The Angels Among Us

By Deb Boelkes

While our biological parents are typically the primary shapers of our beliefs and values, some of us are blessed to have other truly wonderful people — angels really — who enter our lives along the way and have a profound influence on us. 

In honor of the angel who saved me from the darkness at a pivotal point early in my life — an angel who recently joined the choirs of heaven — I am republishing my inaugural Heartfelt Leadership post from January 2013. May this story inspire you to honor an angel in your life who had a profound influence on you when you needed it most.

When One Door Closes

The doorbell rang. Yet I sat there cold, numb and in a fog. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel. I was angry. I was empty. I was scared. I wanted to cry, but there were no tears. There was nothing but nothingness there in my bedroom, where everything should have felt familiar and comforting but wasn’t. My room now seemed like a place I didn’t know at all and didn’t belong. As in a bad dream, everything felt strange and unknown. I felt completely alone.

The doorbell rang again. This time there was a knocking. I slowly stood up and drifted like a ghost toward the front door. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, wondering if it was even safe to open the door. I wondered who had come here.

I guardedly opened the door...

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Why Are You in Such a Hurry?

By Deb Boelkes

Do you ever find yourself rushing through the day, exerting unnecessary pressure on yourself in valiant attempts to cram “just one more thing” into your already busy life?

Throughout my hustle-and-bustle leadership career—before technology enabled us to work from home—I hurried through virtually every aspect of my life in attempts to make up for the untold hours I spent sitting in heavily clogged LA traffic, where virtually every hour is “rush hour.”

Never-the-less, on the days that I wasn’t travelling to far-off places, I loved catching up with my local colleagues and staff over lunch in sit-down restaurants. The biggest challenge we faced when deciding where to dine was not so much about the kind of food we would have, but whether we had the time to drive or if we needed to walk to ensure we could get back to the office before our next meeting. Yes, walking was often the quickest option.

After 30+ years enduring such ridiculous drive-time routines...

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Are You Living Up to the Pedigree You Inherited?

By Deb Boelkes

Most of us have at least one ancestor in our family tree we are proud to claim as kin. Then there are those in our lineage we choose to ignore, hoping no one will discover we’re related to them.  Some of us know little to nothing about our bloodlines. Some of us maintain copious ancestral records. Certainly, we each have countless forebearers who will forever remain a mystery.

My mother was born into the clan Calhoun—a surname revered by Southerners for over two centuries.  Her parents first met when my Texas-born grandfather asked my very proper British-born grandmother, then just a teen-ager, to dance with him at a USO party when he was a “Doughboy” on leave in England, headed to the European battlefront in the midst of the first World War.

As the story goes, when my grandfather first met my grandmother’s prim and proper parents following the dance, he introduced himself as hailing from a family of Texas “cattle rustlers”—much to everyone’s chagrin. Thereafter, whenever the Texas cattle rustler sent love letters from the warfront to his beloved British girlfriend, her father intercepted and burned the letters in the fireplace, in attempts to forever keep the young lovers apart.

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What Would America Be Without Courageous Heartfelt Leaders?

By Deb Boelkes

As a heartfelt leader who cares about this nation, have you ever considered what Flag Day in America really represents or how it came to be?  

Candidly, even though my ancestors fought as patriots in the American Revolution, and while an American flag perpetually flies in front of my home, Flag Day (June 14^th) usually comes and goes without much fanfare at my house. But this year, as our country celebrates its 250^th year of independence, it’s fitting to honor Flag Day and recognize the colonial Grande Dame credited with making the first American flag, Betsy Ross.

My research surprisingly uncovered little written about Betsy Ross until 1870 (decades after her death), when her last surviving grandson, William Canby, wrote and presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania entitled “The History of the Flag of the United States”.  In his presentation, ...

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If You Could Pick Your Family, Who Would They Be?

By Deb Boelkes

Have you ever considered why you were born into the circumstances that you were?

Some schools of thought assert that we choose the families we will be born into before we make our appearance as infants. Some believe it is through angelic foreknowledge that we select the time, place, lifestyle situation, and parent(s) who will best enable us to experience the kind of challenges and life-lessons that our soul needs to continue to develop spiritually, earthly life by earthly life, throughout eternity.

If you’ve read any of my books, you are probably aware that I was an only child. While my earliest years were tranquil and carefree, my home life grew increasingly tumultuous when my mother succumbed to alcoholism and my father essentially stopped coming home when I was in high school. Seeking some sense of stability until I was able to strike out on my own, I spent most of my after-class hours with my best friend’s family.

I can’t begin to imagine what could have become of me had it not been for this truly generous and loving family who essentially took me in as their own, no questions asked, at a time when I needed them most. Perhaps the biggest blessing of all is that they have continued to be my family to this very day.

If I could have picked my parents from the get-go, I would have picked my best friend’s parents and circumvented all the chaos life threw at me during my pre-teen and teenage years. Yet, it was no doubt all the existential challenges I faced growing up that enabled me to become a stronger, more self-reliant, and appreciative young adult than many of my peers.  Perhaps I would be a dramatically different person today had it not been for my possibly predestined path.  

Some years later, when I asked my chosen mom, “How can I ever repay you for all you have done for me?” she simply replied...

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Even You Can Transform Lives

By Deb Boelkes

Have you ever considered taking a complete break from your work-a-day life for a month or two, just for the purpose of making a difference in the lives of others who need it most? Have you ever hesitated to do so because you believed you couldn’t take extended time off or you didn’t have the skills necessary to make the kind of impact that would really matter?

If so, you’re not alone. But as former President Ronald Reagan once said, “Never let the things you can’t do stop you from doing what you can.”

My friend Deedee (not her real name) was a transportation planner for one of the largest cities in America when she decided to follow that advice. One evening after work, she happened to attend a meeting where a representative of Mercy Ships was the guest speaker. What Deedee learned during that brief, but informative session spoke to her heart. She immediately knew she had to learn more.

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To Quit or Not to Quit

By Deb Boelkes

Have you ever experienced a feeling of dread on a Sunday evening as you climbed into bed and realized, “Oh no. Tomorrow is Monday… AGAIN.”

I’ve certainly been there, although not too many times. Whenever that feeling of dread lasted more than a few weeks, I knew instinctively it was time to make a move. But before jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, I had to first diagnose the real problem.

The first time I ever faced such a dilemma was when I was four years into my initial career as a fashion designer. A vendor, of all people, told me I didn’t belong in the industry. What a wakeup call that was.

At that point in my career, I had already resigned from two jobs—each time to follow my young Naval Officer husband when his ship changed duty stations. Because there was no technology enabling people to work remotely back then, I had little choice but to quit jobs I truly loved because my husband was my top priority. It’s always been my mantra to stay true to my beliefs.     

Eventually I settled into my third design job—one I loved even more than the first two—designing junior women’s swimwear. I fully expected to be there for the long term.   

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The Happiest Place on Earth

By Deb Boelkes

Disneyland, known as “The Happiest Place on Earth” for almost 70 years now, opened its doors the year I was born. For the first eight years of my life, I was lucky enough to live just 12 miles down the road from Mickey, Minnie and Cinderella.

As mentioned in my book, Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring, my family made a habit of visiting Disneyland year after year. To this day, I still enjoy watching our old home-movies of me as a three-year-old, happily dancing down Main Street and into Tomorrowland wearing my favorite red plaid skirt, white bobby socks, and a Mickey Mouse ear hat—with “Debbie” embroidered on it—atop my pony-tailed head. Those merry excursions were some of the happiest days of my life.

Whenever there, I would imagine what it might be like to live in one of those charming but inaccessible apartments above the shops on Main Street or near the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland. Acknowledging that we grown-ups must live in the real world, there’s no reason we can’t still aspire to live in the happiest place on earth. So, I’ve forever strived to make my work and home environments as welcoming and happy as life seemed at Disneyland.

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