“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…..
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…..
One thing about resilience — and where I’m going with my next book is — owning your choices and actions allows you to change them. It’s a foundational ballast of resilience and happiness. Both occur at this intersection. You can’t bounce back without a firm floor. If you’re not honest about how you failed or you’re not honest about how you arrived at that loss, you’re not going to be able to create a firm foundation upon which to build……
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…..
Somewhere during my mid-40s, I read a book by Pema Chödrön that describes the charnel ground. If you aren’t aware of this term, it refers to an open-air crematorium of sorts, where bodies are left out in the open to decompose naturally—usually connected with Hindu or Buddhist cultures. The charnel ground is full of profound transpersonal significance. It represents the ‘death of ego’ and the end of: • Attachment to this body and life • Craving for a body and…..
While there are many definitions of success, if you examine the lives of various people considered successful in their respective industries or fields of endeavor, you will find that they do these things each day. If you take the time to cultivate these habits (customizing them for your own interests), I can promise that you will become successful as you define it. It is a guarantee. 1. Silly: Be silly. Learn to laugh. Do something each day that helps you…..
You’ve probably heard of the phrase, ‘the calm before the storm,’ but there’s a calm after the storm, too. There’s a lull in energy—a drop from the frenzy of the storm—followed by the slow, methodical sifting through the wreckage it caused. Going through the pieces that were broken and altered by the storm takes time. Deciding what to keep and what needs to be thrown away is an exercise in discernment. Once you’ve taken an inventory of what’s worth saving,…..
For most of us, we’ve experienced over two years of some version of lockdown. It has been a period of trauma and uncertainty. Even with the vaccine rollouts, there will be months, if not years of recalibration ahead of us. Early on during Quarantine Life, I sent out a message in response to a “hustle porn” tweet that essentially said if you don’t emerge from lockdown without having mastered a second language, launching your next company etc., you were a…..
I have news for you perfectionists out there: You’re going to fail. You’re going to disappoint someone. You’re going to get something all wrong. …And you’re going to learn and move on. At these “failure junctions” in your life, you will lose friends. Your network will change. It is supposed to. Through the learning of your lesson, your polarity will change, and you will fall out of alignment with some of your friends (maybe even family). This changing polarity will…..
One day, I was taking a pizza out of the oven and caught my forearm on the inside of the door. I flinched and drew my arm away from the hot metal, but the damage was already done: within minutes, an angry weal had formed where my arm had touched the oven. I immediately took steps to clean and treat the wound and went on with my day. A few days later while I was brushing my teeth, I noticed…..