My great grandfather was a baker, a really good one. In fact, one of the first to really dive into sugar crafting. Sugar crafting uses a paste-like substance (sugar paste) to mold and form different shapes. My great grandfather then subsequently my grandmother were known for their complex and gorgeous sugar flower bouquets.  Growing up, I would visit my grandma (Granny) and we’d sit together for hours, sculpting roses, forget-me-nots, carnations and more into meticulous...

Less than a month ago I was speaking with a coaching client about her services suite. She had a bunch of brilliant ideas (of course) that she wanted me to co-sign. But I’m just not that kind of coach. I’ll cheer the heck out of your ideas but if it isn’t doable, viable, or realistic, I’ll tell you so. This client was in that situation. She simply couldn’t do all her ideas. Or at least,...

Have you ever had a relationship where you knew you needed to create stronger boundaries but didn’t know how because you didn’t want to lose them?  I know I have. I can think of at least 3 romantic relationships and a good few business relationships where I could’ve maintained better boundaries : for myself and those people. Leaky boundaries are incredibly common, especially in young love and young business.  Here’s the thing though. I think...

“Feelings are not facts”. I overheard myself saying this to a client the other day. Feelings are not facts. It was a full moon. My astrologer has been talking about Mars in Retrograde which has something mucky to do with our feelings and communications. There’s a lot of garbage happening in the world. There’s a lot of real scarcity in many of our social systems. AND we’re in that weird liminal space between US Thanksgiving,...

A long time ago I wrote a blog post where I used the word success and turned it into an acronym. I thought at the time I was super clever. Even then I was questioning the concept of success and how it seems to be an ever-moving target. Clearly we need a  ̶r̶e̶v̶o̶l̶u̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶ redefinition.  When we think of success, most of us picture images of big houses, beach vacations, mega money in the bank, long...

Depending on when you read this, my kid is going to or has just turned double digits. It’s a ginormous deal and unsurprisingly, it has me thinking about growth. Growing is a funny thing, isn’t it? We speak about growth in reference to so many different things. Size, capacity, emotional literacy, revenue, personal development. Some of these are definitive; some of them completely subjective. And that makes it tricky to know what’s true growth.  Early...

It's a cold, grey day. Cold enough that the rain is sometimes snow but warm enough that nothing sticks. It's the kind of chill damp that gets into your bones. Days like this call for more tea, more blankets, and more compassion. Days like this call for reflection... The truth is, it has been a lot. The last 3 weeks, months, years, more. As previously reliable structures crumble. As you're asked to find new solutions,...

You know, the beautiful thing about permaculture is that it can apply to any ecosystem. In one of our most recent certificate classes here on the farm, the students were talking about edges vs. boundaries. When you’re speaking about land, this is very easy to recognize. Edges you can stretch, manipulate, tend, and shape. Think meandering pathways through gardens. Edges. Boundaries however are strict. They’re lines that can’t be crossed - or at the very...

I signed up for TikTok.  The truth is, I’ve been sitting on this decision for a long time. When TikTok first made its appearance, I thought “I’m glad the kids have a place to hang out but it isn’t where my people are” and for a while, that was true. Until it wasn’t.  In the last couple years, I started noticing some of my business friends and clients were spending more time over there.  Ultimately,...

This morning, before coming into the office, I took advantage of the nice weather to clean out the chicken coop. Do you know how long I’ve been putting this off? Weeks. Maybe 6, maybe 8. If this was a procrastination race, I was definitely going to win. The thing is, cleaning out the coop isn’t actually very hard. It’s messy. It takes a couple of hours (at most). But it isn’t actually difficult. It’s just...

I LOVE Halloween. I love the fanfare, the costumes, the pretending. I love free candy day. I love the annual discussion of whether Rocky Horror is a Halloween movie or the ultimate Valentine story. But if Halloween were every day, I probably wouldn’t feel the same way. There would be so much pressure to get the outfit right, the makeup perfect, to stay on trend (or at least retro enough to be cool). Now here’s...

Have you ever met up with someone you knew a long time ago and realized that even though things have changed so much for you, very little has changed at all? I had this exact feeling this week when I connected with a client I worked with over a decade ago. I noticed that even though our businesses (and personal lives) have changed and iterated over time, the work we were doing was more focused...

A very very long time ago — decades before I started doing this incredible work — I was interviewing for a position in a company that I thought “meh” about. A job is a job when you need to pay the bills. What they didn’t tell me was it was to be a group interview. Picture this:I’m dressed up in fancy interview clothes. I’m nervous and clammy. I’m clutching my resume too tightly. I pause...

The other day, I received a message from my team member, Mackenzie, asking about a comment I had made in a newsletter draft. She didn’t know which particular article I wanted her to link to. Is it this one about growth or that one? As is the way of life, the correct answer was actually a third article altogether. The point is: I write about growth…a lot. Personal growth, business growth, growth strategy, plant growth, relationship growth, occasionally even my kid’s...

Fairly shortly (if it hasn’t started already), your inboxes and social feeds are going to be saturated with free webinars, launch series, teasers, and affiliate links. Even online, you can recognize the elbowing to the front, jostling for position, sneaky manipulative behaviour : this isn’t Grade 5 or a federal election; it’s Launch Season.  Launch season is the time when entrepreneurs work to meet their revenue targets, leveraging the opportunity that comes with Black Friday/SBSaturday/CyberMonday,...

This year I became a beekeeper. It wasn't intentional but when our farm intern's hive swarmed, we were able to catch it into a new hive with a new queen. Both colonies survived and when our intern left, she gave me the new hive as a parting gift.  Suffice it to say that I am brand spankin' new at this. Given my high self-expectation barometer, I think I've done fairly well: I've spotted the queen...

The first call for the fall cohort of Foundations is next Tuesday and I have to say I am so excited about the group who have chosen to join us this round. This work is introspective, it's worthwhile, and it's not for the faint of heart. But one of the things I love most about the folks who come into this work is that they're not afraid to work toward positive change : in their...

Last week I told you to “plan for chaos” and if you were reading that thinking, sure Helen, but how about in real life? I wouldn’t blame you. Because it’s one thing to plan and a whole other thing to put that plan into action. Luckily, that’s my sweet spot: moving big ideas into the real world. Helping you make the extraordinary happen. The thing about chaos is that it’s always unexpected. Rather, I’m using the...

Recently I was having a conversation with my friend, Nikki Groom (stay tuned for that podcast episode) and we were talking about planning for chaos. If that sounds super nerdy, you’re absolutely right & I love that about us. Essentially, most of the planning apps/agendas/courses out there will have you plan for a best case scenario. They assume that you won’t have unexpected “unproductive” (aka rest) days. They assume that you’ll be consistently producing. They assume that you...

Can we all agree by now that growth for growth’s sake is a garbage idea? Our news feeds are filled with examples of how it breaks economies, destroys ecosystems, and damages communities. Growth for growth’s sake is a revenue-focused mandate, reaping wealth for shareholders while workers require food stamps to get by. And this is exactly why we as entrepreneurs and CEOs, as people who are modeling a new status quo, need to redefine growth,...