Courage to create

Please enjoy this excerpt from Braving It, one of my absolute favorite books. You gotta read the whole thing…there’s so much in here about living boldly and freely! This post is from the chapter: “Create your joy”

“Creativity takes courage,” said master French painter Henri Matisse. It definitely does take courage to dance and sing and paint when we feel like we can’t. We don’t know how, and even if we do, we’re not “good” at it. One look at the stores on Etsy, at what people are creating, or anyone whose work is on display at a gallery or museum, or dancers online or on stage is enough to stop us. We could never…

But, beautiful someone, we can.

Yeah, we can

We can move our feet to music. We can open our mouths and make sounds to musical notes. We can put pencil to paper and draw lines. We can look through the lens of a camera, find a gritty urban scene, and capture it in a compelling composition. Read More

Dream your dream

Your dreams are one of the truest parts of you.

To have the energy and passion you need for any dream, it’s got to be first and foremost about what you want to bring into your life. It’s easy to get distracted by what other people think, even people we love and care about, or even by what the headlines say.

We tend to listen too hard to other people’s ideas about what we should and shouldn’t try or what we’re good at or how we should spend our time and lives. We take the headlines too seriously and immediately apply them to ourselves, when they don’t.

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Gratitude: the miracle-magnet

When the sky brightens, and the day is suddenly new…what do you dream of then?

A friend told me this amazing story: attendees at a seminar are shown a video of two people playing catch. They’re told just to focus on counting the number of times each person catches the ball.

In the middle of the clip, a gorilla walks into the frame and waves at the camera. When the clip ends, attendees are asked what they thought of the gorilla. Every single person is positive there was no gorilla, and when they look at the clip again, they swear they’re looking at a different video.

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The “naked no”

Ever feel like the demands on your time are just endless?

Please enjoy this important excerpt from The Gift of No!

 

Compare what I call a “naked no,” a no without an explanation (a simple “I’m not available” or “I can’t make it” for example) with the too much information (TMI) version of the same statement: “I won’t be able to go because I have a fitting for the dress I’m wearing to my brother’s wedding.”

Beautiful someone, in the first case, no means no. Not much to talk about because the naked no doesn’t leave the door open for discussion or give someone information they can use to take down our boundary.

In the TMI version, we’ve practically invited the person to say, “The fitting’s on Thursday? That’s three days away! You have plenty of time to move the appointment and help me instead!” or “Those appointments are easy to change. All you have to do is call them. They’re very flexible!” or “A fitting? That’s why you can’t make it? Seriously?”

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Out of the question!

The first Blossie @work! book…coming in February 2021!

Questions shape our thoughts and actions because our brains immediately begin to think of answers to any question we’re asked.

With this kind of power, we need to be exquisitely careful about the questions we ask. When these questions are negative and uninspiring…

  1. “Why does this always have to happen?”
  2. “Why is business so heartless?”
  3. “Why can’t they just leave well enough alone?”
  4. “Can’t they just stop demanding so much from me?”
  5. “Why doesn’t he just do it himself?”

…our minds are on the lookout for answers: “You know why this always happens?  Because no one really cares” or “Because business is always just about the money.”

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