Monthly Archives: May 2009

Sotomayor

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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Deception Pass

Deception Pass

Still feeling a tingle in my spine from the day’s events, starting with the Sotomayor announcement. What a story, and what a day! Then one of the wise ones around me felt compelled to pick up the phone today and tell me he liked my “Energy” blog entry. What a lovely gesture.

The new world of marketing and brand building is about reaching out, just as we do with the people around us, our families, our friends. There is a dwindling tolerance for interactions that are not authentic and genuine. There is no gimmick, no secret sauce (unless of course it’s your, unique one!).

Tough concepts. Wondering how long it will take us all to unlearn what we’ve spent so many generations “perfecting”.

Energy: To be inspired

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“The price of awareness is awareness.” From Skin of Glass

So, I’m a business person, a language person, a south american person, even (a stretch) a dance person…I suppose none of those really qualifies me to talk about ‘energy’ between people, but I think most of us -students of life- find lessons that are worth sharing from time to time.

Wishing Tree, Tokyo

Wishing Tree, Tokyo

I’ve recently experienced a radical shift in the energy that surrounds me. In a few short months I went from a quiet existence of prolonged dissatisfaction and truth be told, an oppressive and constricting energy to one of complete freedom, greater awareness of my own needs and a constant state of inspiration.

Inspiration? Yes, big word. But it’s a big, bad world and if you aren’t careful, you might find yourself racing (or sulking) through life not seeing all the spectacular people and stories that are right there, under all of our noses. Worse, you might find yourself not tapping into that unending well of good energy that is just waiting to ignite you.

While it seemed cataclysmic when it happened, this tectonic shift has lifted the fog that prevented me from looking beyond my own misguided experience and drawing from the spectacular things that surround me. All I can do is feel gratitude; gratitude for the contrast and the ugliness that sometimes has to show itself, for us to awaken to beauty. If we don’t know darkness, how can we see light? If you’ve never experienced sadness, can you really say you’ve felt deep happiness? Contrast, I contest, is what makes life worth living. Color, is what keeps us from the monotony of life lived exclusively in the grey.

When I felt I might drown, forward stepped a story about grace and keeping ones head above water under impossible circumstances. When I felt the pangs of death, death came to visit me; death of a husband, death of a child. These stories stepped up and crept into my skin, stories of surviving the unthinkable. These are the stories of my friends, my lost (and recently found) loves, my family and in some cases, my house cleaner, my architect, the chap next to me on the plane…the list goes on.

What I’ve learned? Don’t underestimate the energy you’re putting out there. Even more importantly, never doubt it’s power to bring back to you a vast and powerful fountain of goodness and INSPIRATION.

I did this recently…try it!

  1. What energy surrounds you?
  2. What are the stories that inspire you?
  3. What energy are you putting out there, and what are you getting back?
  4. Have you told the people that inspire you how grateful you are?

Peace

Expand Globally?

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Interesting image posted by @bonnevivante on Twitter. I love to see how different people receive  and interpret messages like this, and wonder if the “go global” idea still retains it’s mystique or if it’s being morphed into something altogether different from the old Coca Cola, Disney and McDonald’s paradigms.

What does this image do/say for you?

Expand Globally - Argentina

Expand Globally - Argentina

Southern Charm – Measuring happiness

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florWell, at this point everyone is aware I’m a Ted addict. So here goes another one: Apart from his charming southern gentlemanly drawl, here is a guy who makes carpets for a living, who came to the conclusion that he was on the wrong path, fixed it, and now has walked away from that experience with more than just a new way to do business, but a new way to frame the very nature of business. Plus he’s referencing equations, which gives recovering math geeks like me the warm and fuzzies.

He’s putting forward an idea not unlike Bhutan’s Gross Domestic Happiness quotient, and questioning whether the ultimate aim in business should be profit for profit’s sake, or whether it should be about happiness.

Happiness!

Love it.

Creativity from contraints

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This subject has popped up a lot lately: From the business plan for an interesting non-profit idea that my friend Lori and I are cooking up (code name LEAD), to my peeps on twitter and beyond. Mytreehugger sense is that while the concept of constraints being the seed of creativity is well known in the art world, I get the feeling that we’ve experienced too much abundance in the business world to really remember what it means to translate that idea into the arena of commerce. With budgets being cut, and even having to manage a recent round of layoffs…I’m increasingly reminded of my college days. I remember never really feeling like I was doing without, and yet I am baffled now to grasp how I survived on so little. How I finagled my way into getting a car dealership to let me pay for half of my new car in cash, and the other half by building them a web site (oh, wasn’t 1996 fun?), or how I got a fabulous sushi chef to feed me great toro, in exchange for six packs of mediocre beer and always found a way to come up with cash for trips, adventures and whatever emergency shopping the next social event inspired. I remember having a lot of close calls, but in the end somehow things always worked out.

More and more of us are going to have to tap into those scrappy selves, and if you never experienced it, you’ll likely have to learn. You’ll have to learn what to do when your marketing budget is slashed (try going to Vegas and borrowing a buddy’s conference pass to meet a client and catch the Al Gore talk!), when 20% of your team gets cut or when that 401k contribution plan gets shut down. I wonder if the creativity to inspire and make things that are artful and moving…can also translate into creativity and scrappiness to make lemonade out of the little tiny lemons we’re all being asked to squeeze these days? My sense is the answer is yes, and it’ll be a beautiful thing to watch, as well all tap into that scrappy ‘make-due’ mentality that served us so well, and kept things so simple, back in the days before marriage, kids, work and career started making it a little harder for us to tap into the simplicity that’s just below the surface of all the complications we like to color (or blacken?) our lives with.

Be well.

Philosophizing

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“The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.” -Lao-Tzu

Read more: “My philosophy of life – Holy Kaw! (pronounced “Holy Cow!”)” – http://holykaw.com/my-philosophy-of-life#ixzz0FSVgzQaw&A

Ladies – get out there!

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Phil Borges - Women Empowered

Phil Borges - Women Empowered

Great article on what women can do to break the digital ceiling! Recently speaking to a fabulous diversity professional, Laura Swapp, I heard her war stories from the trenches of corporate consulting engagements, where she was tasked with figuring out why on earth women seem to plateau, and not advance beyond certain levels of senior management. The bottom line is that the system itself is broken, women used to get trained to “be like men” in order to be able to compete in the corporate world, and we frankly haven’t evolved much from those days. Rather than asking why women don’t advance beyond a specific place, we should be asking whether that place, and the way it’s been structured (work/life balance, priorities, etc), is even remotely interesting to the other 55% of humanity! Let’s not try to figure out what’s broken with women, let’s spend a little time figuring out what’s broken with that corner office, and how to make it a place that isn’t designed for one sex or another, but for anyone with passion and smarts, and the determination and wisdom to lead.

Another good one here.

I Don’t Know

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Just read an interesting piece on Zen Habits about the 3 deadly words ruining the lives of so many people. While I agree in general, his usage of the idea of “successful” people prompts me to wonder how he’s defining success, in this context (dumb, but consistent?).

huhI don’t personally use those 3 words. Unless I genuinely don’t have a clue, and I’m committed to finding it out rather than trying to b.s. my way through a consulting engagement. There is something to be said about an expert willing to concede they don’t know from time to time.

But I know (and have loved) people who are crippled by them, who have allowed the silly little “I don’t know where I want to eat tonight” to take over their entire lives, to define their life experience and leave them feeling like their life is without passion, without direction. So yes, they are dangerous words, especially if you believe them.

I tend to think successful people (as I define them) are pretty smart. But then I possibly define smart a little differently than the author. I think there is a wild, fabulous world of smart out there, that is way, way beyond book smart.

And while we’re there, what’s with the “consistent” thing? As someone who never lives two similar days in a row, likes to sleep in, and absolutely thrives with change (even if she occassionally forgets that and fights it)…I’m not sure about the “consistent” thing. I think it’s something similar to the whole early riser myth. It’s just one of those remnants from the past, perpetuated by -who else?- early risers and anal retentives. Don’t get me wrong now, I love you people! I’ve even been caught going out of my way not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk (then stopping for fear of becoming Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets)…but as my eccentric and self-diagnosed serial entreprenuer friend Lori says, the age of Aquaruis is coming! Times are changing, and while their will always be a place for the lovely folks who keep the world turning with dogmatic orderliness to the point of being militant, I think a new guard is coming, and we’re going to take over! :-)

Ok, where was I (was starting to get all Eddie Izzard on you there!)…yes, new world order, not chaos and anarchy, but a more dynamic and fluid way of looking at the world. And no, successful people aren’t dumb, and consistency isn’t the key to success. I would argue it’s quite the opposite, people who are successful in life (meaning, not necessarily rich and famous, but happy and at peace) are driven, adaptable, pliable and open.

But, I agree…you will live a happier life if you make a point to always have some idea of where you’d love to go to dinner, and your shoulders will love you if you quit aimlessly shrugging them in uncertainty (stop that already!). But you don’t have to pray at the shrine of ‘consistency’ if you don’t want to. If you do, do it out of ritual, not routine (just ask Twyla Tharp!). And as for your friends (and remember you are your best friend, always will be) who are crippled by these three dangerous words, have patience and remember the words of Gloria Naylor,

”Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.”

Peace.