By Kiva Leatherman

Currency valuation is big business. There are lots of very smart people in the world running calculations, hypotheticals, and analyses every day to determine the value of the dollar, the yen, the euro etc. But what we are talking about today is very different. I want to talk to you about your personal currency.

by Julie Haggerty Southworth

This week on April 22nd we celebrate our home, the Earth.  Our fragile earth supports us, not only as the home that physically nourishes us, but she gifts us daily with graces of indescribable beauty and complexity, nourishing our souls and spirits.  Most of us (I am no exception most days), are oblivious to the turning of our home, oblivious to her pulse.  We spin through our own personal worlds, most unconsciously.   We have our jobs, goals, homes, errands, children, families, recreational pursuits and we're plugged into technology of any and all kinds. Many of us, as a course of habit, become distracted and detached from the seasons, the cycles of nature, the earth herself. 
 
We don't often stop to take notice of what we have at hand…gifts, real gifts, 100% natural gifts.  These gifts are of the enormous variety, to the microscopic, including every creature and creation in between.  Think of the majestic snow peaked Himalayas, the enormity of the blue whale, the massive sprawling redwoods, and endless rocky coastlines lined with tall fragrant pines.  To the tiny:  the incredibly soft skin of a newborn baby, the bee hummingbird weighing less than a dime, the exquisite compound eye of a grasshopper.   Each is a critical ingredient to the functioning of our planet and there is grace in each of these, gifts given to us by our Mother, who imposes no fee. 
 
Mother Earth continually whispers to all of us, humans, animals, and to all of nature.  She communicates with mountains, oceans, forests, wind, water, creatures of all kinds.  A large flock of birds that mesmerize us by swirling, swooping and diving in impeccable, perfect choreography are never bumping into each other, nor are they around the corner practicing while we are not looking.  They don't have to.  They are tuned in to each other, tuned into Mother Earth, know exactly what they are doing, and never knew any other way.  They are connected to each other and to their inherent nature.

by Kiva Leatherman

There’s a movement happening. Have you felt it? It’s a shift in the way we live our lives – and as a culture are taking back our power in small ways individually, that are creating huge impact globally. It’s an awakening…  a recognizing… and it is so empowering. It’s a decentralization of power in our lives – to questioning the spoon-fed beliefs, needs and wants that have been created by a corporate-driven culture that feed our egos - to needs and wants that are driven from our individual needs and feed our souls.
Have you felt it?

Why? Community. Connection. Intimacy. Because we’ve learned that not knowing about where are money is, where our food comes from, and that we don’t know the people that are making decisions for us about our lives in government hasn’t worked.

One of the driving principles at Wise is that setting goals and moving toward them is the best way to achieve what you want out of life.  Without knowing your direction or planning for it, you’ll rarely end up in the place best suited to you.  Personally, we make our long and short term goals, and we get down to the nitty-gritty with own daily to do lists, much easier to work from and the means to our end result. We look at them occasionally, and gauge our progress.

By Andrea Heitker, Founder MelanomaGirl.com

My amazing friend Kiva asked me to write about overcoming adversity. I am honored that she asked me and happy to oblige. She is a wonderful friend and a constant source of support, insight and energy, and I cherish our friendship.

By way of introduction, my name is Andrea, and I am a Boston native. I spent LOTS of time on the beaches of Massachussets and Rhode Island in my teens and twenties. The goal was to be tan, but due to an Irish heritage, the end result was usually a burn, which sometimes would even blister and peel. Sunblock was generally not part of the equation, because "getting some good sun" was all part of the summer experience, and I actually thought I looked better with a burn than just being my normal pale self. I can remember having some horrible sunburns where I couldn't even walk the next day because my legs were scorched and my face was swollen and red. Sexy, huh?

I smartened up a bit  at age 29 when I moved to Cincinnati, OH. Mainly because there are no beaches in Cincinnati, but also because I was getting a bit smarter when it came to sun exposure. I started to wear sunblock and would cover up a bi more. Vacations still brought out my bad habits though, and I would usually overdo it and get burned.

Fast forward to age 37. I had a mole on my torso that looked a bit "funky." Now, I had been thinking about going to the dermatologist for a while, but kept putting off because it wasn't a priority. I am a "moley" person anyway and have had freckles and moles all my life, so this one was not too alarming, other than that it was new. Of course I waited almost a year to have it looked at. Result - malignant melanoma. 

One philosophy we have at Wise is that there’s always a good to a bad, a ying to a yang. Our job is to find it…

There is always an opportunity to treat yourself well, to expand your knowledge, to see the beauty around you, to know that this too shall pass, to create, to enrich, to appreciate.

This philosophy couldn’t be more real for me today, as I am sitting on the balcony of our hotel at Attitash Mountain on an absolutely crystal clear beautiful day. We come up this weekend every year to ski with friends and leave our children at home! No skiing for me this year since I’m headed to surgery in a couple of days to get my knee all fixed up...

Breathe. Dream. Imagine.

I literally just finished filling out an application to join a high-level women’s entrepreneur coaching group. And one of the questions was “What is your long term vision – your dream – for your company and for you?” I thought I would share my answer, because I don’t think I’ve written it down before!