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4 June 2010

Lessons in control

A wise friend reminded me recently that the universe has a way of making sure you learn the lessons it wants to teach you.
Two years ago, I had a baby. He was breech, which meant I had to have a c-section (I had wanted to have a hypnobirth). He didn’t gain weight, so I had [...]

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27 April 2010

Fighting fire

I got angry today. Really, really angry.
I didn’t used to know what to do with anger, so I stuffed it down, closed it off. But you do great damage to yourself—mentally, physically, and emotionally—by trying to bury what you feel. I’ve done it. I know.
Anger needs air to flare…and to die. It needs to consume what [...]

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19 April 2010

Who are we to judge?

Juror #3.
When you walk in for jury duty and they hand you #3, you know you’re in for it, whether or not you’re eight and half months pregnant. But there I was. Juror #3.
I’ve spent much of my adult life working to remove judgment from my outlook. I’ve had to. You don’t spend 11 years [...]

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29 March 2010

What do you expect?

Ah, expectations. We have them. We set them. We manage them.
But they’re really just little time bombs of judgment, ticking away, waiting to explode.
You can’t “set” others expectations (though we try to all the time). People set their own expectations. Nor can you manage others’ expectations, even if they try to convince you that it’s [...]

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26 March 2010

Stop looking for motivation

“I want to get this [insert project or goal here] done. But I haven’t felt motivated yet.”

A lot of us wait around for motivation to come. We end up waiting a long time.
The problem is motivation isn’t a cause—it’s an effect. And, like momentum (also an effect), it can serve to keep things moving once [...]

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25 March 2010

Low-tech listening

In social media, “listening” as a term is fast-approaching overuse to the point of obsolescence. Yes, we need to listen (and watch). Yes there are all sorts of very cool tools to help you do that.
But the best tool? Your own ears. (And eyes.)
Next time you need to prove to someone the value of listening [...]

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26 February 2010

Its you’re brand out their, please get it write

I’ll be the first to admit that my grammar’s not always perfect. In the rush to get things written, sometimes my brain disconnects from my typing fingers and something other than what I meant ends up on the published page. (My brain and fingers have some serious debates about homophones.)
But seriously, folks.
There is a difference [...]

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2 February 2010

The secret to lasting change

You want to make a change. Maybe you need to. You tell yourself that over and over again.
But, neither of those will make it happen. No, the answer to making change happen lies between the two: in what you’re willing to do.
Think about it. Just needing to make a change rarely makes us act. We wait to be motivated. We [...]

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30 January 2010

Bloggers: The new Revolutionaries

Change “pamphlet” to “blog” and see what you think:
Then, as now, it was seen that the pamphlet allowed one to do things that were not possible in any other form:

The pamphlet [George Orwell, a modern pamphleteer has written] is a one-man-show. One has complete freedom of expression, including, if one chooses, the freedom to be [...]

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29 January 2010

There is a map. With monsters.

Says Seth Godin in his new book, Linchpin, “There is no map”:
Here’s the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the [...]

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