Stronger Together: Facing A Time Of Political Divide With LuAnn Buechler

More than ever, what we need now is to join together amid the Coronavirus Pandemic. Amidst the fear and panic it causes, it’s important to not only practice the right safety precautions, but to also be in each other’s aide. In this episode, guest LuAnn Buechler is spreading the message that we need one another and that we are stronger together than we are divided, whether we’re physically together or not. Her iHug Across America Movement is a key part of that. LuAnn is the Owner of PMC Events & Coaching, a transformational coach, certified facilitator of The Passion Test, and a professional speaker, trainer and event facilitator. LuAnn takes us deeper into her work and the things she set out to do even long before the outbreak. LuAnn’s core message of solidarity is needed now more than ever. Learn more about LuAnn’s mission of overcoming political divides and her rituals for resiliency in this conversation.

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Stronger Together: Facing A Time Of Political Divide With LuAnn Buechler

I feel incredibly blessed to be here. I’m at my standing desk. I got inspired to use this thing. It’s like we have all this technology around us sometimes. All these wonderful things to take advantage of and we’re not always utilizing them. It’s important that in life, we’re utilizing what we’ve got while we’ve got it. It’s such a blessing, all of it. I am standing which feels wonderful. I’ve got an incredible guest who I adore. We’re going to have a lot of fun and giggle a whole lot. She’s remarkable. LuAnn Buechler, as we know her, is known as the Little Spark in that she is sparking breakthrough change in business and individuals. She is the Owner of PMC Events & Coaching which she started several years ago. She’s a transformational coach, certified facilitator of The Passion Test and Passion Test for Business. She is a professional speaker, trainer and event facilitator. LuAnn is the coauthor of Exceptional Care For Your Valued Client, applying the power of positive word choice in the customer service experience and iHug: My Journey As A Hugger, which is a great book that she published in 2017.

In 2020, LuAnn is embarking on a campaign to iHug Across America to spread the message that we need one another and we are stronger together than we are when we are divided or polarized in our current political climate. She is also a Director Consultant for BNI, Business Network International. I was once the president of a BNI chapter. I love that organization. The founder we know, Ivan Misner, is such a good man, which she has been a part of for several years as well. BNI is the primary tool that LuAnn has used to grow up her business. Her favorite quote is, “Do what you love in service of people who love what you do,” a quote by Steve Farber. This is what she uses to help people to create amazing results in their lives. I am happy to have an amazing presence with us. LuAnn, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Adam.

LuAnn, what’s not written in that wonderful and extensive bio that you would love for people to know about you?

My mission is to spread joy in the world. I want people to live in joy and get out of the struggle and drudgery of what they think life is because as you said, it is a blessing. We are totally blessed every day, all around us. It’s a mindset shift to focus on those blessings. You can choose to be in joy by looking at all the miracles and positive things in our world or you can choose to get stuck in the conversations of the media, the politics and all the negativity. Even all the movies they put out these days seem to be crazy, wild and violent things. I choose to stay away from them. I choose joy.

I knew there was a reason for that. I enjoy your company much. In many ways are the fact that you exude joy.

Thank you. Another one of our friends at the Transformational Leadership Council, Dr. Sue Morter, said to me at one of her events, “LuAnn, you’re a little bubble of joy and you’re the last one to know it.”

Are you really the last one to know it?

I am the last one to know it.

Why is that?

I think that we second guess and doubt ourselves. We all have that same monkey mind in our heads. I do have to practice like everyone else reframing that, turning it around and I do. From time to time, they still come up. I remember what she said and I’m like, “Wow.” I look for evidence in the world where that’s true and where people give me feedback to that. You’re saying that to me, it makes me own it more in my heart and confidently. That’s what I teach people to do in The Passion Test is to identify your passions and then look for evidence of where that’s already true in your life. The universe starts to feed it back to you. I remember sitting in a BNI directors meeting. There are 80 directors in the room. I am not familiar with all of them. We’re not all friends. I sat next to a gentleman I didn’t know at all. We barely had a conversation because we were interacting with the presenter and what was going on in the meeting. At the end of the meeting, before he left, he said, “I enjoyed sitting next to you. Your energy is awesome.” I’m like, “I didn’t do anything. I was just sitting here.” I exude it out into the world.

When there's a lot of negative energy around you, you can absorb that, even own that and be brought down. Share on X

All of us feel our energy. Is it a question of, are we using that in a way to draw people in or to push them away? There are a lot of both unconscious things going on there and things that we do on purpose intentionally. It’s an interesting thing. I find myself going, “Is my energy looking to draw people in or is it looking for me to protect my own energy, to keep it to not have anyone intruding in my space?”

I like that language better of protecting myself because you’re right, we all feel each other’s energy. When there’s a lot of negative energy around you, you can absorb that, even own that and be brought down. They talk about energy suckers in a room. When negative people come in and they can suck the energy right out of the room that they, “Here you go, Adam. This is why The iHug Movement is important.”

To me, when I think about some of these things, it brings up this idea of how it is that we cultivate resilience for ourselves. There are many ways to look at how we are either set up to weather the storms of life or are more susceptible or vulnerable to those same events, the same things, the things that we can’t control, unknown and catch us by surprise. You used one of the terms that in terms of resilience, we talk about a lot which is reframing which is in the way you handle your mind, the choices you make about what you focus on and what you put your energy toward. It’s easy to reframe things or I should say it’s a simple thing to do but not easy to pull off at times, especially when there are a lot of people around you or things that are coming at you from the media, news sources, social media that say to you, “You should be worried, scared, defensive, protect and on guard now.” We’re in one of those times, LuAnn.

What we’re going to talk about is what’s going on now. Hopefully, in a couple of months, it won’t be top of mind and tip of tongue or whatever it is daily. That is this Coronavirus that’s out there. I’d like to find out when you decided and what was that about to start this iHug Across America Movement. Where I came in contact with it was at a TLC Retreat in Panama. A couple of months past and this virus has spread in many ways both literally and figuratively. It has infected in many ways a lot of people around this globe. Here you are, a woman on a mission. Why don’t you tell us about what that mission is and then we’ll circle back to the talk about some of these other things as well?

There’s a lot in what you said. We’ll begin at the beginning. The iHug Across America campaign came to me in the spring of 2019. I was attending a marketing seminar put on by Joel Roberts. What Joel does beautifully is he brings people to the stage. In front of the whole audience gets them down to the why of what they’re doing and the authentic message that they want to present to the world rather than the marketing message some other advertising agencies might try to pull off. I got the opportunity to go to the stage and I was talking about my Passion Test work and Joel goes, “Everybody’s talking about passion. LuAnn, you want to be unique, do something else. I think that button on your chest is way more interesting. You should do iHug Across America or something.” Joel’s style kicked me off the stage. He gave me what he was meant to give me and, “Off you go, LuAnn.” I’m like, “What do I do with that?”

I’ve had Joel on our stage many times. I’ve seen him do that.

I sat with it, I meditated and prayed on it. What came into my awareness was you need to iHug Across America in 2020 during the presidential campaign to offset the negativity of the political energy. I am non-partisan through and through. I stay out of politics as much as I can.

Don’t you have a horse in the race?

I don’t have a horse in the race. You’re going to go, “What?” I had to sit with and think about it more. Other things came to me such as I live in Southern Minnesota and Winnebago is in Northern Iowa. I came to my awareness. The first political thing that happens in the US is the Iowa caucus. The vision was from February 3rd and the election on November 4th, to jump in Winnebago and drive across America and hug people to try and offset the energy of the political situation to spread different energy. We all feel the energy and trust me when I started testing this out, people reacted. It shifts the energy in the room. That was the original plan. I have yet to get Winnebago to say yes yet. I also loved to camp so then it was, “Take my little Winnebago and I’m going to call the KOA Campgrounds,” Kampgrounds Across America and say, “Will you donate a campsite wherever I stop and I’ll put you on the side of the Winnebago and market KOA?” I’m willing to give back, share the information, and promote the companies that would support me.

That’s the original vision and the goal is simply to shift the energy in the world and remind people that we are human beings and we need to connect as human beings. One of the things I know and you can see it all through history is that when there’s a crisis in our world, people come together despite race, religion, or political affiliation, we come to each other’s aides and we help each other. I believe we are in such a crisis in our country based on what’s going on in our political arena. That’s how it feels to me anyway. That’s the pain I feel of it. That’s why I want to go out and spread the love with people and bring them back together. No matter who I’m hugging, they say the same thing, “This is great. What a great idea. This is what we need in our world. Thank you.”

I was going to ask you to share something of what your experience has been from the field because you have gotten out into the political space in places where there was a different team flag.

Stronger Together: Identify your passions and then look for evidence of where that’s already true in your life.

One of my friends heard that I was getting seriously going to do this, she challenged me. She said, “Donald Trump is coming to Minneapolis, go hug people there.” I said, “I will do that.” It was the first experience. Minneapolis did an interesting thing and they effectively separated the supporters from the protestors. I wasn’t clear on that picture. I followed the crowd to be where the crowd was, hugged as many people as I could. I ended up in the supporter’s line of people going into the arena for Trump’s rally. It was peaceful and beautiful. People looked at me funny at first and I’m like, “It’s just a hug.” They’d step out of line and they would come and hug me and they would say those words that I said to you, “Thank you for being here. This is what we need. We’re glad you’re here.” Somebody whispered in my ear and said, “Which people do? That’s another benefit of hugs by the way.” People whisper great things in your ear. I call it my angels speaking to me. If someone whispered in my ear and said, “You need to go hug the other people there, the ones who are angry.” I went, “What other people?” They’re like, “On the other side of the building are all the other people.” I’m like, “Okay.”

I left that one and I moved over to the other side of the building where the so-called protesters were. They were angry, negative, they had swastikas and they had whistles they were blowing. Some of them even had masks over their face. I hugged them too. They said the same thing, “Thanks for being here. This is what we need. We’re glad you’re here.” I carry a little free hug sign and I have free hug shirt on, making sure they get the message of the iHug Movement that we’re hugging people. One young lady goes, “I want a sign like that.” I’m like, “That’s the point. Here, take it. Go hug.” It’s not about me, it’s about getting everyone to hug. It was interesting they had signs that something to the effect of hate never cured a country or something. I’m like, “Hate never cures hate. Why are you acting in hate? In the way that you’re acting, I’m dumbfounded by that. How can you hold that sign and stand there and be attacking others with your language in what you’re doing?”

I just hugged. I don’t get into a conversation or try to correct them. One lady came with me because she said I needed a bodyguard. They’re worried about my safety. Forget the Coronavirus. The first thing that women think of is what if someone grabs you inappropriately? I believe it’s what we focus on. I don’t even think of that. There’s nowhere in my mind that I would be afraid that someone’s going to grab me inappropriately. I don’t focus on it. It doesn’t happen. I’ve given up thousands and thousands of hugs.

Where did the journey take you after that? That was the beginning.

That was the beginning to test out the theory of what would happen and how people would react. I felt good about the results. Then it was preparations to go to the process I had envisioned of being at the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primaries. It’s a little hard to track and follow the politicians. They’re in fourteen different states. I can’t be in fourteen places at once.

You get a small sense of what it’s like to be them. They are like pinballs back and forth from place to place. Some of them are senators who are due in Washington for things.

When I was at the Iowa caucus, Amy Klobuchar had been in town for the week. That’s a whole week-long affair down there. There’s the day that they caucus and vote. That was the day I was down there. She had been down there for the week and then she had to be in Washington on the day of the votes and she was due to come back for the celebration at night. To find the groups of people to hug during the caucus was a challenge because they’re all over the place, tucked away in people’s homes and school gymnasiums. The only thing I could find where there was supposed to be lots of people were those celebration speeches that they’re all supposed to have. There was one for every candidate somewhere in Des Moines or somewhere in Iowa. We started following news media trucks. Where are they so that we know? Part of this is in order to get the movement scene is to be where the media is. I’m doubtful I could draw their attention away from politics. To be where they are and show something different but unfortunately, I’ve had only one media article written about what I’m doing so far. I’ve been interviewed a lot.

Additional PR would be a good thing? I’ll do this, which our audience knows I never do this. I think it’s important that if anybody out there has some PR resources that they’d love to lend a hand to the iHug Across America Movement and to LuAnn. There’ll be information here where you can find out more including how to contact LuAnn or get involved in the movement. You’re looking for this to truly be a movement. This is not a personal passion, let’s say. This is something that you feel strongly called to lead, to be a part of and to get other people to lead and be a part of.

I did end up after I went to Texas with a volunteer. He’s like, “I’ll lead the charge in Texas.” I’m like, “This is what I need.” I’m off to the BNI National Conference in Colorado. My intention is to get a hugger from each one of the states to say, “I’ll step up and play with you, LuAnn.” I didn’t get my Winnebago, what I’ve been doing is I’ve had some friends bless me with plane tickets to come to their location and they had their house. Many of our TLC members went and crashed Steve Farber’s Extreme Leadership Experience to hug people and get to share my message. Anybody who has a big event where there are lots of people and there would be potential media that might pick this up and share so that we can find other huggers, there’s a place on the website to invite me to come to an event. I would love to come. It’s like being a greeter. I stand there with a free hug shirt and people come to me. I’m attracting them in with the energy and I’m not forcing myself on anybody. They come to me.

It’s an interesting thing. I’m a hugger. People that have met me before know that. My wife said to me, “You need to ask people permission.” It was more in connection with the #MeToo Movement. I didn’t have that sensitivity about it but she did. She said, “Good idea. I hug plenty of men.” My thing has been ever since then to simply say, “Are you a hugger?” That one question has been such an interesting and exhilarating question to ask people. At this point, if I were keeping stats, I hugged many hundreds of people since then. One or two in all that time have ever have said to me, “No, thanks. I’m not a hugger but happy to fist pump you, elbow bump you, bow, and any kind of thing.” I’m not putting any of the audience who are not huggers. What was great is that the people who said to me no was such a wonderfully real moment that you give a person a choice. There’s no judgment about it but I was surprised. I would look at them and go, “Power betting. I’d say maybe not. Maybe not me, not now.” Nearly every time I’ve asked that question, it’s as if another side of them comes out. Their energy shifts and changes their eyes widen, their skin becomes flushed, their body becomes open, they open up on the spot to say, “Am I a hugger? Are you kidding? Get in here.”

They envelop me in this giant bear hug moment. I feel that you’re not onto something. There’s something viscerally important and relevant in this. I want to discuss this for a moment in the context of what appears to be a world pandemic. There is this virus that is spreading that people are concerned about. Kids are not going to school. When you hear countries, states and cities like Seattle canceling school, it’s not something we can ignore. I’m a lawyer by trade and I practiced the law in a few years but that side of me that we have to be able to see both what is real and that’s happening and know how we feel called to respond to that. Do we respond with the panic of, “I don’t want to have any contact with anybody? I don’t want to touch anybody. I don’t want anybody to touch me.” When we as human beings are built for connection, this is what we’re built for. That’s going on in the world. You started with the politics being the thing and now we’ve got this other thing that’s potentially challenging the movement. What’s your philosophy there, LuAnn? What are your thoughts? What are you feeling, seeing or experiencing when it comes to this? People are going to be like, “I’ll hug you later. Let’s do it in a month.”

Hate never cures hate. Share on X

I want to say that this whole thing started many years ago. I can’t even remember what year I originally got the button but that’s exactly why I began wearing it, was to warn people that I’m a hugger. I’m going to come in and give you a hug unless you stop me. Dr. Misner thinks that’s a great tagline, “I’m going to hug you unless you stop me.” I don’t think the #MeToo Movement would like that much. That’s why I started wearing it. I had it always on my lapel and I would forget I was even wearing it and someone else would approach me and go, “I hug too? Do you need a hug?” “Yes, I’m here for you.” It’s a wonderful story in my book which is why I wrote the book because it became a human experiment of what was happening and how people were reacting to that. I was at a Pete Buttigieg rally in New Hampshire and the cool thing about being at rallies is the politicians never show up on time. I’ve got a captive audience to walk around and hug. This woman taps me on the shoulder and she goes, “Step back both hands because I don’t hug but I got to know what you’re doing. What are you up to?” I told her my message and I said, “Don’t you think we need more hugs in the world?” She said, “We do.”

She gave me a big hug. She starts her attitude right around that. She wasn’t a hugger. At that moment, she hugged me. This is what happens all the time. All the years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve only had one person said, “Don’t touch me.” That was years ago, it had nothing to do with what’s going on now. By and large, people are huggers. You’ve got to have the right conversation and give them the right energy. Regarding what’s going on, I had one of our friends call me up and he goes, “LuAnn, I’m worried about you and what you’re doing. How are people going to react with this virus thing going on? You should get ahead of it and you should show people how they can spread that hug without touching each other.” I’m like, “There’s a chapter in my book about mental hugs and that’s looking at someone and even better if you’re catching their eyes as you and I, is that you can say with your eyes, ‘I’m giving you a hug.’” It’s still changing. You can visualize it. We all believe in visualization. Visualize that I’m giving you a hug in my mind and you can feel it. I can feel it. That’s the beginning. That eye contact is important. Lots of people don’t make eye contact anymore either. You can share a lot of love looking at each other’s eyes.

I want people to take that in. I’m taking it in. This is another way to see the opportunity that’s right in front of us. Meaning we’re right in the middle of something that’s got a lot of people wigged out and with some good reason and some hype. The media fans these flames, it’s good for business and all that thing. You could call it a pivot if you like and one that is conscious because we’re thinking about it. You could stand in front of someone and say, “I’m a hugger but it might be a good idea at this moment potentially to not hug but I want to give you a hug if you’re open to it. I want to receive one too. Why don’t we give each other a mental hug?” I can feel the endorphins from that with you and we’re on Zoom. I am feeling a hug from you, LuAnn. I’m not feeling that hug from you, I am feeling it in my body. The people who are reading this whether they’re on their treadmill, on the elliptical, walking, feeding their pets that at this moment, there’s a collective hug that we’re sharing. It’s a mental thing and our minds are flipping powerful. That’s beautiful, LuAnn. I want to say thank you for that. Thank you for that big, juicy hug.

One other way since we’re talking about this is this is the sign language for a hug. We had as many people to press your arms.

You’re taking one hand and putting them on each shoulder but crisscross. That’s the sign language for a hug.

I was at the TLC meeting in Hawaii. They sequestered me behind the tables so I couldn’t get anybody else sick and I couldn’t give the usual hugs that I give and someone taught me that so I could still do that. When you do that and then make eye contact, it’s powerful. I do that on Zoom all the time.

I’d love to get your definition. It’s important. In this context, it’s also relevant that we talk about what builds people up? How do we fortify ourselves? The thing about resilience is that you build it, you create it before you need it and you work on it. You are developing it before it’s required. What’s your definition of resilience? What do you think we can be doing now to create greater resilience for ourselves?

It’s a way of being. I have shifted my mindset to be in that space of joy that helps me with that resilience. When other things come at you, you’re more at peace already from what you’ve been doing. On average, people are stressed out in the world. When you’re already stressed out, it’s a true epidemic. When you’re already stressed to that level and then something new and negative comes at you, flip out. If you’re living from a space of peace, to begin with then you can be more rational and conscious about how you respond to it. That’s the resiliency that gets you through any of those situations.

LuAnn, what’s one thing that you do yourself personally on a regular basis, even daily as a ritual to create your resilience?

Ritual is doing something over and over again. My morning ritual is a couple of hours. A piece of that is meditation and prayer. I know when I miss that, it changes my whole day and how I feel. Without a doubt. I encourage people to begin practicing that and I scare people when I say my 2-hour ritual but here’s the deal. The meditation might only be twenty minutes of that. How would you take a shower? How you have breakfast? All of that is part of your ritual. Part of my ritual is my green smoothie, thanks to our friends at WildFit. I have to have my green smoothie every morning. It’s part of resiliency for my health to have that. That’s all my morning ritual. When I began, I was like, “How do I find the time?” Someone said to me, “LuAnn, ten minutes. Would you leave the house without taking a shower? No. You’re going to schedule the time from when you wake up, you have enough time to get you in the shower before you leave. Add ten minutes. It’s important enough to do your meditation.” When you see the value of that ten minutes in your life, after 30 days or whatever, then you go, “I want twenty minutes. It feels good.”

I remember sharing something with TLC some years ago at one of our meetings. I’ll share it now. I didn’t expect to do this but this will be fun. For the first part is the ten-second miracle and that I do share all the time. It’s wonderful that even in the speaking engagements I have for corporations, they love this part. I say, “We’ve got a ten-second miracle and that’s the turnaround. That’s a turnaround of any negative thing that might be coming up at the moment that you can turn that around in ten seconds.” The most important step in the right direction is my grandmother would say, “Putting your right foot out is the way you begin the day.” It’s that waking ritual and my ten-second rituals of waking up first and foremost. Amen to that one. Let’s wake up again tomorrow to feel grateful in that moment for that blessing because it is a blessing, and it is not one that is guaranteed. That’s a fact.

Stronger Together: Shift the energy in the world and remind people that we are human beings and we need to connect as human beings.

The third is to take ten seconds to say these words and they don’t even take ten seconds. That’s the beauty. If you have leftover time to say it again, “I love my life.” That was for two seconds. “I love my life. I love my life.” Even when things come at me at times and usually, they’re coming at me from the inside, very rarely that they are coming from the outside. When the attack is happening on the inside, that ten-second turnaround has been incredibly valuable to me to stop, pause, breathe and say those words. Even if at that moment, it feels like pretending because there’s something going on that I don’t love. To be able to love your life no matter what, that was the message of the TED Talk I gave.

When I was at TLC, I had it more of a ten-minute practice. I’m going to reveal that one now because it’s fun for everybody to experiment with something. You said it and I want to plus what you said LuAnn that ten minutes could be a life-changer and game-changer. I learned this in reading about a ritual that Ben Franklin had that he called a Code of Conduct. His Code of Conduct was the ways that he would determine whether he’d had a good day, whether he’d been living a good life the way he defines what a good life meant. We have thirteen experiences during the day, thirteen states of being and he would check-in at the end of the day on these thirteen things. He’d tick them off and he could tell whether he had a great day or if he didn’t have a great day. Why didn’t he have a great day? How many of these things he had experienced during the day? The ten-minute practice is this simple. You can sit down and think, “How do I want to experience myself being?” That’s the question you ask.

Most people that I’ve shared this with will never say, “I want to experience myself being angry. I want to experience myself being resentful. I want to be thinking about the past and I don’t want to let go of that old anger.” Nobody ever puts that on their list even though that’s how they spend a good part of their day sometimes. The assignment, if you choose to take it now, would be to create that original list. I like to start with thirteen on my list. It’s many and I don’t use the same ones every day either, but I do call it a Code of Conduct. It’s written down and it started with thirteen like Ben Franklin. What are these states of being? How do you want to experience yourself being now? I always start with the same one. I experience myself being in gratitude. I experience myself having a positive and harmonious attitude. You go on. It could be that you want to experience yourself as being love and being loved. Peaceful, in joy and forgiving. I want to experience miracles.

There are many things you can have on your list. Create a list of thirteen and then this 10-minute practice is checking in with it. It’s sitting down in the morning, first thing if you can before you’ve got a lot of coffee running through your body, the phone, the emails, or any of those other things now taking you down those rabbit holes. Sit there and take a look. Say them out loud and set not the tone for your day, but create the blueprint for what day you’re going to have by checking in with your Code of Conduct. If you want to do like Ben Franklin and at the end of the day, go and see. When we have practices that we keep, whether they’re prayer or this practice. Any practice that we’ve done consciously, it gives us one experience of living that day. When we forget, rush, we have too little time for those things or where we give our attention to something else, we have a different kind of day. They’re remarkable and you are remarkable. I appreciate you, LuAnn and that you made time to be on the show and share your iHug Across America Movement with all of us. Thank you.

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

You are a joy. Everybody, have a joyous day. Let us know your thoughts. We’d love to get your feedback at AdamMarkel.com/podcasts. You can leave a comment. Subscribe if you like. Find us on social media. We’ve got a wonderful Start My PIVOT Facebook group as well you can join. There are lots of love there. More love, everybody. Ciao for now.

More love and hugs.

Important Links

About LuAnn Buechler

LuAnn is known as the Little Spark, and that she is – Sparking breakthrough change in businesses
and individuals. She is the owner of PMC Events & Coaching which she started 14 years ago. She is a transformational coach, certified facilitator of the Passion Test & Passion Test for Business. She is a professional speaker, trainer and event facilitator.

LuAnn is the co-author of Exceptional Care for Your Valued Clients, applying the power of positive word choice in the customer service experience and ihug: My Journey as a Hugger, which she self published in 2017. In 2020, she is embarking on a campaign to ihug Across America to spread the message that we need one another and we are stronger together than we are when we are divided by the polarization in our current political climate. She is also a Director Consultant for BNI, Business Network International, which she has been a part of for 14 years as well. BNI is the primary tool LuAnn has used to grow her business. Her favorite quote is “Do what you love, in service to people who love what you do.” This is what she helps people do in their life and business through her unique coaching approach. Please help me welcome…LuAnn (Beekler) Buechler.