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The Passionate Voice

Airplanes: A Destination for Silence

September 17, 2017 • Communication, Lifestyle, Social Media

There aren’t many places where you can now fully disconnect. Places where you can’t access wifi and be hooked to the internet and your smartphone. Places where you can totally be #offline.

Thinking back to my first trip to Europe in 2009, I couldn’t call home on my cellphone, let alone get a wifi signal to use my cell (notice I called it a cellphone not a smartphone, that dates me already!) That was less than a decade ago. Oh how technology has advanced in such a short period of time!

While in Europe, I had to go to Internet cafes or use pay phones with calling cards to call home to let my parents know I was safe and sound. I remember taking photos with my camera here and there at the most memorable tourist attractions but I couldn’t be bothered with documenting my entire trip through the lens of my camera. I wanted to experience it all in person. And let’s be serious, even if I wanted to document it all through the best filters and apps, my flip phone didn’t even have the capabilities to take photos. God, I really am dating myself. 

Fast forward almost a decade later, and you can now connect almost anywhere in the world at any time of the day. They even now offer wifi on some planes which seemed like the last place we’d ever see access to internet introduced. I always thought it interfered with the airplane signals?! #GuessIwasWrong

On most flights where they now offer wifi, they at least have put a price tag to access wifi. Its a hefty price tag, but I am glad they put the price high so it discourages me to pay for internet. 

Here’s why….

Airplanes are one of the last places where we can put boundaries or restrictions on using our smartphones and accessing social media. Its one of the last remaining places where we are guaranteed silence. Where we expect to be left alone. Its one of the last places where we are forced to sit alone with our thoughts… scary I know.

Its where you can read a book quietly or watch a movie… with no dings, no alerts, no vibrations.

On airplanes, I get some of my best ideas. Its where my creative juices get a flowin’. Its where I pull out pen and paper and write down blog post ideas, work on my editorial calendar, brainstorm content for upcoming presentations, process ideas and thoughts and let my mind wander. 

Its one of the best feelings.

I’ve come away from my recent trip visiting my in-laws in Manitoba with many blog posts written and random thoughts documented. Some samples from my most recent two hour personal brainstorm session plane ride?

  • Agriculture faces a re-branding challenge. I tweeted about this idea this week. Its one of the biggest challenges I believe we face in the industry I grew up in and love to work in. I’ll be elaborating on this thought later this week when I serve on a Co-operators ag panel.
  • On the topic of agriculture, it just recently dawned on me that for the better part of my political career, I have been the minority. Working in agriculture in downtown Toronto, surrounded by consumers who don’t know much about agriculture and farming is where I’ve realized I’m not the majority. When I was a kid growing up, I just naturally assumed everyone knew about farming because hey, that’s what everyone did right?! Do those who work in agriculture sometimes forget, including me, that we aren’t the majority anymore in the circles we need to be selling our industry too?! And are we comfortable being the minority?
  • Social media is changing the operational functions of customer service departments for companies and businesses. Both good and bad. I talked about this at a presentation I gave earlier this week from a customer service experience I witnessed on Twitter recently. Blog post written on this = check.
  • A ‘Someday File’ – we all have one. Places we’d like to travel too; things we want to buy; books we want to read; things we want to learn. What holds us back from doing any of it?! After reading more of Mark Manson’s ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ it got my mind racing on so many topics he writes about and my own ‘someday file’ and why I keep making lists but don’t DO alot of them.

So many thoughts I know for a two hour flight 😛 So much writing, so little time. Also, here is to our first successful trip and plane ride with Blake. Thankfully it was a smooth ride and experience. Thanks little man for making this mom feel like she hit the baby jackpot #MotherWin 

Leave a Comment Communication, Lifestyle, Social Media 2017, Agriculture, Airplane, Airplane Signal, Baby, Blog452, Blogger, Blogging, Branding, Business, Camera, Career, Cell, Cellphone, Christina Crowley-Arklie, Communication, Connect, Creative Juices, Creativity, Customer Service, Digital, Digital Age, Europe, Fall, Fall 2017, Food for Thought, Ideas, Internet, Mark Manson, Marketing, Maternity Leave, Motherhood, Passionate Voice, Rural Ontario, Side Business, Side Hustle, Silence, Smartphone, Social Media, Someday File, Technology, The Passionate Voice, Thoughts, Tourist, Travel, Travelling, Westjet, Wifi

To The Journey We Begin

June 27, 2017 • Career, Lifestyle, Making a Difference

“A new is baby is like the beginning of all things – wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.”

– Edna J LaShan

I intentionally decided to step back from the Passionate Voice over the past month and take a break from my own personal #Blog452 goal for 2017 since experiencing the greatest life gift a month ago.

Only a few short hours after sharing my last blog post, on May 27, 2017, one month ago today, we were blessed by welcoming Blake Andrew Arklie into the world.

Taking the time to step back from blogging, use social media with more intention and purpose since then and relish in the arrival of our new baby has been a gift. Getting to know this new, tiny human being while at the same time, adjusting to the new roles of motherhood and parenthood, has been a gratifying and humbling tiring experience.

It has taken me several attempts to write this post as the words didn’t seem to embody all I’ve been thinking and feeling. Every time I began to write this post, I was overcome with emotion, of course positive ones. To try and find words to accurately reflect how life changed a month ago is next to impossible.

And then I realized, after trying to start this post many a time, this post is a reflection of what I am learning (in a short time of course) about motherhood, “Its progress, not perfection.” 

You’ll never find the perfect words to sum up something as magical as this so here it goes, my first blog post being wrote, while breastfeeding, balancing a baby and typing with one finger (I feel like I’m in grade 3 computer class all over again learning to type, but again, progress not perfection).

No book, manual or course can prepare you for what I am realizing is the single most unique experience that anyone can go through. Every person is different, every baby is different, therefore making every person’s version of parenthood so unique.

It has been an incredible (and daunting) feeling, knowing I am now not only responsible for myself, but another human being…. and that the values and perspectives I share will ultimately help to shape who he becomes.

I am proud to have been raised into who I am by my parents and my upbringing; proud of the choices I’ve made and the paths I’ve pursued in my personal life, my career and my hobbies… but being Blake’s mom is now the cherry on top.

Watching Andrew take on his new role of being a father has also been the most heart-bursting thing to watch. So many of the cliche things they say about parenthood ring so true now – you never truly feel a love like this until you watch your partner you love, love the baby you created together #HeartExplosion

Learning Blake’s small, subtle cues of what his different cries are for and what he needs; watching him grow each day (seriously can’t believe how much they change so quickly!); experiencing all of his ‘firsts’ with him; taking him out to do the most mundane tasks, only to be admired by men and women of all ages (people really do love babies!); and enjoying long walks with Blake in the stroller, Starbucks coffee in hand while the warm summer sun beats down, are just a few of the small day-to-day experiences I am continually in awe of and thankful for.

Of course there are late nights, long days, cries and poopy diapers – the detailed stuff the books don’t (really) prepare you for, but I’m just thankful that my job and my upbringing on the dairy farm helped prepare me for late nights, early mornings and operating on only a few hours of sleep on any given day. As I keep joking to find the positive, you can sleep when your dead right?! #IWish #StillNeedSleep

Navigating this new phase of life and my new role as mom has been ‘interesting’ on some days but having the best husband and partner to share in this with makes this the greatest adventure we’ve embarked on together. If I thought it was liberating not knowing what was ahead as we prepared for Blake’s impending arrival, not knowing what is in store each day with a newborn baby and learning something new each day as a new mom is even more liberating.

I’ve relinquished full control to a small tiny being and for the first time in my life, it feels amazing to not have expectations because as I shared on instagram last week, when you don’t have expectations, you don’t have disappointments. Another new lesson for this mom.

I was passionate about everything I did in life before Blake arrived (hence why this is called ‘The Passionate Voice’) but now I wake up, yes a little more tired, but with an added sense of purpose. If I wanted to do things before Blake, I only want to do them THAT much bigger and better now. The purpose, passion and perspective I have for life and seeing it through the eyes of our newborn, has added a whole new vigour to which I want to do this thing called ‘life.’

If any time in life, I’m realizing this is the best time to let the dishes pile, the laundry heap and the dust collect, there will be enough time for all of that. For now, I’m trying to soak this all up.

I’m hoping to continue kicking butt with my 2017 goals and it looks like I can check off the biggest one of them all not only for 2017 but in life.. becoming a mom to a healthy baby! I do plan to share more and do more here on The Passionate Voice to make even more of a difference because if I wanted to leave the planet a better place before Blake, I only want that a million times more now.

Here’s to our journey ahead as a family of 3.. its going to be one hell of a beautiful, bumpy ride 🙂

Leave a Comment Career, Lifestyle, Making a Difference 2017, Babies, Baby, Blog452, Blogger, Blogging, Career, Christina Crowley-Arklie, Edna LaShan, Fatherhood, GirlBoss, Goals, Guelph, Hastings, Inspiration, Instagram, Life, Life Lessons, Lifestyle Blogger, Making a Difference, Mama, MamaBoss, Mother, Motherhood, Newborn, Parenthood, Parenting, Passion, Passionate Voice, Side Hustle, Social Media, Summer, The Passionate Voice

2016 {the year of many firsts}… and the best is yet to come in 2017!

January 14, 2017 • Agriculture, Career, Lifestyle, Public Speaking, Social Media, Travel

While we’re 14 days into 2017, I couldn’t look back on 2016 more fondly as a year that I considered ‘the best year yet.’

Until this year….. more to come on that so read on!

I made a commitment last year to make 2016 ‘different’ in everything I did – personal, professional, my business, my hobbies AND my attitude. One of those differences that inevitably fell into my lap was embracing firsts, something I may not have been so open too in the past.

Embracing ‘firsts’ teaches you so much about yourself – what your capcity is for courage, strength, spontaneity, adventure, experiencing news things that you’re not use too or comfortable with and just how open you (and your attitude) are to welcoming firsts, in the first place!

I really tried to continue living by the motto I shared back in my 2015 Year in Review, “Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone.” Some firsts last year weren’t easy, but man did they feel good after they were done, knowing I had set my mind to doing them!

To reflect on what some of those ‘firsts’ were for me and others close to me, I thought I would highlight some of the memorable ‘firsts’ from last year (there were surely more but not enough time to capture everything!):

  • Travelling with my family on our first out-of-province trip to receive our second Holstein Canada Master Breeder award in Banff, Alberta
  • Horeseback riding in the Alberta mountains
  • Hiked a mountain (Tunnel Mountain in Banff)
  • Explored many new towns, cities and destinations in our very own Ontario including the Muskokas, Bayfield, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Lake of the Woods/Kenora and Bobcaygeon (home to the infamous Tragically Hip song!)
  • Worked with new clients both in and outside of agriculture – learning about new industries is fascinating (and what agriculture can learn from these industries is invaluable!)
  • My family started building their first robotic dairy barn, which will be completed this winter
  • Andrew and I took our boat through the Trent Severn Waterway liftlocks in my hometown of Hastings
  • I visited my first-ever cranberry and shrimp farms
  • Met so many new, amazing #girlbosses including Canada’s own Conquer Kit writer & speaker, Natalie MacNeil
  • Flew in a helicopter, experiencing the beautiful fall scenery of the Muskokas
  • Saw my mom featured on the cover of a national dairy magazine, The Progressive Dairyman (way to go, mom!)
  • Experienced many amazing new firsts at work as a Press Secretary, I feel so fortunate to do what I do in the industry I love
  • Saw the Northern Lights for the first time while visiting Manitoba last summer
  • ….. and the best “first” of 2016… Andrew and I found out we’re expecting a baby in 2017!

What I thought was the best year yet in 2016 is certainly going to be topped this year with the incredible gift that Andrew and I have been blessed with.

To be given the the gift of parenthood is going to be by far the greatest thing we’ve ever done come May, 2017 and we couldn’t be more ready (despite doing this ‘thing’ called parenthood for the first time!).

Let the countdown begin for the BEST ‘FIRST’ EVER coming up in 2017! 🙂

2015 Year in Review

Leave a Comment Agriculture, Career, Lifestyle, Public Speaking, Social Media, Travel 2016, 2016 Year in Review, 2017, Agriculture, Alberta, Baby, Banff, Blog452, Blogger, Blogging, Boating, Bobcaygeon, Business, Career, Change, Christina Crowley-Arklie, Communication, Conquer Kit, Cranberry, Cranberry Farming, Crovalley, Dairy, Dairy Barn, Discover Ontario, Explore, Fall, Family Farm, Farming, Firsts, Girl Boss, Hastings, Helicopter, Hiking, Hobbies, Holstein Canada, Horseback riding, Kenora, Lake of the Woods, Lifestyle, Liftlocks, magazine, Manitoba, Master Breeder, Muskokas, Natalie MacNeil, Northern Lights, Parenthood, Personal, Pregnancy, Press Secretary, Professional, Progressive Dairyman, Robot Dairy Barn, Shrimp, Shrimp Farming, Side Business, Side Hustle, Social Media, The Passionate Voice, Travel, Travelling, Trent Severn Waterway, Tunnel Mountain, Water, Year in Review





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