The Myth of Wasted Time

Posted on March 28, 2012 | 3 Comments
A child watching TV.

A child watching TV. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a confession:  I watch TV.

I live in a house with a gold-plated Direct TV subscription, HBO, and Netflix–and those babies are not going to waste.  I watch at least an hour of TV most nights and sometimes as much as 5-6 hours.  There are shows I love almost as much as these people love Battlestar Galactica.

Now, most people who write blogs like this one will tell you a TV habit is a no-no. Why “waste” all that time consuming the creative output of others when you could use those hours to write more blog posts, create more websites, or start a movement to change the world?

This advice sounds reasonable–until you consider that by the time I get to the TV part of my day, loading the dishwasher is a challenge, never mind stringing words together into cogent sentences.  All the self-flagellation in the world isn’t going to change that. Continue reading →

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Posted in Creativity, Personal Development, Productivity

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Prerequisite to Innovation, Creativity and Change

Posted on March 22, 2012 | 3 Comments

We spend most of our time here talking about you, your dreams for making the world a better place, and the tools you need to make those dreams come true.

After watching this TED Talk video this week I realized I skipped an important step.

Before we can change the world, we must change our definitions of strength and weakness.  And we must start with ourselves.

This is the part of the post where I would normally give you 3-7 ideas for how to make the change we are talking about.

In this case, I think it’s too soon.

Instead, just watch the video.  If you have thoughts you’d like to share, questions or struggles, I’d love to hear them in the comments.  If, like one person I spoke with, you watch the video and can’t find words that capture your reaction, that’s cool too.

Once we’ve all had some time to process I’ll follow up with more posts about vulnerability, what it means for us and our work, and how we might achieve it.

P.S. If you’d like to see more you can watch Brené Brown’s TEDx Houston speech. (The one with the “Breakdown” slide.) here.

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Posted in Creativity, leadership, Values, Vulnerability

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3 Selfish Reasons to Be More Generous

Posted on March 13, 2012 | 2 Comments

With payoffs like these, even Scrooge might see generosity as an investment!

If your mother is anything thing like Lucie Carruthers, she’s been reminding you to be generous and share from the time you learned the word “mine.”

While I’m pretty sure mom reasons for being generous are focused on raising good citizens and creating peace in living rooms, it turns out those same ideas might are also good for your bottom line.

Generosity Is Easy

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything
~Mark Twain

Generous employee and customer policies are like that too. Continue reading →

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Posted in leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development

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A sick cartoon Pig Complete with orange juice ...

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks taking care of sick people, or being sick myself–which is not super conducive to writing new blog posts.

I’m starting to feel a little better so new material will be coming soon– in the meantime, this snow day post from last year is a great reminder that rest is not a luxury. If you are a human, your body and mind need down time. You can choose to take that time when you feel well and enjoy it, or you can wait until your body goes on strike. Totally up to you.

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Posted on February 29, 2012

When Your Brain Goes on Strike

Posted on February 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

photo credit: neilslorance via photopin.com

There are two types of creative people.  Some are in a state of flow.  For them ideas and inspiration come easily.   Creations seem to will themselves into being with little or no effort from the creator.

For other creative people the road is much rockier.  No matter how hard they work, they can’t seem to produce much of anything.  They strain and toil and at the end of the day (which seemed to stretch on for weeks) they have little or nothing to show for it.

Actually, I lied.

There is only one kind of creative person and she experiences both creative conditions.

When you are in the flow state all is right with the world.  Also, you probably aren’t online looking for articles about how to restart your creativity, so let’s talk about what to do when all of your ideas suck and don’t know what to do about it. Continue reading →

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Posted in Creativity, Personal Development

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