Walking down the street, wearing your favorite green high-tops and a black and white striped sweater over slim jeans (you could be a guy or a gal), you pass a homeless person, a few small birds pecking at some seeds on the sidewalk, and a rosebush pushing against a fence, pale pink buds threatening to burst open. You see none of this. Vaguely aware that you did pass the homeless person (he asked you for spare change), but you couldn’t pick ...
The New Year is upon us and that means so, too, is the spate of posts about resolutions. How to make them, why you should make them (or not), and how to stick to the ones you make. For the more linear thinkers, the ubiquitous Excel spreadsheet planners are offered by generous souls all over the web. For creative types, planners exist for you (me), too. Many resources are free. Check out the ones offered by Charlie Gilkey or Susannah ...
I just completed week one of a four-week program called the Morning Whip with the amazing and talented Erika Lyremark at the helm. Seriously, people, this is good stuff. Mega-motivating, and Erika has a loving, yet no-holds-barred way of coaxing accountability out of even the most reluctant business babe. One of the assignments she gave us was to write a Text Message to the Universe asking the universe for help getting un-stuck in whatever area(s) of business we need a little extra oomph and ...
Shop until you drop (further into debt). shanna trenholm That joyful season is upon us again; the one that seems to come around every year about this time. The season, where rampant consumerism disguised as a time to show others how we feel about them through a transactional exchange of material goods, otherwise known as Christmas. Now I'm not going to get all preachy about the real reason for the season, because if I did I’d tell you about the early Roman and Pagan origins ...
I like words. You have probably guessed this if you have read any of my posts, articles, or poetry floating around the interwebs (and on the two-dimensional page). I like words so much that I have built my livelihood around assembling them into strands with other words, more commonly known as sentences. Then I take those sentences and weave them together to make more or less coherent paragraphs and so on. The possibilities are endless. As a word lover I spend a fair amount of time, maybe too much ...
I laugh out loud in the strangest places. Yesterday, I was sitting alone in my local coffee shop hangout, reading an essay by David Sedaris, when the impulse overtook me. My initial attempt to stifle the laughter, fueled by a momentary concern of what others might think, gave way to audible laughter. And not a polite little chuckle, but an eye-watering, I-don’t-give-a-damn-who’s-watching, laughing fit. Yes, people stared at me. I didn't care. I laugh when I ride my Vespa. I laugh at ...
Of all the popular –ists and –isms, minimalism is one that inspires much debate. A hot topic du jour, minimalism was popularized, in large part by Leo Babauta’s blog, Zen Habits. While I love Leo and most everything he writes, and have embraced many of the principles of minimalism, I have grown weary of the term. It’s lost its meaning and original intention—that of downsizing, ridding ourselves of possessions and things that clutter our lives, streamlining, ideally, to increase happiness and gain clarity around what is truly important and meaningful—to ...
In 2010 I was invited to join the fab team at the Unconsumption blog. The blog was started by Rob Walker, a NY Times magazine columnist, and the author of, among others, Buying In: The secret dialogue between what we buy and who we are. Unconsumption, as described by Walker is "...not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules. Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from ...
I recently returned from Portland, OR where I spent a heady weekend at an event called the World Domination Summit. WDS, the progeny of my friend Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity, was a convening of more than 500 nonconformists, entrepreneurs, bloggers, creatives, visionaries, and other cool folks. And, although I did not have the opportunity to commune with all 500+ fab and friendly ...
Words. Weighty things, they are. Words can cut us to the quick, heal past hurts, and cause deep and lasting memories—good and bad. The words we use can influence our states of mind, our states of being, and how others perceive our intentions. Why are words so powerful and why should we care? When we choose certain words, whether unconsciously or with much deliberation, we paint a picture through the metaphors that these words create and the symbols that the ...
