Inspirational Leaders

A Heart like a Wildflower

This is my beautiful friend Molly Stephenson. She left town temporarily, to go work with some couple in Waco. (Chip & Jo?) Why would she do a thing like that? Leave us to go work on the team at Magnolia? Who knows!?

All I know is that she’s back, and I’m thrilled!

She returned to the Dallas area to be near family. And when she moved back, she decided she was only going to say “yes” to the things that bring her joy. This means that learning to say “no”, has consistently freed her up to say “yes” to the other things that are life-giving to her soul. Things like finding a job where she could combine her design skillset with hand-lettering, doing graphic design for a small paper goods company. Things like saying yes to us! (We get the joy of experiencing one of Molly’s Modern Calligraphy workshops during our Simmer …

Are you living proof that difficult roads often lead to the most beautiful destinations? Have you learned the hard way that the very best things in life aren’t usually surprising, and they don’t come quickly, or easily? If you’re anything like me, you’re echoing a resounding “YES!” in your mind as you read those words

The very best things often take the longest and require more of you than you think you have to give.

It’s no surprise then, that it’s been more than a year that we’ve been working to bring Cindy Pedraza Puente, the co-founder of CocoAndre, up to Frisco from Dallas to be our Featured Guest for a HeartStories Girls Night Out, chocolate-making class! I wanted so badly to have Cindy with us last year, but the timing and logistics simply didn’t work. At the time it was incredibly frustrating.

But today, I can see so clearly the beautiful destination …

by Crystal Gornto Girl's Night Out Inspirational Leaders Inspirational Women Love In Action Love in Family Motherhood Roadblocks in Life The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

If you’ve ever read any of my writing or heard me speak about taking the Fascination Advantage personality quiz by Sally Hogshead, you know that learning about her work set me free from any shame about showing up, as the “real” Crystal in my work with HeartStories. It allowed me to stop trying to pretend to be “buttoned up, business Crystal” but instead to boldly let all my quirks show, and eventually shine. (as hilariously pictured above) The premise for Sally’s work is that:

“Different is better than better.”

This was transformative for me. Growing up, I always knew I was “different”. I knew I was a non-conformer. I was wearing a sombrero, making ridiculous announcements about taking a world-wide siesta, with my best friend and a bull horn when other girls were perfecting their curls, wearing the latest trends and trying to fit in. But it goes beyond the current trend …

by Crystal Gornto Girl's Night Out Inspirational Leaders Inspirational Women Inspirational Words Loving Yourself Our Story Purpose The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

I opened up my Facebook newsfeed this morning to get an image for today’s blog (from the HeartStories photo albums of our Girls Night Out events) the first thing I saw was this quote from John Acuff:

“Be brave enough to be bad at something new.”

It was like an arrow to the soul because it’s so true. Trying something new is difficult, precisely because you’ll absolutely be bad at it at first. None of us enjoy being bad at anything. And certainly not in public. I’ve been really bad at almost everything I’ve tried with running HeartStories, and most of it has been “in public” and so you’d think it would be easier now, but it’s not. Not really. I’m crystal clear about why I do it now, so I insist on finding the courage. But the fear of failure runs so deep for most of us.

It’s never easy to begin.

That’s …

by Crystal Gornto Girl's Night Out Inspirational Leaders Inspirational Women Love In Action Purpose The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

It’s been a few days (maybe a whole week!) since we met here on the blog. I’m citing the image above from Vanessa Corral, of all the lovely ladies from our Confident Spring Style Fashion show, as the evidence of my “hall pass”. (kidding, not kidding) Pulling off a fashion show at that level, as one of our regularly scheduled events was, in every way, more than we could actually handle. It was a wild, hair-brained idea on my part. Just picture me as Thanos, saying “I am inevitable!” and snapping his fingers. . . if you saw Endgame, you know what happened next. (If not, you’re not missing much. #boys)

Of course, I do not think for one second that I am inevitable.

But this time, I had this wonderful vision, that would typically take a team three to four times the size of ours, eight months to a year …

by Crystal Gornto Community Fashion Friday Girl's Night Out Inspirational Leaders Inspirational Women Love In Action Love in Friendship Our Story The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

Leading a Girls Night Out once a month requires more behind the scenes effort than most people realize. Especially our brand of GNO, because it’s really more like a mini-retreat, entertaining workshop, TV talk show style interview, and a done-for-you dinner with girlfriends, all rolled into one. There are what seems a million details and logistics to coordinate, on top of the heart of it all to reconnect busy women to inspire joy and courage. Even so, you would think that since we’ve done it every single month for three years, we would have it down and it would run like a well-oiled machine.

To a certain extent we do, and it does.

But somehow, the cascade of surprises on event day never cease to amaze. Most often my best laid plans for a relaxing day of finessing the content for the evening, and taking time to actually make myself at …

by Crystal Gornto Community Girl's Night Out Inspirational Leaders Inspirational Women Love in Friendship Loving Others Loving Yourself The Journey Through Life 1 comment chat

A Heart like a Wildflower

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Still here, still smiling, 10 years later

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The most fascinating you

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Are you brave enough?

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You with us?

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The gift of authentic connection

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