Franklin Taggart's Unconventional Life Blog

  As I sit to write this on Christmas Eve, it's 49 degrees and raining here in Colorado. Welcome moisture after an extremely warm and dry Autumn. Christmas Day also has some rain in the forecast, but we still haven't had our first proper snow.  I'm grateful for another year in which I had the joy of trying new things, meeting new people, and finding fun ways to spend time, despite the ongoing challenge we all face with a virus running rampant. I'm lucky to have had only a mild case, which with my health history I count a miracle. I feel lucky to have done all the things I did this year and lucky is one of the best feelings I know. I'm particularly grateful for my family and their well-being. Bodhi is a high school soph this year and he continues to be a source of pride and lightheartedness. He received an academic letter for achieving and holding a 3.5 or higher GPA his freshman year, and he just finished his first semester of sophomore year with a 3.65. He is on th

  ▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below!▼▼▼ Are you feeling like technology is putting more distance between you and the people and communities who matter to you? Has all of this virtual reality really delivered the kinds of connection we need to thrive? Is content really something that brings us together, or is it a distraction from real connection? Audrey Holst and I departed from our standard interview format and had a good conversation about these questions and more in this episode of Your Own Best Company. You might have heard Audrey’s recent chat about perfectionism. In her company, Fortitude and Flow, she works with people who have reached a certain level of success and recognition, but who are still living with an uncomfortable level of dissatisfaction with where they have landed. Contact Audrey at fortitudeandflow.com We also talk about returning to real world interactions with new perceptions and insights gained from our time apart, end-of-year rituals, and seasonal traditions. I mention

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below!▼▼▼ Understanding your strong innate talents and those of others has a wealth of benefits for entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations. From building exceptional teams to better communication to identifying your best opportunities, clarifying and refining personal strengths and talents has both immediate and long-term payoffs. CliftonStrengths™ is a powerful assessment tool that will help you identify and understand your unique combination of strengths and how they can be refined, leveraged, and combined with the strengths of others to lead to improvements in job performance, team cohesion, and reaching goals. In this episode of Your Own Best Company, Gallup certified coach, Dr. Joanie Connell walks us through the simple process of completing the assessment and gives us a look inside a CliftonStrengths™ coaching session. Find Joanie online:  https://flexibleworksolutions.com LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanieconnell/ Reinventing Nerds Podcast: 

Craig Cannings from Freelance University gave me an opportunity to share some of my story on The Freelance Podclass. We talked a lot about how unexpected life events often turn into opportunities to find new expressions of our gifts. I shared a few lessons learned from choices I made that could have prevented many difficulties. And we talked about getting your business bases covered when life interrupts your normal. Please remember to subscribe and review, and definitely check out the many resources Freelance University offers to freelancers and solopreneurs. Thanks, Craig! Listen, subscribe, review, and share from your favorite podcast app or here:  https://www.freelanceu.com/freeupodcast/overcoming-lifes-disruptions/

  I'm thrilled to be one of the speakers for the upcoming Soulful Entrepreneur Summit on January 24-28, 2022. This online event is the creation of Alison Proffit and Amanda Mundo, two incredible entrepreneurs who are creating a movement of soul-driven creators, coaches, consultants, and business owners who will join together in delivering a powerful impact wherever they live and work. I'll be speaking on Thursday, January 27th at 1PM Mountain Time on one of my favorite topics, Community: The Source of All Opportunity.  Event passes are available now. Limited access passes are free and will allow you to join and participate during the event itself and for a couple of weeks following. All-access passes feature some added benefits and ongoing access to event recordings. Definitely a steal at the full price of $97, but if you order your passes before December 11, you'll save $50. Click on the photo to get yours today or scan this QR code to go right there:  I've also includ

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below!▼▼▼ When someone asks you how you’re doing, is your automatic response “I’m so busy”? Have you bought into the trending belief that hustle is worthy of a badge of honor while self-care is only permissible for people who don’t want to accomplish as much? Do you ignore your own warning signs that you’re running out of steam just so you can tick another five items from your to-do list? Is being busy all the time really bringing about the quality of life you most desire? Joseph Bennett would like to challenge these ideas and habits. Joseph is the author of the forthcoming, Rest, The Art of Doing Less , a self-healing book that looks at our addiction to busyness. He lives in San Miguel de Allende, México with his husband and some-time business partner Eli Hans and their 3 nearly perfect rescue dogs. Joseph can most often be found in his studio making art with other people's trash, sitting by the backyard pond writing poetry or on the hunt for a great cup of s

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below!▼▼▼ Is it challenging to stay focused, on task, and productive? From your desk chair do you sometimes wish you had someone to bounce an idea off of, or someone to review something you’ve just created and give you feedback? Or maybe it would be nice just to have another human to check in with throughout the day. In recognizing her own desire for these kinds of connections, Heather Chavin made her first leap into entrepreneurship and created GoGoDone, a virtual connecting and co-working space for a growing variety of remote workers, creatives, and even some who work for corporations and organizations. Since 2019, GoGoDone has grown into a worldwide community of people who offer each other support, accountability, ideas, feedback, and connection around the clock. In this episode, we’ll hear about how different kinds of people seek connection, how each of us has our own set of needs and preferences when it comes to balancing solitude and connection, and the im