Category Archives: Life Stuff

Apr6

Thoughts on Creativity and Success

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Thoughts on Creativity and Success

“Presentation is about the transfer of emotion.” -Seth Godin, Author of “The Purple Cow” and a ton of other books

“Idling or doing nothing is important. Most of us are obsessed with getting things done. We’re afraid to be unproductive. And yet, the big ideas often come to you during your periods of ‘laziness’, during those episodes of ‘wasting time’.” -Brenda Ueland, Author of “If You Want to Write”

“To many business people, design is something you spread on the surface, like icing on a cake. It’s nice, but not mission-critical. That is not design, but rather ‘decoration’. Design starts at the beginning, not at the end; it’s not an afterthought.” -Garr Reynolds, Author or “Presentation Zen”

“It’s going to be a harder road than you thought, and short-cutting, half-assing, and second-guessing will only hurt [you in the end].” -Loren Weisman, Author of “The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business”

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Mar26

Eat Pray Love

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Eat Pray Love

So I just finished watching Eat Pray Love, the movie adapted from the book by Elizabeth Gilbert. It finally came out on Netflix! I cried and laughed and loved and felt loved all within the 2 hour and 20 minutes space of the movie and now I feel compelled to write. That’s how it works for me, I suppose; something causes me to drop into my heart and I want to write….need to write. Maybe it’s because she is a writer and I’ve read the book, but I doubt it. I think it’s more just because I’m a writer.

I forget that occasionally. I get busy with life and forget that about myself. That writing is one of the things I want to do most; that I feel like I was born to do. Writing makes me feel like I’m contributing to the world.

There are seven things in life that really make my heart sing, that which you might call my passions: 1) writing, duh!; 2) reading, I read lots of different types of books, but find that always having a good fiction book going helps me feel more balanced; 3) playing pool, I actually aspire to go pro; 4) riding (and working on, we call that “wrenching”, motorcycles), I’m fond of the long-distance brand of motorcycle therapy; 5) studying, learning and speaking Spanish; 6) photography; and 7) travel, it’s no accident that I can do all of these things while traveling! I like and enjoy lots of other things, but none more than these seven; these rise far and above all other possible activities.

I go thru spurts and dry spells with all of them. Currently, I’ve been indulging my love for the game of pool one night a week. Yes, I know a girl that wants to go pro has to play a helleva lot more than one night a week and, quite frankly, I’m kinda tired of hearing it. Has anyone ever said out loud that it’s really a whipping to be constantly reminded of your potential by others? Don’t do that! It creates barriers. I know why we do it. We do that to those we love precisely because we love them, and it makes us happy to think about them fulfilling their greatest potential. But what if we focused on tending to the fulfillment of our own potential, instead? Then we wouldn’t have to focus on someone else’s as a distraction for our own. We inspire people to seek and indulge their greatest potential by supporting them; allowing them time and space; by loving them as they are, not as we want them to be; and certainly not by minding their business and painting their picture for them or by telling them what they already know.

See, here’s the thing about passions. They are things we feel deeply about and that satisfy a place in our souls for which nothing else will suffice. By definition, they are soul work. I can work out the messiness of my life on a pool table in the same way I can by writing or riding my motorcycle. I get perspective. I have aha’s! Life is one big analogy, but we can’t digest and relate to “one big analogy”. So we have passions. Passions help us relate and see our world and our problems thru a different lens; they give us perspective.

When I’ve made a mess on the pool table because I didn’t play good shape, I’ve got to play it like it lies. And when I stretch myself to formulate a plan to approach a “low probability of success” situation (of my own making), I get reminded that the point was not so much about the success or failure of the immediate next shot as it is about the strategy of the entire game. Life is one big game and our passions give us bite-size games as altars upon which we can learn our life’s lessons….if we’re paying attention.

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Feb12

Counting for Life’s Journey

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Counting for Life’s Journey

I get it now! I only get credit for what I do, not what I think about. That’s both the bad news and the good news!

I may have angry or revengeful thoughts, but if I don’t act on them, I don’t have to pay their consequences. Likewise, I have many great ideas, thoughts and intentions and if I don’t act on them, they don’t count toward my life’s journey. Someday doesn’t ever count!

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Jan17

Knowing vs. Learning

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Knowing vs. Learning

I recently had the realization that I’m not very good at learning. Not because I’m not capable of learning or because I have a learning disability (at least not in the clinical meaning of that term). No, my disability is that I don’t want to learn anything, but I want to know everything.

That creates a real conundrum that gets exacerbated when in the midst of learning something new. And learning something new is exactly where I’ve been for the last 5 months—actually learning several new “somethings”, which adds to the complexity of the issue. Now I know that we are all always learning something new—that’s the nature of living. What I mean is that for the last 5 months, I’ve been learning multiple and specific new skills and that being on top of the staple life learnings like how to be an authentic woman, a good mate, a good daughter, a good leader, ad infinitum.

I realize now though that the complexity of this learning multiple “somethings” within the same window is precisely what tipped me over to the point surrender. It got to be overwhelming and I waved the white flag and said “Uncle”! And then it came to me: “I am making these processes (learning curves) way more difficult than necessary. I am piling additional difficulty on top of something that has its own inherent difficulty”!

The entire time I am learning something new, my mind is holding court making judgments about my progress and it says things like: “When are you going to get this deal already?”; “How long does it take to get this figured out? You’re smart, what’s the hold up?”; “When are you going to be done with this? We’ve got other things we need you to do. So hurry up!”; “Time is of the essence and you sure are taking a long time. Maybe you’re not cut out for this.”; “You better hurry because time is running out. Your window of opportunity is closing.”

My mind is a dangerous neighborhood sometimes. Obviously it serves a valuable purpose and is necessary and essential to my entire being, so throwing out the baby with the bath water serves no purpose, but how the hell do I get it to stop holding court? Like any tyrannical leader, it gets me convinced that IT is not the problem, IT is the solution, IT is what keeps me moving closer toward the goal and without IT, I am nothing. I think there’s a name for that dysfunction when a captive idolizes their captor, but looking up that term is not the point. The point is my mind has me captive and I keep listening to it!

It has me buying into this belief that everything I learn and eventually know (from experience) will assist me in arriving somewhere new. That isn’t true! First of all, there isn’t anywhere to arrive and to the extent that there is, I’m already here—in the present moment. So this idea of movement is an illusion. It’s really growth I seek. Growth inherently requires change. Change is hard because it doesn’t always feel right. The “not feeling right” part is what makes learning something new difficult.

The process of learning is already difficult enough because it requires us to expand ourselves and change. It’s not about satisfying an insatiable appetite for knowledge just for the sake of knowledge. It’s about being open to the experiences necessary to bring new knowledge into my conscious awareness, so that I can apply it to circumstances and situations in my life. The “knowing” is not the objective—that’s just a clever mechanism for trying to arrive again. The objective is to be in acceptance during the process of learning, whether that be in the microcosm of learning a specific skill or in the macrocosm of learning one of life’s staples.

When I can ignore the bullying of my mind’s court sessions and allow myself the freedom to accept the process of learning; well then, learning is a much more tolerable process. It feels like expansion of me rather than an obstacle for me. Limitations while learning are part of the process. It’s not wise to compete while learning or imagine competitors when there are none.

Time is of the essence, but time is always of the essence because the only time is the “now time”. That doesn’t mean time is running out; it just means I am where I am and I am right on time, whether I think that to be true or not. And that, I believe, is the key to peaceful learning. The trusting that I’m always right where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing; even if I don’t like it, understand why or think I’m late!

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Jan16

The Divine Right of Abundance

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The Divine Right of Abundance

We manifest our fears by obsessing over our resistance to them becoming a reality.

We manifest our dreams by accepting the fruition of our fears as possible and then focusing our attention on following thru with action inspired by divine guidance–the next right step.

The results then are the manifestation of our heritage–that which is ours by divine right–abundance.

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Jan7

Expectations vs. Standards

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Expectations vs. Standards

I recently has a conversation with a long-time friend of mine and she was sharing about something in her life that was repeatedly frustrating her. My response, after listening, was a gentle reminder that what she resists will persist and that she might consider lowering her expectations. It became obvious, in short order, that what she heard was “Lower your standards”, in contrast to what I actually said, which was “Lower your expectations”.

So, now being one that wonders about life, I got curious and I resorted to Webster’s. Here’s what I found:

Expectation: a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future; a belief that someone will or should achieve something.

Standard: quality, level, grade, caliber, merit, excellence; principle, ideal; code of behavior, code of honor, morals, scruples, ethics

What jumps out at me right away is the difference between what’s within our realm of control and what isn’t. “Expectation” is all about something outside of us, whether that be a goal we want to attain or a measure for another person; “standards” are all about things within us, things within our realm of control, choices we can elect for ourselves.

It seems that where we get confused is in thinking that we have control over someone else’s standards. We may have influence (positive or negative), but influence and control are not the the same thing.

So, it’s not a wonder that when someone says “Lower your expectations”, that what is heard is “Lower your standards”. When we have crossed that invisible line into placing expectations on another person’s standards, aren’t we really just trying to mind their insides, so we don’t have to tend to our own?

It is much more challenging, yet rewarding, to act in a manner congruent with the inner knowledge that my standards are personal to me and, likewise, others are personal to them, and they don’t all have to be the same. My expectations are exactly that, MY expectations—and those have no bearing on what might actually happen other than to set us up for disappointment or to get us so focused on that exact thing happening that exact way, that we entirely miss something way better is unfolding.

My expectations are inversely proportional to my my level of peace. The higher my expectations, the lower my peace; the lower my expectations, the higher my peace.

Standards, on the other hand, are about knowing who you are, what’s important to you, what’s not, what your boundaries are and what’s tolerable. As with anything though, “standards” are not without their risks. They give us easy ground from which to judge others—higher ground.

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Dec31

Personal Growth & Development (as part of Declarations of Success)

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Personal Growth & Development (as part of Declarations of Success)

Don’t ever hold somebody back from growing because their growth threatens you. Uplift, support and encourage. Don’t gossip; that’s a polite form or murder. Always seek to fulfill your unique aspirations and encourage those around you to do the same. Think abundantly, not scarcely. Seek outside counsel from people whose opinion you value, but seek within yourself first; you may not need their counsel. All the answers are always within us; sometimes we need others to help us find them.

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Dec30

Originality (as part of Declarations of Success)

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Originality (as part of Declarations of Success)

Be original. Be you. Not in a “look at me, I need attention kind of way”, but in a genuine, authentic kind of way. Live out loud. Discover what makes your soul sing. Be conscientious of your unique “butterfly effect” on the world. Be intentional with the legacy you leave, both in daily life and in your whole life. Don’t be afraid to be different, do different when necessary, but don’t reinvent the wheel when not necessary. Be forward thinking. Respect and enjoy others’ cultures without sacrificing your own. Put principles before personalities. Be vulnerable; it affords you freedom.

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Dec29

Competition & Collaboration (as part of Declarations of Success)

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Competition & Collaboration (as part of Declarations of Success)

Compete when it’s a game, collaborate when it’s not. Always do your best. Have confidence in yourself, embrace the possibility of triumph and enjoy, but don’t railroad and browbeat people. Never cheat. Employ the services of professional guides.

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