The "Real" Leslie Riley
Hi there, I'm Leslie Riley. Speaker. Author. Life Enthusiast!
Some things you might want to know about me up front:
Hi there, I'm Leslie Riley. Speaker. Author. Life Enthusiast!
Some things you might want to know about me up front:
- The strategic plan for my business & my life are the same. Two words...FUN & MEANINGFUL. If we're not having fun & finding meaning, let's do it another way!
- I specialize in silver linings...if your'e looking for the up side of a down-feeling situation, I'm your girl!
- Life is better with props. My go to items include a tiara, a microphone, & a superhero cape!
- Sometimes, to make things like paying bills more fun, I wear a tutu with my tiara. It's all good unless the mailman has to deliver a package...DOH!
- I adore exclamation points!!!!!!
- I ♥ emoticons. :-)
- I prefer setting intentions to creating rules.
- I live to LIVE!! Know any incredible, bizarre, hysterical, or magical experiences I shouldn't miss?!
I consider myself lucky and know believing that has helped me lead a pretty charmed life. Not that it's always been easy...I have a gift for choosing the road less traveled & usually find my share of stumbling blocks. But the truth is I learn more from the tough times than the easy ones anyway, so I'm not going to spend my life trying to avoid them! Not to mention nothing is really "tough" or "bad" when you find the gift in it...so I left those words in the dust long ago! Instead I embrace the wise words my best friend's mom said to me once:
"If you're going to laugh about it some day...
you might as well start laughing about it NOW!"
you might as well start laughing about it NOW!"
My gift & passion is to find lessons in everything from picking up pennies to the songs on my iPod (or one of the two I've found on the ground while looking for pennies!). I believe life is a series of miracles...each one full of amazing lessons if we just open our eyes to see them!! This is how I've ended up doing work I love, finding friends that feel like family, & experiencing things I could have never imagined (like flying helicopters for 7 years in the army & getting VIP seats at the Grammy's!).
My passion drives the projects I work on and I can never tell what amazing thing will come my way next. My work with "The Penny Project" (which started with the chance discovery of a $20 bill in a crosswalk on my walk home from work one day and has evolved into a bit of a movement & even a book) keeps me grounded in every day miracles. And then there's Soul Notes...something I created as a way to "call in the ONE" that has led to hundreds of crayon-drawn declarations of appreciation for the amazing people in my life, including myself!! Overall I'd say life has become a pretty good story...way better than what I could have made up on my own!
And so now my mission in life is to help people write their OWN amazing stories. To help them let go of the "happily ever afters" they may or may not end up with and instead to invest in the "happily ever NOW" that is laying at their feet like that $20 bill I found (and the $4,700+ my friends & I have collected since!). This shift in focus never ceases to amaze me and I've yet to meet a person who doesn't have miracles to share! That's me in a nutshell. Happy, ALIVE, & so incredibly curious to see what's next! I have no idea what it will be...but I have no doubt it will be totally AWESOME!!!
And so now my mission in life is to help people write their OWN amazing stories. To help them let go of the "happily ever afters" they may or may not end up with and instead to invest in the "happily ever NOW" that is laying at their feet like that $20 bill I found (and the $4,700+ my friends & I have collected since!). This shift in focus never ceases to amaze me and I've yet to meet a person who doesn't have miracles to share! That's me in a nutshell. Happy, ALIVE, & so incredibly curious to see what's next! I have no idea what it will be...but I have no doubt it will be totally AWESOME!!!
The "Official" Leslie Riley
Leslie Riley's done just a little bit of everything. Her non-linear path has given her opportunities to travel the world, study human dynamics, and live life to the fullest every minute. She calls herself a “Life Enthusiast” because if there’s some kind of challenge most people don’t want to tackle…she’ll give it a try. From running an ultra-marathon to taking lessons to master the flying trapeeze, Leslie doesn’t know the meaning of the words, “I can’t.”
She decided early on to take the road less traveled, which led her to The U.S. Military Academy at West Point after high school. Leslie spent four years there pursuing a degree in Portuguese (including a summer program in Brazil, which hooked her irrevocably on international travel) before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. She spent seven years as an Aviation officer flying CH-47D Chinook helicopters, including tours in Kosovo & South Korea.
Leslie Riley's done just a little bit of everything. Her non-linear path has given her opportunities to travel the world, study human dynamics, and live life to the fullest every minute. She calls herself a “Life Enthusiast” because if there’s some kind of challenge most people don’t want to tackle…she’ll give it a try. From running an ultra-marathon to taking lessons to master the flying trapeeze, Leslie doesn’t know the meaning of the words, “I can’t.”
She decided early on to take the road less traveled, which led her to The U.S. Military Academy at West Point after high school. Leslie spent four years there pursuing a degree in Portuguese (including a summer program in Brazil, which hooked her irrevocably on international travel) before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. She spent seven years as an Aviation officer flying CH-47D Chinook helicopters, including tours in Kosovo & South Korea.
After leaving the Army, Leslie worked in a lot of organizations & roles from sales to project management. Some of her most unique (and favorite) jobs were as a professional organizer & TV news producer. Eventually she found her way into a role as an internal facilitator where she spent several years working & playing in a field she knew was meant for her! She also added the titles "trainer," "inspirational speaker," & "coach" to her resume before starting her own company, Full Circle Inspiration, which focuses on inspiring groups & individuals to look for new perspectives when the ones they're stuck in just aren't working anymore. Her passion is bringing innovation to teams in order to help them use their own brilliance to improve communication and enhance success. Her partial client list includes:
Disney • Fidelity • Raytheon • Procter & Gamble • Chrysler • U.S. Food & Drug Administration • The United Way • Haliburton • U.S. Customs & Boarder Protection • American Chemical Society (ACS) • American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) • American Society of HealthSystem Pharmacists (ASHP) • American College of Medical Coding Specialists (ACMCS) • Globo.com • ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership • National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) • Veteran's Administration (VA) • DiversityInc • Adventure Training Concepts • 4-H National Youth Conference Center • United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) • Landmark Graphics • BMC Software
In her spare time she does yoga, jogs, whips up masterpieces in her kitchen, and creates adventures everywhere she goes! She is also an avid penny picker-upper (or any found money, really!), starting The Penny Project as a way to pool found money & small donations for a bigger cause. With hundreds of people out there finding pennies with her, she’s been able to collect over $4,700! She’s donated the money to inspiring individuals, local community buliding organizations, & national charities during times of need. On top of all that, she compiled all the great lessons she learned from the experience in Penny Perspectives: Let Go of Happily Ever After & Invest in Happily Ever NOW! She even cajoled her cat into posing with her in a stovepipe hat for the back cover of the book! And you probably thought pennies weren’t all that interesting or valuable, eh?! Just like she will on most topics, Leslie will have you thinking twice about your old perspective on that!
Life's About The Journey...Leslie's Life Changing Realization
You've heard it a million times (and so had Leslie), "Life's about the journey, not the destination." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Are we there yet? It wasn't until she encountered Escadaria Selaron (see pictures of the staircase below) that she understood exactly what people meant when they said that.
While teaching some classes in Brazil, Leslie decided to take the recommendations of her students and spend the weekend between the classes exploring the neighborhood of Santa Theresa, which she heard housed one of the most amazing staircases in the world, Escadaria Selaron. When her taxi dropped her off at the staircase, she understood why people were so taken by this place...it was a living work of art!
The artist receives hundreds of tiles every year from past visitors who were moved by the story of the staircase (it had once been the center of a drug-infested neighborhood until the artist started transforming it and completely revitalized the area). He is constantly updating, changing, & recreating the look of the stairs, which he says he will continue doing until the day he dies.
Climbing the stairs is an amazing experience, each step full of color, life & gifts from past visitors. It took Leslie hours to climb the stairs, stopping about 400 times to take pictures of tiles from San Francisco, Seattle, Maine, Australia, Austria, South Africa, England...as well as tiles that said things like "Gemma & Scott tied the knot 12/17/10" or "Joe ♥ Maude 2009." Each one a proud expression of the visitors who had sent it.
As she neared the top, Leslie started getting anxious about finishing the climb, thinking, "I bet the view from up there is AWESOME!" So she hurried up the last few steps to reach the top. The DESTINATION. When she turned around to snap the picture she was sure was going to be incredible & amazing, what she saw shocked her. While the face of each stair had been bright & colorful, a celebration of the people who had sent the tiles, the top of each stair was just gray stone. Flat. Boring. A little sad.
All of a sudden that old phrase became crystal clear. Leslie realized that it's each step we take that brings the color to our lives, not the places we end up. She started enjoying all the little things that make up her days (her morning cup of coffee, snuggling with her kitty cat, talking to her hilarious sister on the phone), knowing THOSE were the important things in life. Or at least the most colorful parts.
She invites you to consider your own journey & ask yourself, "What are the little things that bring the color to MY journey?"
While teaching some classes in Brazil, Leslie decided to take the recommendations of her students and spend the weekend between the classes exploring the neighborhood of Santa Theresa, which she heard housed one of the most amazing staircases in the world, Escadaria Selaron. When her taxi dropped her off at the staircase, she understood why people were so taken by this place...it was a living work of art!
The artist receives hundreds of tiles every year from past visitors who were moved by the story of the staircase (it had once been the center of a drug-infested neighborhood until the artist started transforming it and completely revitalized the area). He is constantly updating, changing, & recreating the look of the stairs, which he says he will continue doing until the day he dies.
Climbing the stairs is an amazing experience, each step full of color, life & gifts from past visitors. It took Leslie hours to climb the stairs, stopping about 400 times to take pictures of tiles from San Francisco, Seattle, Maine, Australia, Austria, South Africa, England...as well as tiles that said things like "Gemma & Scott tied the knot 12/17/10" or "Joe ♥ Maude 2009." Each one a proud expression of the visitors who had sent it.
As she neared the top, Leslie started getting anxious about finishing the climb, thinking, "I bet the view from up there is AWESOME!" So she hurried up the last few steps to reach the top. The DESTINATION. When she turned around to snap the picture she was sure was going to be incredible & amazing, what she saw shocked her. While the face of each stair had been bright & colorful, a celebration of the people who had sent the tiles, the top of each stair was just gray stone. Flat. Boring. A little sad.
All of a sudden that old phrase became crystal clear. Leslie realized that it's each step we take that brings the color to our lives, not the places we end up. She started enjoying all the little things that make up her days (her morning cup of coffee, snuggling with her kitty cat, talking to her hilarious sister on the phone), knowing THOSE were the important things in life. Or at least the most colorful parts.
She invites you to consider your own journey & ask yourself, "What are the little things that bring the color to MY journey?"
Here I am on the staircase. This picture was taken from the bottom...with the entire climb, the JOURNEY, still ahead of me. Full of life. Full of color.
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This is a picture of the staircase from the top, looking back. The climb is over, the goal is reached. It's the DESTINATION. Lifeless. Gray. Kind of boring.
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