My friend discovered a mallard duck – she named her Daisy – nesting in her backyard planter. Two of the eight eggs hatched, and two small ducklings emerged.

One of them quickly made its way out of the planter, and began trailing its mother, but as you can see in the video clip here or below, the other duckling couldn’t figure out how to escape.

So Daisy left that little duckling behind.

Apparently, that’s how ducks roll. It’s survival of the fittest: The mother duck leaves with the ducklings who are strong enough to follow her to the nearest pond that she pre-selects as their new starter home.

Any ducklings that can’t keep up and follow mother duck’s lead are abandoned. The mother duck never returns to retrieve the remaining babies, so my friend brought that fledgling duck to an animal rescue.

Daisy Duck got me thinking about the meetings industry.

As we finally emerged from the pandemic, I fear that meetings and workplaces are...

My salsa dance addiction started in 2002, at the beginning of a 12-year divorce from hell.

Dance was my exercise. My escape. My solace.

I lived in Toronto, within minutes of salsa socials and studios. I was a single working mom with a live-in nanny for my then one- and three-year-old kids. When they went to sleep, I went dancing, five nights a week.

It was as if I had another life: Working by day, dancing by night. No matter how badly I felt, all my stress disappeared on the dance floor. Dance changed everything in my mind and body.

Twelve years ago, I shelved salsa and transitioned to west coast swing dancing, which was gentler on my aging body. West coast swing is an improvisational, playful smooth partner dance to music ranging from blues to pop. The dance features an extension-compression style of partner connection.

Now separated and single again, I’ve added salsa back to my dance repertoire. I love moving to the beat of Latin music. I needed something uplifting to take...

As human beings, we all want to better ourselves. Now, how that betterment translates for you will be different than what it means for your child, neighbor, colleague, partner, friends, etc.
 
Of course, though our journeys may be different, there are universal themes that remain the same: We, as human beings, cherish and strive for many of the same outcomes i.e. love, acceptance, connection, happiness and a sense of meaning and purpose. 
 
In order to achieve these outcomes, we have to be vulnerable and open ourselves up to new experiences. To this end, I took on a new challenge: I participated in a 20-day salsa “warm-up musicality marathon " in November 2022. While this was a team challenge, the focus was on solo freestyle dancing. Spoiler alert: My team won the challenge! 

"Frigid Freestyler" -- My Journey to Vulnerability

My goals were to embody musicality and become a more improvisational and creative dancer. I aspired to move my body like...

Do you ...