While I was at that retreat last weekend I had a conversation with the man who organizes it (we’ll call him Craig, for privacy’s sake). Craig has been doing this for a while – decades, perhaps – and so he knows a thing or two about organizing events. I was lucky to have a brief …
Tag: goals
Lifehacking a Path
…every man who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client – The Flowers of Wit by Henry Kett, 1814 Over the past month I’ve been practicing what I preach – namely, getting help. While I have been called upon to coach and counsel many people and organizations both professionally and personally, when …
The Life You Make Possible
“I didn’t make my life possible!” – Amanda Palmer, in an interview with Tim Ferriss That quote came shortly after Tim suggested to Amanda that she was living a life that most would think impossible. It’s true, in a way – her story, going from street performer to million-dollar KickStarter, bestselling author and icon of …
Picking Your Practice Priorities
Last Monday I let an opportunity slip through my fingers. I had a chance to visit the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles meditation evening which is led by Brad Warner. I’ve been reading and learning from Brad’s books and columns for well over a decade now, and this would have been a chance to meet him in …
the pros and cons of an annual review
Never Mind “Good & Evil” – Check out the Garden of Reflecting at Anderson Gardens in Rockford, IL: A friend of mine gave it that latter name when we both visited it along with a group of friends. She and I had both had a rough year, and as we walked through the gardens it …
The Defining Moment, Part 12: Far Enough?
The Saddest Word is “Almost” Now that you’ve gone through the objective “Positive/Negative” evaluation of your Defining Moment experience, it’s time to go back to your gut. Did you go far enough? Much like the question “did you like it?” this is one where the answer will be immediate, followed by a whole bunch of …
loving yourself from the future
I Love Myself. Well, let me be more specific: I love the me I used to be. I look back on old pictures of myself, with my kids, in the military, in high school and college. I see, with the benefit of perspective unsullied by emotion and sharpened by distance, the things that made that …
What if you did it right, but actually planned it wrong?
“No kidding, there I was…” I was lucky enough to spend the weekend at a retreat in Indeana with a few other performance art enthusiasts, including a very dear friend of mine from New York. He was talking about a recent show he did: I really thought that was it – the best show I’d …
creating your own mantra
Mantra? I barely know ya! If you’re like me, words like “mantra” and “affirmation” tend to leave a bad taste in your mouth. The problem I’ve always had with them is that life is far more complicated than a simple aphorism can usually handle. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you“, …
there is no “should” with love
The Writer’s Life for Me! Recently I set a goal for myself. It was a fairly arbitrary goal: I wanted to get seven different pieces accepted for publication in one month. This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds; I’ve had individual pieces accepted fairly regularly, and this was just upping the ante by focusing my …