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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

A Week in Reflection

July 30, 2017 • Food for Thought, Lifestyle

+ One of the greatest controls I realize we can have in modern day times is knowing when to unplug from social media and take breaks when you need them most. This is something I did this week. Not worrying about taking pictures in the moment and just capturing those moments in your mind to cherish, is needed more often than I think we realize.

+ One of those moments this week, was watching Blake turn two months. The smiles and giggles that are coming from him more and more everyday are so much fun.

+ There is nothing better for the soul than walks outdoors in beautiful summer sun, especially when its with your best friend (and her baby!) or husband and a good cup of coffee.

+ Another thing that feeds the soul? A good book like Erin Loechnre’s ‘Chasing Slow’ which I have completely consumed this week. The way in which Erin writes is truly incredible – its as if she can read my mind.

+ You can make chocolate chip cookies a hundred times and still make a batch that is a #BakingFail.

+ Visits from friends during the day, mid-week for a quick coffee and chat are the best.

+ There truly is no way to know what Donald Trump will get up too next and what his tweets may result in by the end of the week #FacePalmEmoji

+ Sometimes, you just need those deep-fried pickles you are craving. And so deserve (that’s what I keep telling myself anyways).

+ Fresh cut flowers in the house brighten up everyone’s mood.

+When you search out some awesome finds at the local antique market in Aberfoyle and negotiate the price too!

+ That feeling of accomplishment when you get through your weekend to do list (almost all of it anyways)

Leave a Comment Food for Thought, Lifestyle Aberfoyle Antique Market, Antiques, Baking, Blog 452, Chasing Slow, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Coffee, Deep-Fried Pickles, Donald Trump, Erin Loechnre, Fast Food, Flowers, Friendship, Good Reads, Maternity Leave, Motherhood, N, New Born, Outdoors, Photos, Social Media, Summer, Summer 2017, To Do List, Tweets, Twitter, Unplug, Walking, Walks, Weekend, WEekends

The excitement of not knowing what’s ahead

May 7, 2017 • Career, Lifestyle

To say the last 48 hours has felt surreal would be an understatement.

As of Friday, I began maternity leave to begin my {next} exciting life adventure… motherhood. Baby A hasn’t arrived just yet but knowing any day now, life could change because of his/her impending arrival, is an incredible feeling. Scary yes, but exciting none the less.

Where’s the manual I keep asking? Well, there isn’t one. And that is the whole point to becoming a parent. There is no one size fits all – what works for someone may not work for another. Its something I’ve tried to embrace this entire pregnancy, especially being a woman in business.

I have to say, the feeling of not having control from here on in is … well, liberating.

Adjusting to the smallest things – only having to charge and check one phone, not two; not having an impending schedule and calendar of meetings/briefings; getting use to not being needed in a work capacity; and ensuring I have what is needed to keep a human being alive once we are headed home from the hospital is again, scary but so liberating.

For those of us in business who like to be strategic about every move we make (so pretty much every millennial.. we all know we don’t like surprises!), it is exciting to not know what is in store for us. This baby has all the control now and I’ll (try) to be ready for whenever it wants to make its arrival into this amazing world.

Until then, I’m trying to wrap my mind around spending less time behind a computer to adapt to my soon-to-be-new reality of changing diapers. Here’s to hoping Baby A gives us a few days to nest so we can get ready for this next crazy, awesome adventure ahead of parenthood.

Signed,

{soon-to-be} #MamaBoss

Leave a Comment Career, Lifestyle 2017, Baby, Blog452, Career, Christina Crowley-Arklie, Control, Girl Boss, GirlBoss, Liberating, Life, Life Lessons, MamaBoss, Mat Leave, Maternity Leave, Millennials, Motherhood, Parenthood, Passionate Voice, The Passionate Voice, Truth, Woman in Business, Women, Women in Business





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