When I was 5-going-on-6, my father, attending university on the GI bill, received a scholarship to spend a summer studying in Yugoslavia.

When he returned, Dad told us stories about his trip. And he brought gifts for us. My gift was a set of two dolls from Holland probably from the port where his ship left to bring him home. One was a girl and the other was a boy. They were in traditional dress. She had a white hat with wings, a black blouse and apron, and a skirt with colored vertical stripes. He had a black hat, jacket and pants and a striped shirt. Both had wooden shoes. I was in awe!

Seeing my level of interest and wonder, my dad said something like, “You know, you could do that, too, some day if you wanted to.”  Though I couldn’t name it at the time, on that day developed a vision for my life: global citizenship. I even had a dream of meeting every human on the planet. At about age 10, I had the rude awakening that it would not happen.

Fifteen years later I received a scholarship from the same organization that gave one to Dad. Rather than Yugoslavia, my study was in Czechoslovakia.  My experience that summer was so powerful that I knew it was just the beginning. I went on to spend many years living, working, and traveling around the world touching into more than 50 countries on six continents.  That was then.

Now, I still hold a global vision but I don’t travel.  Rather, I leverage technology.  Over the last few years almost all of my coaching practice has been global. I have worked with business leaders in more than 35 countries on six continents by phone and with tools like WebEx, Zoom, and Adobe Connect. These days my vision is about how to deepen our experiences with technology so we may go beyond two-dimensional transactions and become skilled at and at ease with adding the third dimension of depth and heart connection.

The platforms for expression of my global citizenship have changed, for sure. They have ranged from begging my baby sitter to draw paper dolls from many countries in traditional dress to graduate school study in Intercultural Communications to teaching in Beirut, Lebanon to consulting in Africa to adopting my beloved son in Peru to serving on the board of directors of The World Business Academy to taking photos and writing about my experiences to coaching business leaders globally using technology. On reflection, what I see is that no matter where I am or what I’m doing, the theme of ‘global’ endures.

Photo of me, age 3, with Dad
At the headwaters of the Mississippi River
in northern Minnesota