I received the link to this YouTube video from the first trainer Phin and I had when I first adopted him. It’s a short clip about the incredible aspects of dogs that make them amazing teachers and companions for all of us.
Category: creativity
Beautiful: Gone Exploring…
I’m off to DC this weekend to celebrate the upcoming wedding of one of my dearest friends with a bridal shower and bachelorette party. It will be nice to get away from my screens and spend the vast majority of my time connecting in real-time in real-life. I hope this weekend holds the same for all of you. Get out there and enjoy some fresh air. Fall is almost here.
Beautiful: Roll The Dice of Life Like a Dog
When I get out Phineas’s travel carrier, he never knows where we’re going. Sometimes, we get on a plane. Sometimes, we head for a car or the subway. We’ll go over to Brooklyn and visit two of our favorite friends, Amanda and Jordan. Sometimes, we’re going to the vet.
No matter. Without fail, Phin enthusiastically jumps around at the site of his carrier because he knows we’re going somewhere to do something out of the ordinary. He doesn’t need to know where he’s going; he’s just prepared to enjoy the ride. We, and by we I mean me, should live more like Phin.
Thanks to my friend, Alex, for this beautiful photo – and the reminder to enjoy every adventure.
Beautiful: Give Life to Your Madness
Wrapping up a week in madness, I’ve reflected a lot on the ideas of creativity, transformation, and acceptance. Remaking ourselves and our lives takes courage. Some people may not understand what you’re doing or why or how. They might put us down in every way possible, and we might start to do the same to our own mad dreams. Don’t take your cue from them. Their words and actions, as much as they may hurt, have nothing to do with you. It is just an expression of them wrestling with their own demons and lost dreams that they didn’t follow. And the reasons for their choices don’t matter. They chose. Now you choose: Go down that road even though you know how it ends, and it doesn’t end well, or go in a new direction.
New directions can be frightening. We are leaving behind our history, our patterns, our expectations, and the impressions of others. Of course it’s mad to chart a new course. The old worn one is so much easier to travel. Be mad. I know it sounds so easy to say “let go”. No one tells us how painful that process can be. There’s a grieving, a mourning period. But on the other side of that grief, is light.
And here’s something else no one tells us: once we strike out on a new road, we don’t travel alone. Up ahead, just around the bend, there is someone new waiting, lots of someones waiting. They took off before we did in the same pursuit of something new and exciting, something that they feel passionately about. They are our new examples of how to be. We are both teacher and student, always. We learn and then we turn around and teach others through our example. That’s how it’s always been.
Yes, we’re here to take life by the horns, madness included, but we’re also here to give even more back. We’re here to be generous with our experience so that others may be encouraged and inspired to invest in their own mad dreams. That’s progress.
Beautiful: How to Stop Regret
“And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.” ~ Ted Hughes
The hero’s journey is never a choice between two options, one wonderful and one awful. The hero’s journey is a choice between options that are all good. We have to decide where to spend our time if our time is limited, which it always is. We don’t know much of it we have. We have only now, right now, today. Ted Hughes gives us an excellent framework to evaluate the paths that lay before us. If we are to use our time wisely, the essential questions that we have to consider at the end of each day are:
1.) Today, did I do something bold?
2.) Today, did I wear my heart on my sleeve?
3.) Today, did I put love into everything I did?
Make today count. Answer yes to each question every day.
Beautiful: Alice and the Mad Hatter Believe the Best People are Entirely Bonkers. I Agree!
Alice in Wonderland is my favorite children’s book. When I did summer stock theater in Vermont before my senior year at Penn, I fulfilled one of my dreams and played Alice in an adaptation of the story. The tale of Alice resonates with me because she and I believe in madness, impossible things, and the reality of imagination.
We’ve got to be a little bonkers to dream up something and believe we can breathe life into it through sheer will. But that’s exactly how it happens. It’s exactly this kind of madness that built New York and every other city. It’s this kind of madness that invents, explores, inspires, and creates. This is the madness that sees the present state of the world as just the beginning, rolls up its sleeves, and starts to change it. Madness makes the world go ’round.
Beautiful: My First T-Shirt Designs Inspired by The Wizard of Oz and Jerry Maguire Will Go on Sale September 9th
And now for a mad idea: my first two inspired t-shirt designs, inspired by The Wizard of Oz and Jerry Maguire, will go on sale on Monday, September 9th. (To get an email when the sale starts, add your contact info by clicking here). The sale will last for 3 weeks and then the orders will be filled if I sell a minimum of 20 of each design at $18 each. Profits will be donated to Compass Yoga and will be tax-deductible for you. If I don’t sell 20 shirts, you won’t be charged and I’ll go back to the drawing board to create some different designs. Think of it as Kickstarter for t-shirts – what gets funded, gets built. There will be 5 different t-shirt styles of each design to choose from – different cuts, colors, and types of fabric.
These are the first products for sale through One Fine Yogi, a new brand I’m building of yoga-inspired products. Being both a product developer and a yoga and meditation teacher, I wanted to combine those two passions to create yoga-inspired products that are good for you, good for the planet, and inspire others around you. Stay tuned for more details as we approach September 9th. In the meantime, join the One Fine Yogi Facebook page and get a sneak peek at one of the designs.
Beautiful: Advice from Robin Williams – Hold On to Your Spark Of Madness
If you wrote down 5 things you’d like to do in life if you had no obstacles and were guaranteed to succeed, I’m sure you’d only list bold, incredible feats. Put your reality glasses back on and you might find a list of reasons why you can’t do any of those things. You’d have to be mad to even try, right?
Robin Williams and I think you should try anyway. Go a little mad. Get a little crazy. Actually, get a lot crazy. Surprise yourself and everyone around you.
All this week, I’ll be posting inspirational quotes about madness and telling you about a few mad ideas of my own that I’m trying to bring to life. I hope you’ll join me in the quest to hang on to our own little spark of madness.
Beautiful: Inspired by Julia Child, I’m Following My Dream of Being a Full-time Writer
When Julia Child was 37 (the age I am now), she began to cook because she loved to eat. She had no prior experience in the kitchen, and yet she gave herself over fully to the craft that captured her imagination. It took her a long time to reach the success she ultimately had as a cook, but she kept at it even in the most trying times and circumstances.
Julia Child was lucky financially in that her husband had a very good job and she wasn’t on the hook for her own rent. I have to keep a roof over my own head (and Phin’s) and food on the table (and in Phin’s bowl.) So I will have to continue to work in the vocation of business (which I love) in order to do that – for now. But here’s the difference going forward – it’s all in service to my craft as a writer.
I’ve been writing every day, on the side, for 6 years and I’ve loved every second of it. This summer, I wrote my first full-length play and worked on full outlines for several other writing projects. The goal is to eventually write full-time. I don’t know long it will take to make that happen but that’s what I’m working for and towards. I don’t know how long it will take – it could be a dream many years in the making – but that’s the mountain I’m climbing, small step by small step. And I’m fine with however long this journey takes. That clarity is liberating and empowering.
Here’s to shooting for the moon!
Beautiful: Restarting My Examiner Column on Entrepreneurship
In early 2009, I started writing a business column for Examiner.com. Over the course of 15 months, I published 130 articles, many of them interviews with entrepreneurs. Invigorated and inspired by President Obama’s election, I wanted to lend a hand to entrepreneurs who courageously moved forward during the darkest days of the economic recession. I knew I could do that through my writing. I also wanted to find the courage to start my own business so I thought interviewing brave entrepreneurs would help me, too. A number of them became friends of mine; all of them provided me with the inspiration and confidence I needed to strike out on my own. Quite a few of them – OXO, Airbnb, Behance, Squarespace, and Divvyshot among them – have gone on to experience phenomenal success. I wrote first e-book based on 27 of these stories. You can download that book for free here.
I stopped publishing on Examiner in mid-2010. Since then, I’ve been involved with a lot of different ventures and Examiner.com has grown substantially. Now I’m returning to it to honor and serve entrepreneurs again. Even though I stopped publishing, Examiner never removed my column. You can still see all of the pieces I wrote from 2009 – 2010 and starting today you will be able to read all my new features going forward. Today’s piece is my SXSW V2V wrap-up. I’ll publish the links to all my future stories on this blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter feed. You can also subscribe to my column by clicking here.
