Living on River Time

Crouching on the banks of Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone National Park I realized I was probably outmatched. I was a mile from the road, and a few hundred yards from a herd of buffalo. They were so close I could smell their musky hides, hear their grunts and grumbles as they talked to one another and rolled in the hard packed earth. The fish dancing in the water under the cutbank were the biggest Yellowstone cutthroat I had ever seen in my life. Their brown bodies streaked with red and gold rippled in the sunlight filtering through the water. I was mesmerized. My hands were a little shaky from nerves, and I fumbled my way through tying on yet another fly on 5x tippet. I cursed under my breath, finished the knot, smoothed the line through my fingers to make sure there weren’t any kinks. With some luck it would lay flat when I made a cast. I took a breath. The fish I was hunting came up to the surface of the water, ate something I couldn’t see, and effortlessly maneuvered its way down into the depths of the cutbank. Again, a flash of red and gold in the sun before disappearing into the green-black abyss. Another breath, another small laugh. The cork of my rod was hot in my hand. One false cast – I told myself. One false cast and drop it. Upstream of the fish, mend, and dead drift it. No wake or skate. No line betraying my presence. It’s a happy fish, and it’s actively eating. This should work. 

Remarkably, everything went like I envisioned it. I made one false cast and dropped it. It was right where I wanted it to be. I mended. It was on its dead drift now. An insect floating like a leaf on the surface of the water. The creature lazily came out of the depths, a flash of red and gold. Its wide nose came up to the fly. Brushed the surface tension of the water from below. The intake of breath became caught in my throat and the span of time between heartbeats became an eternity. A fraction of a second and this creature had made time slow to molasses. I watched as the millimeters of water between the fly on the surface and the nose of this creature contracted. Then, slowly expanded as the it decided the fly wasn’t quite what it wanted after all. Time returned to its normal pace as the breath I had been holding forced its way from my lungs in a sigh like it had been punched from my sternum. Outmatched much? Absolutely.

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This is the same feeling I have about starting my own business. Outmatched. I have years of experience fly fishing and I have years of experience building a career, and still I feel this sense of getting in over my head. Still, I have dreams of landing that fish. I have dreams of where my career could take me and my family. Holding my phone in my hand with my boarding pass. Seeing my spouse and my parents standing in the water on a sand flat somewhere in the Pacific, fly rods in hand. I feel outmatched, and I have dreams. 

I have become a certified Online Business Manager, and will soon be a certified Project Manager through PMI. I have chosen these things not because I am passionate about spreadsheets. I am passionate about being on the water, and if I do what I am good at, I can build the life I love.

This is where Calliope Skies Solutions and @yourfavoriteobm were born. My work is all about helping coaches, creators, and small business owners create clarity and map out the things that need to be done, how/when to do them, and who/where to delegate them to in order to create efficiency on their journey. I have been doing this in my career as a university instructor, client services manager, executive assistant, and project manager for over 10 years, and now I am offering those services independently through Calliope Skies Solutions.

This includes: 

• Retainer packages (ongoing operations support, back office, team, and systems management)
• Project packages (onboarding workflow design, SOP creation, marketing/communication workflows, back office and CRM/LMS design)
• Strategy sessions (focused, actionable planning days and one-on-one support)

My goal is to give you space to breathe, create, grow in your business, and create the life you love. It’s the same freedom I feel when I get to shut my computer and step into the river.

Why am I writing about this here, in a space dedicated to my adventures on the water and in the mountains? Because these stories have always been about finding a balance and reaching for those things that bring joy, spark creativity, and cultivate that inner peace we are all searching for. I am inviting you to follow my journey, just as I always have, in the hopes that it will inspire you to continue to follow and seek those things that feed your soul. And if you need help on mapping your journey, you know where to find me. 

See you on the water, 

Amanda