As you may have heard,

on Friday morning April 5,

a 4.8 magnitude earthquake

rocked the New Jersey/New York area

right on the heels of the Taiwan quake.

I was on a business call when

my studio started rattling and shaking

as if a freight train were running through it.

I’m up on the 16th floor so

the building was shuddering hard;

and given that NYC is not geographically

positioned on a fault line,

it took a few seconds for me to even process

what actually was happening.

But every cell of my being sensed danger.

I got off my call, dialed my husband

while scanning the news,

then grabbed warm clothing

and a few essentials

and got out of the building

as fast as I could.

I went across the street to the park

and sat on a bench to get my bearings.

By then, news was flooding the net.

As I tried to process it all,

I had one of those high-definition

flashes on my life.

People often encourage taking

a “long-term view”

…in your career choices,

…in your financial planning,

…in your relationships.

But what about the short-term view?

Who would YOU call first?

What would YOU do differently?

And what really matters?

Throughout my keynotes,

I address this topic of

“what really matters in life.”

And at the end of my show,

as part of the finale

along with a cinematic music score,

I project a series of images…

one being a dandelion.

The words I say in this moment:

“How you show up on any given day

makes a difference.

Because life is not only short;

it’s also fragile…and unpredictable.

We don’t know how much time we have.”

I encourage the audience

to reconnect with their Throughline now;

to Risk Forward now;

to take action now.

While a long-term view

certainly has its place,

the value of a short-term view

and your choices for the here and now

cannot be underestimated.

Because the truth is,

none of us really knows

how much time we have.

Risk Forward & Live On,