Get over yourself.

Seriously.

Just let go.

You don’t know it, but that self is stopping you dead in your tracks. That self is the past. It can tell you what to do, but it can’t tell you where you need to go. In fact, when it counts the most, it’ll do the opposite, and it’s killing you.

It’s a little like this: You’re driving. You have your GPS all set and the coordinates locked in. But you have a change of heart, and you decide to take a detour. Your poor GPS doesn’t have a clue. It just keeps saying you’re off course. And the more it does, the more tense you feel. The more messages you hear, the … Read more...

It’s official. The rockstar is dead.

Dead, gone, and six feet under.

But if the patina has worn thin and we’ve been rubbed a little raw, now that our unvarnished lives are out there for everyone to see, what becomes all too apparent is the single burning question we have yet to answer. What next?

The rockstar was nothing but the worst in us all. Hope hemorrhaging on dreams of quick money and good times in exchange for the belief we could all be the next big thing if we just learned to wash, rinse, and repeat.

We killed the rockstar, but wash, rinse, and repeat is exactly what we have left.

There are more tips, more tricks, more advice, … Read more...

“Let go of yourself.”

When you speak, you don’t imagine yourself being quoted. Doubly not, when it’s because you’re tongue tied, you’ve gone off script, and the words just rattle out of your head. But Carla Ten Eyck made it a tweet for the world to see.

“Let go of yourself.”

It didn’t mean much at the time, but I think Carla knew something I didn’t.

See, up until September of last year, I had never even heard of the Inspire Retreat, and now for the past three days, I was not only an attendee, but a speaker. And like all things new and foreign, you’re a little bit anxious. Anxious about what you’ll say, what you’ll do, whether … Read more...

You went a different direction? What do you mean you went a different direction?!?!

I couldn’t believe my eyes, as I read and re-read the email. This had to be wrong.

I had it in the bag. This can’t be. They fit the ICP!

I didn’t understand. The couple came signed, sealed, and delivered. They were a referral from a happy client who knew the same people, hung out at the same places, and even liked the same food. I had it. I could feel it in my bones. Everything was flawless from start to finish. I cracked open my best jokes. I shared my best stories. I was the first person on their list , and my pictures were … Read more...

The clip and the clop clack their way through, as each day folds into the next. An unending blur in a whir that grows hazier by the day, until you’re left blind and deaf in the day’s din. But there are those times – those times when you stop dead in your tracks, and life ceases, your mind freezes, and you stand outside of yourself just long enough to check stock and take inventory. Sometimes, the world is like that. It gives you no choice. And far too frequently, I must confess, I have asked “Is this it?”

Maybe I can’t be more. Do more. Find more. “What if this is all there is?”

Silence answers me back. … Read more...