Courageous Choices in Times of Transition
It all begins with an idea.
JOIN US!
Come share our adventures that lie ahead…
In this inaugural post, Nancy Fliss and Michele Rusinko are going to lay out some of our hopes and dreams for this blog, here to fore known as Girl Boss & Dance Prof. We will share a bit about who we are and how we got here.
The Courageous Choices in Times of Transition is the both the title of a Positive Psychology Hour session that Girl Boss & Dance Prof are offering on Sept 20, 2022 at Noon ET (insert link to register) during which we will be introducing our F.I.R.S.T. framework for making those choices and, in our humble opinion a description of what we are doing by sharing our thoughts, ideas and feelings in this blog.
We hope to stimulate discussion, create a few “ahh-hah” or “wow” moments and maybe even create a virtual community of fellow courageous, supportive seekers who also want to explore the infinite possibilities available to us as we make courageous choices in service of our goal of living our best possible lives. We both are devoted fans of Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper and her blog “I’ve been thinking…’ If we could have a millimeter of Maria’s impact we would be thrilled.
Not surprisingly, we approached creating this blog as we approach life- initially relying on our core signature strengths, of curiosity and love of learning, examining past successful endeavors that we could learn from and/or “re-use with pride” and then reaching out to our expert “peeps” (and Dr. Google) for sage advice and help.
Dance Prof had experience with a blog MAD_&_TAJ_GO_AROUND_THE_WORLD from 2010-11 when she and her son Josh spent a year out of the country and she documented and shared their adventures. Girl Boss’ experience was more academic; reflection papers written in 2019-2020 when she participated in the School for the Second Half of Life at Mercy By The Sea, a retreat center in Madison, CT. They quickly decided that the tone and feeling of this blog would be whimsical and fun, with a respectful nod to all that we are and all that we have experienced that bring us to this moment - hence Girl Boss & Dance Prof. (Thank you to Kris Higginbotham for the logo that perfectly captures our intent and Kate Johnson who helped us cross the technical chasm.)
Girl Boss and Dance Prof are both currently, happily “in transition”. They are crossing yet another chasm in their “Second Half of Life”. They plan on sharing their journey with the hope of developing greater clarity and deeper understanding and meaning for themselves and for anyone else who is interested and might benefit from their explorations.
We plan on regularly posting on a Monthly schedule, with the potential of additional posts in between, if something is particularly timely or pressing (or if we just “feel like it”). We are currently thinking about the following topics:
· The Non-Linear Life – What we learned from Bruce Feiler
· The Second Half of Life - Expansiveness of Aging
· Courage and what we learned from Mark Nepo
· Imagination
· What’s Next? learnings from Anne Patchett
We welcome hearing from you about things you are thinking about and would like to see us muse about.
Before we published this first post Girl Boss wanted to make sure that we were doing it “right” (she is a recovering perfectionist, who has periodic slips). So, she looked up definitions for a blog, recommendations on length, and reviewed the research on best days to publish.
Finding a definition was easy – the following sums up what we found:
A blog (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order.
And then the first panic set in. When Kate helped us set up the Blog page, the template had multiple posts in chronological order. Oh no! The definition clearly said reverse chronological order (and duh of course we wanted the most recent to appear first). More research- how to re-order Blog posts in Square Space (our platform). Ye of little faith… of course there is a way to re-order and more importantly the default is reverse-chronological order.
Next how long? The recommendation is no more than 2500 words. That actually is quite a lot.
(Word count at this point in this post is 689.) 2500 words really enables you to say something and have a beginning, middle and end, and honestly, at this point feels a little daunting.
When to publish? The research on this is a bit murkier; Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday all were cited. We may experiment a little with this. But all the research agreed that mornings between 7 AM and 9. AM were the best times for publishing. Luckily, Square Space has a function to allow you to schedule your posts so we will not be a slave to pushing a button at a specific time. Unfortunately, we have not yet found any way for the blog to be posted between 7AM and 9AM in the reader’s time zone – so dear friends from around the world, please bear with our ET-centricity. It probably goes back to that infamous New Yorker magazine cover highlighting the streets of New York (Manhattan) and the rest of the world.
So now you have the logistics…. we thought you might also be interested in “Why us?” After all, if you aren’t our sister or brother or spouse or child or best friend, you might be wondering why you should spend your precious time reading what we have to say.
Nancy Fliss and Michele Rusinko aka Girl Boss and Dance Prof met online during the Pandemic while taking the Foundations of Positive Psychology Coaching class through the Wholebeing Institute. They quickly discovered they shared signature strengths of love of learning and curiosity and core values of prioritizing relationships, authentic connection and community. They almost immediately began to imagine working collaboratively and creating together.
Through weekly zoom meetings they discovered they had both experienced major life disruptions that Bruce Feiler calls “Life Quakes” (Life is in the Transitions, Bruce Feiler, 2021) and Mark Nepo calls “Storms” (Surviving Storms, Mark Nepo, 2022) that sent them down new pathways which led to transformational change. For Michele, a Professor of Dance at a small liberal arts college, the Life Quake/Storm was her 2013 diagnosis with Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer, which led her to the study of Positive Psychology and her current in-depth research into resilience. In 2014, Nancy began talking with her partners at Leap the Pond, a software and professional services consultancy about a five-year pathway to her retirement, which led her to enroll in the School for the Second Half of Life in 2017. Halfway through the School in May 2018, Nancy was diagnosed with metastatic papillary carcinoma and she was losing her mother in pieces as her mother’s Alzheimer’s began to progress more rapidly.
In sharing their stories, it was very apparent to Nancy and Michele that they both embrace growth mindsets and consciously and unconsciously prioritize self-efficacy and thoughtful action when faced with challenges. As they further explored their partnership, they visualized VENN Diagrams with meaningful overlap in their life stories; from having more than one significant career, to continuously being involved in studying and learning, and having only sons born to them in their 40’s. They both knew who they were before becoming mothers.
The power of their partnership is also in the complementary nature of who they are. Dance Prof would say Girl Boss has laser beam focus. Girl Boss would say Dance Prof brings a wider lens. The truth is that they both are challenged by chasing shiny objects and work hard to help each other to embrace spaciousness, say no when needed and stay on task when necessary.
Their first professional collaboration was an in-person retreat in July of 2021, in the early days of the Vaccine euphoria, pre-variants when we all naively thought we would be soon entering a post-Covid world. Their overly optimistic title; Cairns After Covid embodied the hopes and expectations of the time. We all too soon learned that the optimistic response of the summer of 2021 was premature and overly simplistic. The work that the retreat attendees did, helped them build and/or strengthen their resilience, which would serve them as they navigated the continued challenges of the Pandemic.
As the collective, involuntary Pandemic storm worked its insidious destruction, Girl Boss & Dance Prof searched inwardly and found that a new focus and interest was emerging for them.
As children of the sixties, they were weaned on rebellion, protest, anti-war rallies and early women’s liberation. Chronologically they find themselves smack in the middle of the baby-boomers. They are ending their primary careers, turning to new and/or evolving interests, are increasingly more aware of the preciousness of life and the central importance of cherished relationships and the communities that they are a part of. They expect to live two or three more decades and are focused on all that they have learned and will continue to learn, so they can take all the necessary steps to live into “their best possible selves”; to age with grace. AND they are committed to sharing that passion and knowledge with all those who are interested.
A Sneak Peak about the F.I.R.S.T. framework:
For those of you who can’t join them live on September 20th at NOON ET, a recording of their session will be posted on this blog. We hope you will take the time to listen to it and that it will pique your curiosity. Nancy and Michele will be offering a 6-week, virtual class, meeting weekly, beginning in early 2023. Attendees will have an opportunity to learn in community and experience the F.I.R.S.T. framework to make their own Courageous Choices to live their best possible lives.
The first step in building a community is start communicating. Please let us know what you think. What might this post have touched in you? Please share it with anyone who you think might be interested or benefit from joining us in our journey.
Looking forward to sharing the adventures that lie ahead…
Girl Boss & Dance Prof
Blog Post Title Two
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Blog Post Title Three
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Blog Post Title Four
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.