lifetime. One of them was a purposeful relationship. Someone comes into your life for a specific purpose (whether you’re aware of it or not), and once the purpose is fulfilled, the relationship will become stagnant or break down completely.

There are plenty of directions you could go with this idea, but my mind was transported to my very first competition: the 2014 San Francisco Open.

Continue reading →

The Business Side of Ballroom

As students of ballroom dance, we are faced with countless challenges: the dance itself, the goals for progressing the dance, the funding of the dance, the personal growth triggered by the dance, the emotional bonds formed with dance teachers, etc., etc. After reading the blogs of some other ballroom students, I realized there is another challenge that should be addressed: the fact that our dancing dreams don’t always align with our teacher’s career path.
Continue reading →

Ask the Girl Episode 7 – Goals for 2016

With the year nearly over, there is no shortage of goal-setting talk and new year’s resolution discussion. Some like making resolutions, some purposely avoid them. Others prefer to set goals rather than resolutions. I fall in the “set goals” category. I think it’s important for my ballroom dancing and the rest of my life to think about where I want to go because that will determine more immediate actions. So for this last Ask the Girl episode of 2015, I present to you my goals for the new year.

Continue reading →