Krista

- Hi my name is Krista Linden and I live in Milton Washington. My tag on social media is I say I'm the wife to a hot guy John Linden and for 25 years I'm a mom to seven amazing daughters. I'm the CEO of Step by Step. I love it. I love this house and I, you know people talk about moving up to bigger and better things and nicer houses and for me this is our life, it's our family it's our place and everybody in town knows where the Lyndon's live 'cause they grew up with them hanging out the windows and all the kids running all over the place and so it's just kind of a, it's our place it's our life it's our house and I don't wanna ever leave. My husband has always wanted our home to be an open door so that's kind of our way within our immediate community to really just everybody knows that our home is a safe home for your kids to be in and we will love them like our own and feed them and take care of them and whatever needs they have and it's something I think we're lacking more and more in this kind of age of technology where we're so, we live in these huge houses and we're all going off to our own spaces and we're not interacting not only with the community but we're not interacting within our own families either and so I think that really forces, I mean the way we have things setup really forces a lot of interaction and communication and just navigating relationships. It's a tight ship we have to run around here to kind of keep everything going. As far as a broader community it has always been my desire to help women who have few resources to be strong as a mom and a woman and I just wanted to be able to be involved and to give some hope and support to just a few women in our community and it has ended up growing to where we work with now 1,200 women at a time in three counties, mostly in Pierce County but in King and Snohomish County as well. I've never really wanted to be on the big stage, I don't want to change the world, I don't want to go out and be a big motivational speaker. I just want to make an impact right where I am in my community with the people that come in to Step by Step or come in to my family's life you know to be that world changer, game changer for them. I am creating an organization for a life I could have had and how I want things to be different for women who are there and are struggling in that. I only have so much time and so much energy and I'm choosing to focus it on two things, my family and the women at Step by Step. Balancing things in a healthy way is critical to my own health and well being and if I'm strong and healthy then things around me can be strong and healthy. My kids so I have created I think a culture within Step by Step that I work fiercely to protect. It's a culture of dignity and honor and respect. I decided to train for a marathon in 2015 along with raising a million and a half dollars and that makes sense to some people, it doesn't make sense to other people but there's I think a mental toughness that builds on itself that is critical to staying in something for the long haul. I'm training for a half iron man and that's a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run and it's in Coeur D'alene on June 24th, it is just something that, another thing that I am doing to just really stay focused and disciplined and strong emotionally, physically, mentally during this really challenging year that's almost half over now. It's a very difficult course. It's around like Coeur D'alene and I'm not a biker either I'm just kind of learning how to figure out the two clips and all the, and I'm up to about 15 miles on the bike but there are a lot of hills on that race so there's a chance that I'll get disqualified, that I won't make the time increments or I may just physically not be able to finish it I don't know. I just do crazy things like that it's just how I function best. I usually get my swimming done in the morning. I usually swim about 2,200 yards at the Fife Pool. The bike rides I try to do, I do smaller bike rides on hills maybe four or five miles where I'm trying to get some hills in during the week. I'll do a five mile run during the week but on the weekends I have to get in. I'm building up to the 13 miles and more and then I'm building up to the 56 miles so eventually by the time the race comes I'll have to complete a 60 mile ride. The reason that I named Step by Step Step by Step is because I really believe in the power of when you can do something that makes the next thing that much easier and so that's kind of why I do the iron man and the races and why I really challenged myself because it's easy to feel like that's impossible for our clients, for the women that we work with and even for ourselves and yet when someone supports us and I would say that someone is my husband. When he supports us, someone supports us to do that next thing and we're like yeah I can do it you know and then it makes the next step that much easier and so I think it's really important to challenge ourselves but I think it's also important that for me I say no to almost everything except these two things. If it's not related to my family and it's not related to Step by Step I don't do it 'cause it's so easy to say oh yes I'll do that and yes I'll do that and yes I'll do that and pretty soon you're doing nothing well. So these are the two things that I want to do well and it's hard for people to have the endurance and to do it for as many years as I've been doing it. You know so 21 years I mean it's just a long time to not do a lot of other things that you might like to do. And I think one of the things that people have a hard time with is you know when you have a lot of children is you know who would ever take care of those children if something happened to you? And that would be irresponsible of you and so I got you know I think I got a little bit of that I never got a lot of that but that was definitely something that, who is going to, how are they, who is going to be mom to these girls if something happened? And that's how I want to look at everything, even the hard things as opportunities. You just it's all a matter of your perspective. How you look at everything that happens in your life ever moment, every day, everything that comes up is how you look at it is very very very important, that perspective but you know it's an opportunity for the girls to really step up and have to take so much more responsibility and we always say with all those hard situations we would never ask for them again but we wouldn't change them for anything. You know we have come out of this okay as far as we know. It just makes me even more grateful for every day I wake up and the girls are safe and our family is safe. I just look at every week as the amazing opportunities that will come and be presented and to benefit those around them. That is a gift I want my kids to be able to give. I hope that they will always feel grateful for what they have and that they will share it with everybody around them in their community and it doesn't have to be, I don't expect them to change the world I just want them to impact their community and the people that they come in contact with. I hope our family is a blessing, I hope our family brings some hope I hope our family gives back what so many people have given and imparted on us and what we've given to our girls. Hopefully. We'll see.