last photo of the necklace (bad selfie where i was trying to get andrew zimmern in the background!)

My family and friends will tell you that I’m not very good at keeping track of things: organization and structure are not a strong suit. (Don’t ask how I managed to be a CPA or Six Sigma Black Belt in my earlier years. I think I used up all I had back then). My world is one of organized chaos that only I can see. And it mainly works, except when it doesn’t.

On a recent trip, it really didn’t. I managed to lose not only one, but two things which were important to me. When you lose something, you realize worth to you. I lost a necklace that was a birthday gift from a friend. It’s a bummer.

But the even more valuable loss was my notebook. A notebook. How can that be? I had no idea just how important it was to me until I realized I’d left it back in our safari camp. I woke up with a sense of panic at 3am airport hotel in Nairobi. I’m in the bathroom searching all of mine and Stu’s luggage, fully packed for our 6am departure. I knew I’d left it behind, but I looked anyway. As I emptied our last bag, I dropped to the floor and started crying. Not just a few tears, but a big ugly cry. Really? Over a notebook?

I wrote an email to the last place we’d stayed asking them to please check for me. I texted a friend who would give me a virtual hug and comfort. My tears ran out. I went back to bed, put on some soothing music and tried to sleep a bit before our alarm.

This wasn’t just any notebook. Sure, it had notes for meetings I’d be having next week. But that’s not what made it valuable. What made it valuable were the little, personal things, the ones I remember, and the ones I don’t, but wanted to (which is why I wrote them down)...

It was:

The Rules of Being Human that Kitty gave me after I delivered my Awakening Change, Step 1: Being Human session at a conference back in June. The words are replaceable, but the slip of paper that she’d carried in her notebook for years and decided to gift to me were not.

The post it note from our friend Graeme that said “ I’m made up of all the days and moments you don’t see me, not just the ones you do” which has reminded me for years to remember the person behind the person in front of me.

The post it note stuck in the front about “changing my relationship with ________ (the weather) and my “manifesto” (now awakening change) from a conversion with Kendra years ago.

The post it note pages from a lunch in Seattle in March with my coach and friend, Kim, where we talked about awakening change, it being organic and me being organic in it, and lots of other awesome things, like a coach I should meet in Kenya.

The pages with my notes from all sorts of learnings like:

· My first session of being an LGC at MSOD in Pajaro, and the teachings from Terri, Suzanne, Gary, Chris, Ann, my LGC colleagues and the students, and my insights from the exercises which shined a light on parts of me I didn’t know were there, and helped start to reframe a number of things in my life,

· Notes from my first Being Human Collaborative which I want to replicate and grow,

· Conversations with my friend Renee Smith about fear and love at work and her research and our shared dreams of making work more human,

· ODN in November with Meg Wheatley, Chris Worley and Gary Mangiofico,

· Foundations of Generative Leadership in Seattle on my second time around with Bob Dunham- and what struck me on my second rodeo,

· Workshops with Theo Paradies, a shaman I’ve had the privilege of learning with the last few years, and bits of poetry from those sessions,

· Marcus Lemonis’ 10 rules to succeed in business.

· Mike Robbins on the difference between appreciations and gratitude and why both are important from a client workshop

· Notes about shift+ and feedback from my friends Jen Ostrich and Pete Barridge,

· Feedback I received about myself from peers and friends that I wanted to remember.

· Ideas and dreams starting to be articulated,

And, perhaps the most valuable page in the notebook, (tears forming even now), the page with my notes from my last conversation with my mentor, Tony Petrella, where he told me he had nothing left to teach me, and we were now just friends, peers, and I was like a soul sister born in a different time and place. And a month later, he had an accident and died.

Losing my notebook felt like losing a part of my soul. And it hurt. It still does.

My husband Stu is one of many beautiful people in my life. He asked me what I think losing these things, and this notebook in particular, is about. I wasn’t ready to move to the lesson, I was still struggling with the loss and grieving it. I knew the answer in my head, which I didn’t say out loud, because I didn’t want to acknowledge it yet. And then Stu said it out loud.

He said, “do you think you lost it because the universe is trying to tell you that you don’t need it? You know everything you need to know. You embody it. The knowledge in the notebook is IN YOU. And now you need to move to your next chapter and to LIVE it. It’s time. It’s time to write the book. It’s time to host the retreats. It’s time.”

I still needed a couple of days to cry and grieve the loss of my notebook. Stu was kind enough to listen to me bitch as we walked around Amsterdam and to hold me one night in our hotel while I cried. I’m still annoyed with myself for leaving something so precious behind. I need to take better care of what I care about. And, Stu is right. I know what I need to know. I don’t need the notebook. I want it, but don’t need it, like many things in life.

Whoever found my notebook likely saw the value in the paper, which can be scarce in African villages, and I hope it is being used. A friend today said that maybe my old pages are the pages a child is coloring on somewhere. I like that idea. I like it a lot. My loss, small as it is and as big as it was felt, can be the start of someone else’s expression: coloring, writing or whatever that may be. May it have a positive impact, wherever it is. And may my next notebook and next chapter have a positive impact. May I learn my lessons, may I share them, and may I be able to let go of whatever else might be holding me back as I move into this next decade…