The journey into Mapping Your Path
Recently I was preparing a version of Mapping Your Path for an executive masters program where I translated my 3-month online workshop + guided community into a 3-hour in person workshop. It was the perfect excuse to step back and look at all the pieces that helped get me to where I am today.
Let’s go wayyyyy back. I grew up in a family where travel was the norm and what we cared about more than things. We always had globes, atlases, and maps around. And when I learned to drive my dad would create hand drawn maps for me (this was way before smartphones and GPS, and far more useful than printing out Map Quest directions.).
Another key moment was Mr. Hixon’s 8th grade World Geography class in Boise, Idaho. I recently looked him up and found his obituary, and also tons of notes from former students like me who were immensely shaped by his class where he’d toss an inflatable beach globe around the room and ask us to find random places for extra credit, and the end of year assignment was to draw a map of the world from memory with at least one of everything (we could go up and look at the map, but we’d also lose time). He also always let us see the tests before we took them—it may seem counter-intuitive, but it was incentive to study and no surprises. He made me love maps, and showed me that teaching and learning could look another way. It could be fun.
In 2013 Skillshare reached out to me to see if I wanted to teach a class on their relatively new online platform. I knew I wanted to do something for them (heck, I think they may have found me because I followed everyone who worked there on Twitter), but I wasn’t quite sure yet. My travel blog, Prêt à Voyager, was my hook, and much of the appeal as that was the audience I’d be driving to the platform.
Eventually I landed on Map Making: Learn to communicate places beautifully. I was not a professional map maker, but was willing to bring my love of maps and a new way of thinking forward. It was only a 2 week course when it launched, with no intention of still being live and online nearly a decade later! It was in that course where the first banana map was born—a project by one of the students, Phil Francis. (I wrote the brief history of banana maps here.)
Fast forward to 2020 when Tina Roth Eisenberg, aka Swissmiss and founder of CreativeMornings, reached out to me to run a CreativeMornings FieldTrip during the pandemic. I had free reign, so turned to something I knew: MAPS. At the time the world needed some lightness, so banana maps felt like the perfect thing to shake things up.
Both with my Skillshare class and through my FieldTrips it became clear to me: people love maps! The more I witness people making maps with pen and paper, I cam to realize they’re an amazing and inviting tool to get outside of our heads and think creatively. They’re a tool for creation, reflection, unblocking and unlocking.
Another key influence were the Navigate Paris tours and experiences I gave in Paris (and through NavigateParisOnline.com). It all helped me prepare for what was ahead. I put my own spin on helping people get comfortable with being lost and navigating their way—the exact things I do through Mapping Your Path.
Through all these experiences I’ve learned so much about the value and power of creativity, curiosity, connection, community, and exploration. I’m so blessed to have now run four incredible 3-month cohorts of Mapping Your Path where I’ve seen such amazing growth and true connection and friendships be formed. I even have a core group who keeps coming back as they continue to grow and explore. One thing is for sure: our paths aren’t always straight forward but when we step back and zoom out it’s fun to see how all the pieces come together.
Of course there are so many influences that didn’t make this doodle—like my semester abroad in Paris, followed by a voyage around the world on Semester at Sea—both which helped me see the city as my classroom. I’m eternally grateful for every experience to helped shape me and the work I do today.
UPDATE: Two key other influences were a “Vision 2020” workshop I took with Imogen Roy in late fall 2019 where I was clear on the intention that I wanted to run more workshops, and working with my coach Tiffany Han in 2020 and 2021 she was an immense support and sounding board and encouraged me to go for this and trust it. She was essential in my journey to value myself, naming it (it switched from Mapping Your Life to Mapping Your Path), and providing feedback on my sales pages.
The next round of Mapping Your Path kicks off in February 2022. Sign up on my workshops page to be notified when enrollment opens. If you’d like to bring MYP to your team or organization, visit the corporate page to learn more.