It’s that time of year again, that lull between summer and fall, when our brains are effectively…off.  August is a month for taking it slow, enjoying vacation, and letting things slide.   But then September starts and it’s all “back to school, back to business, work hard so the holidays are awesome!”  September can be a bit of an overachiever, and if you’re not ready for it, it can land you on your butt. There is an abundance of truly awesome, life enhancing, incredibly reasonably priced programs, books and workshops happening now.  With a smidgen of brain and heart activity, can make sure your September is ahhhh-mazing.  Let’s think of August as a month for a low-key tune up.  What’s that one thing you need to work on that will make your September (and whole life) way better?  Love? Owning … Continue reading →

I got a chance to talk to my past self the other day.  Not in some hippie-meditative-trance way, through a cool-twist-of-timing way. 5 years ago, I was living in South America.  I had just started calling myself a writer, and was beginning to reclaim and rebound my life after my dad passed away. I was adrift, but I had ideas.  I had drive but no clear direction.  Things felt possible, I just had no idea what those things were.  During that time, I met many incredible people on my South American journey, one of whom was a college student from Arizona, studying in Buenos Aires.  It’s through this friendship that I ended up staying much longer than intended in Buenos Aires, he had the hook up on a cheap apartment room for a few months, so I stayed. During those … Continue reading →

I have spent the last weekend at the World Domination Summit, and to say the ideas are exploding out of my head is an understatement.  They explode, and then those ones explode, spawning new and wonderful change-the-world-type ideas.  I was surrounded by thousands of other World Dominators, equally inspired and on fire to bring their ideas to life. And that’s the thing.  There were/are/will always be too many ideas.   And when you’re passionate about most of them, how do you decide what to move forward on, and what to let float away, like a good idea dandelion, pollinating other good ideas of the world and the future? What’s going to make money?  This is huge and the one most people avoid doing the most.   If you’ve got an amazing idea, and it’s possible it’s going to bring you some dolla’s … Continue reading →

A few months ago I was on a date with a guy.  Lawyer, very accomplished, nice, attractive.  Seemed to have his stuff together.  But as the date progressed, it became clear that the internal workings were not as put together as the ‘on paper’ made it seem.  At one point as we’re talking about what we do and who we are, he turns to me and goes “You mean you know what makes you special?  You know what makes you unique?”  I was stunned at the question, because it was such a obvious ‘yes’ for me.  I started answering his follow up question, telling him what makes me unique and special and he interrupts me to ask “How did you learn that? How do you know?”  At that point I felt so sad.  I know this guy has amazing stuff … Continue reading →

Confession time.  I love graduation speeches.  LOVE them.  I think the opportunity to address a captive audience about their lives, past present and future sounds amazing.  It is a big dream of mine to be selected as a graduation keynote speaker one day. My 12 year old cousin graduated high school this weekend.  Well, he’s 18 now, but in my mind, he is 12.  It was a shock to my system that he’s 18, graduated, has a job, and will go off to college this Fall.  However the joy and excitement he had during his graduation, his smile literally exploding off his face made my ‘holy shit I’m old’ freak out totally worth it.  The talk given by his principal was good too – inspiring to the graduates, touching to the families.  I love the tradition of thinking about your … Continue reading →

Or, what I learned at Great America. This weekend I found myself celebrating a friends birthday at Great America, which for those of you who didn’t grow up in the Bay Area, is a large amusement park, premier summer birthday party destination.  Roller coasters, carnival games, fried food, it’s all there.  I did not really expect to have that good of a time.  I was prepared to muscle through the day as a show of support and love to the birthday girl, leaving tired and sunburned.   We were going with a large group of people, half of which I’d never met before – big groups at amusement parks can be tricky, and I expected this to be no different.  Also I’m still recovering from a back injury and, a little scared of the upside-down rides, so I brought my phone … Continue reading →