I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
I believe in an examined life, though only so much so that it gives us the strength, confidence, and courage to act. If you don’t know what to do, then try something. If that something doesn’t work, then try something else. If we continually try, if we never give up, then eventually we will find ourselves on the right course. Life – we’ve got to give it a go to make it go.
“Keep your eyes open and your feet moving forward. You’ll find what you need.” Amaze yourself with just how much you can do, how much you do have, and everything that you can create. No more resources, courses, meetings, or plans that may or may not happen. No more wondering, whining, or wasting time. Now is your time. Just do it. Follow your instincts and make it happen. Whatever it is you want to have in your life. And not for the recognition, notoriety, or rewards that may or may not head your way as a result. Just because you want to and just because you can. I know you can and deep down you do, too. Toss aside any naysayers, your nagging inside voice included, and move ahead. One graceful, beautiful step at a time. You’ll be shocked by what happens next.
Seth Godin is the Yoda of modern times. He is well-meaning and honest in his crankiness, and I love him for that. I also love him because despite what the world tells you about personal and professional image, he is unabashedly, unapologetically himself.
His email is sethgodin@gmail.com. His blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, doesn’t even have a vanity URL. His company isn’t some clever title; it’s just his name at http://sethgodin.com. I’ve never seen him give himself any kind of title except “author”. His tagline is “Go Make Something Happen”. (If everyone took that advice, imagine how evolved our world would be!) He thinks all marketers, colleagues in his own chosen profession, are liars and he tells them so; it’s the title of one of his most successful books and he’s not apologizing for that either. His popularity is based upon his inability to tolerate BS in its many forms.
He doesn’t let anyone off the hook for being less than they can be. He doesn’t stand for people who refuse to rise to their potential, nor for people who pump themselves up through image rather than substance. He believes that just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we should avoid doing it.
How do I know these things? I’ve never spoken to him. I’ve never asked him any pointed questions about life, work, and the world. I do read his writing, and this is what I hear in his words: stop waiting; stop making excuses; be authentic; stop pretending to be someone you’re not and be who you are. Those are messages to live and work by.
“I like things to happen. And if they don’t happen, I like to make them happen.” – Winston Churchill
The most striking outcome of my time in California is my decreased tolerance for waiting unnecessarily. Some times, we need patience. We need to take a beat, a breath, a moment. A gathering storm needs to pass. We need to deal with a new emergency. But patience can be used like a crutch. We wait because it seems less scary than action.
So how can we tell if it’s time to wait or time to act? Remove ourselves from the decision. Imagine that a friend is asking for your advice on the exact situation you’re in. This friend is strong, capable, ambitious, and talented. She will succeed or learn trying. Should she act? Should she wait? That’s your answer.
Almost always I find my answer is to act. Try this experiment. Let me know how it goes.
As I head to Vegas this morning to be part of the mentor program at SXSW V2V, I’m excited to announce that my company, Chasing Down the Muse, is making a shift to place more emphasis on making products. I used my summer in LA to figure out my next career steps. I moved away from everything and almost everyone I know to figure out what mattered most to me.
Here’s what I learned: While I’ve enjoyed the strategy, communications, and marketing consulting projects I’ve done this year, I miss spending the majority of my time ideating, making, launching, and iterating products. Time to change that! Don’t get me wrong – the strategy, marketing, and communications is vital to having successful products and I plan to continue that work; now I want to bring the actual making of products back into my daily work life. Want to work together on product-based projects? Drop me a line!
This summer I’ve spent every day involved in the process of making and it’s been a complete delight. I have always believed that the surest way to a fulfilling life is to follow the joy wherever it leads. So I’m taking my own advice. I’m going for it – let’s roll!
Check out the Chasing Down the Muse website to see what I’m creating and to get a few freebies that will help you find your direction, too.
Up tomorrow: Why I lean in every day
“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, American author
When I wished on a star or the candles on my birthday cake, I used to wish for something I really wanted as if it might just fall down out of the sky and into my life. I used to make lists of things that I wanted to do, or have, or see, or be, hoping that verbalizing them would somehow actualize them. And then one day I realized that none of those wishes ever came true just because I wished for them. Some of them happened because I worked really hard and I almost always had help from other people who shared the same dream and were willing to work just as hard to see it happen. Some of them never happened at all, no matter how hard I worked, and for that I’m very grateful because I’ve ended up in such a good place.
So I stopped wishing for things out there and started wishing for things that would really make a difference: Now I wish for personal strength and courage, for an ever-deeper sense of compassion and understanding for the situations of others, for the opportunities to be useful and helpful to others, and for the ability to be at peace even in times of terrible turbulence. And a funny thing has started to happen: the more I want these things, the more capable I grow to cultivate them. And the more I cultivate them, the more good they do, in my own life and in the lives of others.
As it turns out, I don’t need to wish for any of these things at all. Wanting them for all the right reasons and tirelessly working for them are the surest ways to bring them into being.
is every day. Make the most of it!
“Put your good where it will do the most.” ~ Wavy Gravy
There are all kinds of reasons we stay at a job we hate – benefits, paycheck, commitment, loyalty, guilt, fear. Every job has its ups and downs. But there is one big, fat reason why you just can’t maintain staying at a job that isn’t going to get better – you are wasting your time. You have to put your goodness in the place where it will do the most good for the world. When you look at it this way, staying at a job you hate is not only damaging to you, but to everyone.
We’ve got piles of problems in this world that need fixing and we are the only ones who can do that fixing. A magical fairy is not going to descend from the Heavens, wave her magic wand, and make it all better. It’s up to us.
A lot of people tell me they’re staying at jobs they hate until they come up with a good business idea. That should take them all of 5 minutes. If you want a good business idea, take yourself for a walk around your neighborhood, and find a pain point that people are experiencing. Fix that. That’s the only inspiration you need – put your goodness to good use and do work that rids the world of some amount of pain.
It’s time to stop saying “I can’t” and start finding a way toward “done”.
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~ Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring
Time is a powerful teacher. It reveals our priorities, even when we are not fully aware of them. It makes us efficient and raises our awareness. As we watch time fly by, we are motivated to make the most of it. It causes us to rise up and follow our dreams.
In my younger days, I remember hearing older people tell me that the older we get the faster time goes. I didn’t believe them. After all, this hour doesn’t pass any quicker or slower than any other hours. It’s our perception that changes it. Time teaches us that, too – our perception changes our experience.
The passage of time can feel scary because ultimately we begin to realize that our finite amount of time is indeed finite. We can lengthen that time with good health, but we can’t change the fact that eventually it will come to an end. Don’t let that frighten you into paralysis. Use that unabiding, universal truth to make changes today. Do something you really want to do and do it right now. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Follow through. Stop putting off decisions and start making choices that help you live a life you’re proud of at every moment. Live. Really live.
Christa Avampato 