I’ll give you the punchline first:

I’m still blown away by the paparazzi snapping pictures of your work. Everyone at the conference loved it. It was a huge hit. I haven’t worked with someone of your skill before. You have so much flexibility, a great sense of humor and you know how to adapt to a situation.

That’s from my new buddy, Joel Mills who runs the American Institute of Architects (AIA) program Communities by Design. Joel is very much one of my right people.

Here’s the story.

Joel found me. We had a phone call. He hired me. I flew to Miami having only the slightest idea about what I would be doing. Seriously, it was the first gig where I felt entirely clueless. Not that I need a ton of background going in, but it helps to know where I need to be and when, and what’s going to happen.

But I wasn’t worried. I do yoga. I’m flexible.

And hey, I was in Miami. I loved the mission of this program. AIA put me up at The Epic which lived up to its name. *swoon* Have I mentioned my thing for high-end boutique hotels? And there were mojitos. Mojitos!

And Joel and Erin did take very good care of me.

A little background.

AIA’s Communities by Design gives world-class advice and recommendations to communities big to small all over the country that want to Revision. Repurpose. Place-make. And Redefine a specific place.

This whole project got me excited because one of my five lives (if you know the work of Barbara Sher) is an architect/designer/city planner because I would love the challenge of playing and designing at that scale.

A river gives birth to a city.

Our project was the Miami River Corridor—the ancient birthplace of the city where the first Indian settlement in South Florida existed.

The Miami River Corridor has a rich history that’s largely unknown. Part of it is a designated heritage site. There are old neighborhoods. Historic hotels. Protected Indian sites. All kinds of relics from a long time ago.

It’s also a working waterfront with marinas and a port.

The river winds through neighborhoods and public parks, some of which have ball fields and get used, some of which don’t.

It’s also polluted but getting better. Kayakers are using it more and more for day trips.

It has cultural significance. Rituals are performed in its waters like baptisms and voodoo sacrifices of chickens.

Its many things to many people. It’s also hard to get to. Most people don’t even see it except from a bridge as they are driving over. And plenty of people have never been on it, in it or beside it.

So there are issues of identity. And place. Meaning. Use. And what the river wants to be now. And issues about the health of the river itself and the communities along its banks.

Assemble the crackerjack team.

Enter into this story a brilliant team assembled by the AIA that included:

• an architect
• a landscape architect
• an economist
• a port operations expert
• a person with multi-government jurisdiction experience
• a planner who specializes in pedestrian and bike mobility

And me. With my environmental political experience. My current work as the board chair of an organization dedicated to protecting Georgia’s rivers. And being the daughter of a former 20-year Florida marina owner who was very involved in the controversial issue of protecting the manatees years ago.

For several days the team listens, really listens, to key stakeholders. They take tours on the river and in the surrounding neighborhoods. They get their feet on the ground. They experience the place with fresh eyes. They ask questions.

In a long afternoon meeting we dialogued with the MRC Commission about their dreams, concerns and issues. Because of a mix-up, I wasn’t able to capture the meeting live on a visual map. So I took copious notes—relying on my journalism experience like I did with the fine folks at AGU— and worked up a mural later that day.

Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

My favorite part was the public dialogue meeting where individuals who cared about the river were asked to share their vision for the future of the river corridor. We asked them what they valued about the river. Some of the answers were:

• the continuity of history
• living on the river
• economic development
• tourism
• unique neighborhoods
• accessibility

We talked about all the ways it was currently being used. What the impediments were to making it a wonderful place. And then created the vision of what it could be.
Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

My part was pivotal here because as I wrote and drew the ideas people shared, I allowed their vision to flow through me and into the paper so they could see how wonderful, special and significant this river is in all its facets. It was all right there in big gorgeous Technicolor. And they were wowed.

They felt heard, which was the most important part. As I often say,

Listening is an act of love.

In fact, the team got an email later from someone at the public meeting commending them for really listening.

The all-nighter commences.

The next step of the team’s process is kind of like cramming for your exams. They hole up in the hotel conference room and get to work. They think. They write. They compare ideas. They write some more.

Other folks come in to help. The youngsters who are tech savvy make maps and drawings and scale models. This goes on for 36 hours, mostly straight.

A room full of brains on fire. Culminating in a beautifully detailed 48- page report with recommendations galore. Take a peek. My visual maps are on page 16. (This is also a great example of how my client repurposed the murals created during the live event.)

All this work was presented at AIA’s annual conference. It created quite a buzz. People swarmed the murals to take photos.

I know those architects and I are going to work together again real soon. There might not be mojitos but we’ll make due with another local beverage. Aquavit perhaps? Ouzo?

I’ve been doing a lot of networking, which I like to think of as calling my boats home to me. See I have this image of my ideal clients and partners as sailboats, bobbing in a calm harbor just off my tropical island. Have I mentioned that the metaphor for my business is a tropical island? Well it is.

My business is a tropical island

It’s a place where calm seas and sunshine prevail. Its warm and joyful with pina coladas at the ready. There are treasure chests of loot on the sandy beaches, easily visible. Gold coins and dabloons shining in the sun. And my boats are gently bobbing in the waves anchored in the harbor.

The sailboats welcome me when I come out to spend time with them. Then I come back to my island and breathe in the scent of gardenia and frangipani like magic drifting in the night breeze. Everyone’s happy ‘mon.

So finding my boats….

Most of my boats are in this foggy place where I can kind of see them but can’t make out the specifics. Right now the boats are all maybe’s. Full of possibility and potential. Good, rewarding, exciting things can emerge. But a boat can also become a rabbit hole of time suckage.

So the question is: if it’s a maybe right now what tips a boat toward becoming a “yes” or a “no”?

Enter the Eggs of Possibility

Yes, I have a dozen eggs sitting on my desk. They are cascarones, the Mexican version of an Easter egg.

To make a cascarone, you crack the egg, clean it out, dye it, fill it with confetti and cover the hole with tissue paper. I have a dozen of these beauties sitting prominently on my desk. Gestating.

Each one represents a potential opportunity for me. They are gestating. Waiting to become a clear “yes.”

There’s the Africa egg because I want to do a lot more international work (I originally wanted to be a diplomat, so the international policy wonk side of me is eager to go for a gallop). And my intuition is telling me a trip to Africa is on my horizon.

There’s the Rumi in Australia egg: a new friend I met on LinkedIn and had an hour long conversation about working together which seems like it could go in interesting directions.

And there’s a few more Eggs of Possibility that I’m not ready to reveal just yet. You get the idea.

I look at the Eggs of Possibility throughout the day. I pick them up and check in with them energetically. I think about what they need. I hold them in my mind and heart. And I trust that in time they will hatch.

Yesterday my friend, the amazing Hiro Boga, held a free teleclass where she offered a taste of her amazing energy work. I never pass up an opportunity to tune into the depth of myself with someone as gifted as Hiro.

On the Yellow Brick Road call, (if you weren’t on it you should beg her for the recording) we would look toward the future of our business. Not in a yucky analytical planning kind of way but in a deeply centered, intuitive, sovereignty kind of way.

What’s your relationship to your future?

The question that kicked off her theme. After a bit of introduction she started doing her magic energy moving stuff, taking us through our body and focusing us deep inside the center of our skull where we connected with our soul. From that place, she asked us to look at the soul of our business.

The soul of my business is a magic marker and also a little girl

In connecting to the soul of our business, Hiro asked us to hold out our hand to welcome the hand from the soul of our business.** My business appeared to me as a beautiful young girl about five or six years old, in a summer party dress with flowers strewn in her hair.

** A few days prior to this call, I had a session with Hiro where she had me look at the soul of my business which I saw as a magic marker and at myself, which I saw as glittering gold dust. I know–gold dust! I love that image too.

This time the little girl was flitting about, clearly comfortable with herself and passing out her extra flowers to every one around her. I could tell she was so happy to be alive without a care in the world. Thrilled to be in her own world with those around her.

The future of my business is lush and there are boats

In the next step of the call, Hiro had us envision the landscape of our business’s future. I stood there, holding the hand of this wondrous little girl, and saw that we were in the crease where two mountains came together. We were somewhere tropical. Exotic. Lush. Think Caribbean. Gardenia and frangipani flowers scented the air. Mangos grew in the trees above us.

Surveying from our perch I saw the turquoise blue of the sea. Hiro guided us to look around to see who else was there. Ask for whomever you want to meet. Ask for allies and pay attention to who shows up.

I saw boats. Sailboats.** Nice-sized, sea worthy sailboats. Yachts even. And my people—my tribe– were on the boats, bobbing up and down with the waves, just waiting.

**At one point in my life growing up, my father owned a marina business so I have spent a lot of time on the water in boats, and love to race sailboats.

The spirit of the boat

I asked Hiro how I could find out more about the people on the boats because clearly they are my right people. I could only see them as vague shapes. I wanted to know these people. I needed to know these people.

This is when Hiro said the most brilliant thing.Talk to the spirit of the boat. Spend time with the boat like you would a new place you were traveling to. Get to know it. Ask for permission to come aboard. Ask the boat where it’s going. Ask what the boat wants to tell you.

Ahhh, of course!!

The touchstones for my tribe

This answer from her tied in so beautifully to something that came up in my previous session with her last week when we looked at the soul of my business. Right now I’m in search of my people, my tribe. Hello? I’m looking for you.

What she saw for me was so reassuring. There are many trails laid out for me. Many beings have gone before me and marked the trails. And the trails are a whole network that overlap and intersect like the delta of a river.

The delta of a river.

The image I have of my river delta is one you would see if you flew over at night during a full moon with the rivulets, tributaries and streams glistening in reflected light. Shimmering. Beckoning.

So I am using the river delta and the gently bobbing sailboats as touchstones for my right people—my tribe of fellow group energy movers who work their magic with businesses and organizations both overtly and covertly. This is where the soul of my business is taking me. We’re on a journey in the ocean of the world.

We have a lot of work to do in the world, me and the soul of my business. I’m off to spend more time with the spirit of my boats. I’ll let you know what I discover.