Over a decade ago, I established a nonprofit that awarded cars to women in transition, based on my personal experience as a single mother on welfare. When my eldest daughter was 4 months old, since I didn’t have a car, a friend drove me back and forth to college, dropping me off at the burger joint across from campus two hours before classes started. I would take naps on the tables of the editorial offices of the college paper, juggling…..
When I moved to Chicago, I noticed that I gravitated to the color orange, using it for furnishings, throw pillows and linens throughout my apartment. Orange symbolizes energy, vitality, cheer, excitement, adventure, warmth, and good health. In retrospect, I find it interesting that these are the feelings needed to start over in a new town. Perhaps my subconscious was my interior decorator? Color theory, in general, fascinates me. Have you ever considered the subliminal effects of color on mood? What…..
“When you’re stuck in a spiral, to change all aspects of the spin, you need only to change one thing.” — Christina Baldwin This is good to know, especially if you are mid-spin in your life right now. Most of us fall into this category, because life is change, and change involves chaos of some sort. Chaos always accompanies change; it is only a matter of to which degree. Accepting that chaos will always be present actually makes it easier…..
One of my favorite movies of all time features a trampoline, a creepy arcade carnival mechanical soothsayer and one of the most romantic songs ever recorded, Moonlight Serenade. The movie’s protagonist, Josh Baskin, trapped within his prepubescent prison, yearns to be Big. Isn’t that a common yearning for us all when we launch our businesses, projects and organizations? Don’t we all wish that we had unlimited budgets, plush offices in some groovy building and an ability to dominate the market?…..
I blame Charlton Heston. When I was a little kid, the yearly screening of The Ten Commandments was anticipated in our household for a number of reasons. The first of which was its role as a rite of passage to, if not adulthood, at least big kid status, proved through the ability to stay awake through the entire thing. Alas, for many years, my brothers and I would consistently conk out on the living room floor somewhere around Yul Brynner’s…..
Many people have to wait a long time for something to happen. Tom Petty was right: The waiting is the hardest part. It’s easy to become impatient, especially when you cannot see any signs that anything is happening. It’s similar to the seed germinating within the earth. Although there may be millions of chemical reactions going on beneath the surface of the soil, from topside, the dirt you can see resembles a mute brown plane, keeping its own counsel. The…..
Doing something new requires being willing to be bad at something until you become skilled at it. It requires humility and a willingness to fail forward. If you’ve paid attention to your life’s journey, chances are good you’ve experienced plenty of versions of yourself, and have been resurrected from the ashes of various trials and tribulations to get where (and be who) you are now. “It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is…..
Writer’s block can be frustrating when you’re facing a blank screen. As the cursor blinks in anticipation of your forthcoming syllables, it can seem a bit accusatory, if not contemptuous. What would you say if I told you there’s a way to write without writing? A life hack that I recommend to busy clients when encouraging them to increase their blogging activity is that they use dictation applications instead of writing. People traditionally speak faster than they type. It’s also…..
What kind of cook are you? The “measure-y, by the book” sort or the stir, sniff and sample sort? For what it’s worth, I think that not only does each approach have merit, but there are certain times when it pays to err on the side of the extreme of either. When I was a little girl, I used to perch on a stool in my grandma’s kitchen and watch as she cooked dinner for us. My knees drawn up…..
Welcome to the last week of 2021. Making it this far is definitely an achievement and something worth celebrating. New Year’s Day is traditionally a time when people set goals and intentions, designed to shape and change their lives. Like most people I know, including Yours Truly, they prefer to know where they are going. To use a hiking analogy: using a compass keeps us on course; and when visiting a new city, we rely on maps. There is a…..