Posts Tagged ‘motivation’

The ‘Good Eye’

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017
Like many who have built a career around being a photographer, I’ve often been told I have a ‘good eye’. It’s more or less a necessary job skill. A question that has come up throughout my career  is whether or not having a ‘good eye’ is something that can be learned, or is it some […]

Gut Punched

Wednesday, November 16th, 2016
The Election of Donald Trump. This is what change feels like. The ground shifts beneath you. Chaos is all around you. Suddenly uncertainty about everything prevails. Core beliefs are upended. What you once were sure of, you no longer are. It’s very scary; you suddenly feel immensely vulnerable, unsure how to act, what to say, […]

Ideas are the Easy Part

Sunday, September 25th, 2016
I wake up every morning saying to myself  ‘I should write a blog post today‘. The closest I get most days is simply jotting down more ideas for posts. This is the thing—for many of us ideas are the easy part. They come unbidden; most often not the result of concentrated effort, spontaneously rather, usually […]

What is Your Ikigai?

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016
I first came across this term a couple years ago in a TED talk by Dan Buettner on “Blue Zones”—communities (there are 4 in the world) whose elders live with vim and vigor to record setting ages. Okinawa is one of them. Ikigai proved to be one of the core factors contributing to life expectancy. […]

Tip#5: How to have Lots of Ideas

Tuesday, April 26th, 2016
The last ‘Tips’ post spoke to the importance of having lots of ideas whenever we’re trying to solve a problem or move our lives forward in some unprecedented way, as our first ideas are most likely perpetuating old ways of thinking. There are numerous tactics floating around out there. Some are more specific than others, […]

Tip# 4: Power Your Creative Thinking with a Walk

Sunday, February 21st, 2016
“If you can’t think, walk. If you’re thinking too much, walk. If you are thinking bad thoughts, keep walking.”  —Pierre Helaine, founder of Arche shoes. One of the biggest impediments to creative productivity is the mental block, or rut—sometimes brief, sometimes prolonged.  A great and easily-accessible-to-all way to jump-start your thinking and shift your mindset […]

Reclaiming Beauty

Tuesday, October 13th, 2015
I recently came across a tagline for an interior design business which captures an idea I’ve been pondering for some time now. It read, simply, Creating beauty, Changing lives. Of course the reference to the very commercial enterprise of marketing home furnishings is blatant, but it also speaks to the idea that the presence of […]

Routine Creativity

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014
One of the most important aspects of Creative productivity is striking a balance between disciplined daily routine and remaining open to new experiences and perspectives—flexible and adaptable—so that we can keep our eyes fresh and energy high. Too much routine can be mind numbing, uninspiring and vortex (tunnel vision) inducing; too little routine reduces the […]

Happy People Embrace Uncertainty

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013
There’s a theory that true creative genius stems from a certain amount of unhappiness. Certainly there is ample evidence in the lives of many tortured artist-souls to support this. Without a doubt some unhappiness fuels the intense self-solving, searching, questioning, and re-interpreting of reality at the root of some of our great art, and certainly […]

Have you used up your future?

Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
A few years ago, as I was heading into a period of sabbatical, soul searching and reinvention, I found myself feeling very lost and a little unhinged…..and yet a little excited at the same time.  I realized I had left behind so much that had identified and grounded me to that point—my career, home, friends, […]