The Open Line

Jackie Brown September 13th The Open Line Real stories. Honest questions. For people ready to use their voice for good. ↓ I thought I understood the assignment. My duties as the plus-one for the Top Golf evening were pretty simple: support my husband, fill in conversation gaps, encourage others during their turn and maybe sneak in a few tweaks to my own golf swing. It was a hot August night, right smack in the middle of an off-site three-day planning session. This particular evening brought...

Jackie Brown August 30th The Open Line Real stories. Honest questions. For people ready to use their voice for good. ↓ As we plopped in the golf cart, my Dad reported his score with a grumble: “Daggum double” He’d needed two extra strokes to get his ball in the hole - a double bogey - not a score my Dad typically makes. We were sweating more than a pitcher of pink lemonade at an August picnic. The heat was definitely getting to both of us. And as the breeze from the speedy golf cart cooled me...

Jackie Brown August 16th The Open Line Real stories. Honest questions. For people ready to use their voice for good. ↓ Thunderheads have been an obsession for me recently. I love watching the clouds grow tall — full & fluffy in the middle and yet dark & heavy with rain at the bottom. I’ve been snapping photos during the day and painting them in the evening. Or trying to at least. There’s this particular scene of a pasture I passed last summer in my hometown of Franklin, Tennessee. Black wood...

Jackie Brown August 2nd The Open Line Real stories. Honest questions. For people ready to use their voice for good. ↓ With the mic in one hand, he glanced down at the sweaty post-it cupped in the other to begin setting up his next joke. The audience was eager, ready to release pent-up stress with some laughs. He was pretty new to this stand-up thing - a way to stretch his artistic muscles and see if what he had to say could move people. Getting a laugh was the marker that made all the doubts...

Jackie Brown July 19th The Open Line Real stories. Honest questions. For people ready to use their voice for good. ↓ My heart was pounding as I opened up the laptop. I was getting ready to talk about my work in a recording that would be used to promote an event. I tried to settle into my designated spot for video calls, but my brain was swirling with doubts. The irony? This recording would be about my upcoming workshop: How to talk about your work. And yet here I was wrestling with a million...

Jackie Brown July 5th The Open Line Honest conversations. Real presence. Leadership people want to follow. ↓ Happy day-after America's 250! As inspiring as the Declaration of Independence is, there’s something even more compelling to me in the many days after that first July 4th. Uniting to declare independence from a tyrant king, the 13 unique colonies had one goal, one villain and one cause. But once that independence was officially declared, how could those separate and very distinct...

Jackie Brown June 21st The Open Line Honest conversations. Real presence. Leadership people want to follow. ↓ Happy Father's Day to all the father figures! Can Mary come out to play? My 10-year-old knees were knocking - much louder than my knuckles on the door a minute before. The whole walk over to this house I’d been sending up a prayer: please let it be her mom, please let it be her mom, please let it be her mom. Each step up to their stoop, I repeated the prayer. I softly knocked on the...

Jackie Brown June 7th The Open Line Honest conversations. Real presence. Leadership people want to follow. ↓ The squeak I'll never forget Squeak, squeak, squeak. My trimmers were speaking to me as I lopped off the dying daffodil leaves. Apparently, they were still pretty juicy at the bottom, right against the soil line. It was late spring, time for my beloved peonies to be blooming and those daffodil leaves were all up in the way. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Another handful of leaves gone. As I...

Jackie Brown May 24th The Open Line Honest conversations. Real presence. Leadership people want to follow. ↓ In gratitude for those who've made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, may this Memorial Day honor them and their families. What we assume The hotel door pad lit up green and as we opened the door to step inside, the tang of ammonia hit my nose. Not quite the stench of a sketchy gas station bathroom, but close enough that I started questioning every decision that led to crossing...