Embracing It All

Thank you Adam J.K. Yes, we’re singing more.

“Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity

As individuals, if we want to be creative, we need to give ourselves space to play and experiment without a set agenda. Amos Tversky famously said that the secret to doing good work is being a little unemployed so you always have hours in the day to waste as you wish. During that wasted time, you’ll likely have your best, most creative ideas.

“Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity

The Chapters of Your Life

I love Chris Glass. A thoughtful, kind, creative human being.

Creating Yourself

“Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.”
— George Bernard Shaw

This Question Stopped Me in My Tracks

If this question doesn’t make sense to you, read about the Five Love Languages.

“Ich will hier nur sitzen”

For my German speaking followers: I just remembered this gem from Loriot. So delightful. Weirdly appropriate for 2020.

What Do You Wish Someone Had Told You When You Were a Kid?

Click through for the responses on this thread.

My response was: Your body will tell you what is right for you and what is not. (Jobs, friends, homes, … really anything) It all comes down to resonance.

Raising Baby Grey, a Gender-Neutral Child

Thank you Kottke for surfacing this fascinating piece on raising children in a gender-neutral way. Thought provoking.

Revolutionary Love

This speech by Valarie Kaur made me weep a few months ago while walking through a Brooklyn park. Listen to the very end. It’s powerful. So very powerful.

I am beyond thrilled and honored that Valarie is our guest at CreativeMornings/NYC this Thursday, November 19th.

I wish everyone on this planet would read her book See No Stranger – A memoir and manifesto of revolutionary love.

I am humbled I’ll get to be in conversation with Valarie this Thursday at 4:30pm ET. Join us. (It’s free.)

How Tim Ferriss Digests Books

I loved this video in which Tim Ferriss breaks down how he reads and synthesizes books. Super interesting.

Women

I feeling this Tweet. I have sensed an intense desire in me recently to surround myself with strong, courageous, generous women. I am lucky I have so many of them in my life. Women lifting each other up is glorious.

Good Bones

Bumping this post from 2017 back up. Timely.

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How to Be at Home

A beautiful animation creative by Andrea Dorfman, while in social isolation through the spring and summer of 2020. How to Be at Home is one of thirty films made through, The Curve, a National Film Board of Canada series of films created within (and many about) our pandemical times.

5-Step Road Map For Saying No

1. Remind yourself that time is valuable and once it’s spent you absolutely can’t get it back.

2. Ask yourself: “Would I be willing to do this thing tomorrow?” It’s easy to sign yourself up for something in April when it’s only September. Do your future self a favor and try this little exercise.

3. Respond quickly. Don’t leave people hanging once you know you’re saying no.

4. Own your “no” if it’s not a priority (because something else actively is): “Thanks so much for thinking of me. I’m not going to be able to take this on, but I wish you the best with X.”

5. Reframe your “no” to assuage your guilt (if it’s something you genuinely wish you had time for). Acknowledge that this commitment is significant to you, even if you’re not taking it on. A good sample script: “This is so important that it deserves someone’s full energy, and since I can’t do that because I have XYZ other things, I would be dishonoring the importance of this event/role/weekend getaway by saying yes.”

5-Step Road Map For Saying No

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What I Thought I Wanted

Feeling this photo. I found it over on Positive Vibe Tribe.

How to Live Adventurously Every Day

I was lucky enough to experience this DO Lectures talk by Alastair Humphreys live in 2018. I keep coming back to it, when I need a little kick in the butt and a reminder to just push myself out of my daily routines and comfort zones. I keep wondering, especially now, in times of Covid, how can I live more adventurously? What micro adventures can I add to my day?

Transactional Analysis : “Games People Play”

Vintage videos with Dr. Berne about Transnational Analysis, a system for understanding people’s behavior who are trying to change people’s behavior and for predicting people’s behavior.

Falling Into Love

Alan Watts on Falling In Love.

5 Levels of Communication

Level 1: Ritual
Level 2: Extended Ritual
Level 3: Content (or Surface)
Level 4: Feelings About Content
Level 5: Feelings About Each Other

Interesting read: Richard Francisco’s Five Levels of Communication maps out a series of “levels” that represent increasing degrees of difficulty, risk, and potential learning in our interactions.

Air Hugs

Air Hugs for the world.

How To Citizen

Please do me a favor and listen to Baratunde’s How To Citizen Podcast.

Twitter Advanced Search

Exit To Community

“If you’re forming a startup, there are generally two kinds of stories to choose from about what the startup is for. Keep in mind that startups are companies that are trying to take over some subsection of the world. It’s ambitious stuff, so they tend to take on lots of early investment. They get somebody to give them a lot of money so they can hit the market with disproportionate force. And in order to pay that investment back, they need what’s called an “exit,” which usually comes in two forms: You’re either acquired by a larger company or you go public, selling your company on a market where people can trade your shares based on their speculations about what it’s worth. In both cases, you’re passing the company that you’ve worked to build off to new owners, who in turn might be buying it just to convince future buyers to pay even more for it later. It’s a weirdly normal pyramid scheme of capitalism.

What if there were another way? What if a startup that successfully builds a community could opt for an exit to ownership by that community?”

This is a fascinating read: Exit To Community, by Nathan Schneider

What is Happiness?

Grab a beverage and dive in.

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