I was not having a good time tonight.  Technichal and logistical problems were driving me nuts.  In fact, I’m at my parents house right now, and I walked in to my moms room to ask her how easy it was to get on the roof, because I wanted to jump off of it.  (before anyone freeks out, I was kidding.)

S

She was watching America’s Got Tallent on TV, and it just happened that a magician by the name of Landon Swank was up to perform in what I think is the semifinal episode. 

I love magic, and I’m talking about stage magic here – the art of illusion. I’ve loved it since I was a kid, so I had to stop and watch him perform.  It was so elegant, so beautiful.  He was in this stage set of a living room, and I was thinking about all the things he could have hidden in it.  All the tricks he could do with it.  But rather then the all too common trick-a-second, blink and you’ve missed it kind of magic that is so often done today, he took a different aproach – doing a slow, gentile, almost meditative sequence of effects in a story progression.

I’m not going to try to describe it, I’m sure it’ll be on his page on the official site:
http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/contestants/landon-swank/
and if not, I’m sure it’ll be on youtube.

It was beautiful – it wasn’t trying to say or do anything, other then “here’s a bit of wonder I want to share with you.”

I LOVED IT

As I walked out of the room after the segment ended, I noticed that I fealt totally different.  I wasn’t exausted and overwehelmed any more, I fealt comfortable, and ready move forward, and that, my friends, is the power of beauty.

Have you ever had an experiece like this?  what does it for you? I’d love to hear in the comments!

I had a major realization today. I realized that since I was a small child, all I’ve wanted to be is an adult. I had very little interest in most of the things that “children” did: sports, playing with other children my age and so forth. I always felt like I related better to the adults around me than to those who were supposed to be my peers. I never really felt they were my peers. As a second grader, I didn’t want to learn soccer, I learned computer programming.

photo credit: young_einstein

Some aspects of this have been a wonderful gift to me throughout my life, I’ve developed my technical and creative skills, and had the opportunity to do some really wonderful things at a remarkably young age.

But this is all familiar territory for me, today was something new.

Today I realized that maybe being a “responsible adult” was not really what I wanted. It had never occurred to me to consider any other possibility, and even as I write these words my monsters (to use Havi’s term) are going crazy yelling at me: “how could you want to be anything but a responsible adult, what else is there that it would be reasonable to be?”

Today I unpacked the meaning of the words “responsible adult” to me.

I came to understand something really powerful in the process of doing this. I realized that in my mind “responsible adult” was nothing more than societal programming, the set of rules that I absorbed unconsciously from the time I was a tiny baby I’m watching the people around me and drawing conclusions about the rules that they operated by based on what I saw. One of the things that’s interesting to note, is that at the time that I was receiving this programming unknowingly I was not in a position to really understand or analyze what was happening. My two or three or four-year-old brain didn’t understand why people were doing what they did, and some of the conclusions it came to are really not useful to me.

For instance:

Urgency should be the key driver of my decision-making. If the phone rings, it needs to be answered immediately. If an e-mail comes in, it needs to be responded to immediately. If someone needs something from me it’s my responsibility to deliver it instantaneously regardless of what else is going on. This is not useful, at least not to me.

Another example:

The only way to be even remotely okay is to be perfect. Less-than-perfect is completely unacceptable. Once again, this is something which is so limiting since perfection, in the sense I’m referring to it here, is not something that I can ever reasonably expect to reach.

Here’s one that really hit home:

When I’m not able to do something easily and naturally, it means that I’m bad, I’m not good enough. Not only should I be doing things easily and naturally, I should be doing them in a way which is unique, but not too different from how other people do them, because that’s not okay either.

All of a sudden I started to understand why I felt painted into a corner so much of the time.

So what now?

Think the most important thing is to recognize that these things which have been part of my worldview till now don’t have to stay a part of my worldview. I find it hard to put into words, but just identifying and articulating is already changing them even as I write this post.

I’ve also become aware, that it would be helpful to encourage myself to be willing to do things in a more childlike way, at least some of the time. This is something I’ve known before, even something I’ve taught when I’ve worked with other people, but I’ve never really given myself permission to do it myself.

Wow, that feels really big. I can’t wait to see where it takes me!

Come play with me?

This is big stuff, when we talk about programming, and change work, and particularly our own internal process, it often brings up things both for ourselves and other people. If my processing my stuff has triggered you in a way that’s uncomfortable, I’m truly sorry and that is not my intention. This is also not advice, sometimes I do give advice here–talking about how to integrate storytelling into life and business, or maybe about how to make technical things work better, for example–but this is not advice. This is nothing more, and nothing less than me sharing my process.

I would love to hear your responses, or any parts of your process you want to share that were sparked by this in the comments below. So come play with me.

I sat down at my compute tonight, and something promoted insisted that I look at Twitter.  I knew somehow I had to listen.  Almost immediately, my eyes fell on a retweet by Natalie Christie (The Tiny Soprano) which had a link to the video below.  I don’t want to say anything about it, other then to ask you to take the time to watch it.  It’s 9 minutes long, and so worth it.  Don’t miss the surprise at the end.

I have so much I want to say about this, and at the same time, I don’t want to say anything quite yet.

So I’ll do something different, and ask you to begin the conversation in the comments, then I’ll chime in there as well. There is so much here to talk about!

Before the release of his new book Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, I had heard of Garry Vaynerchuk as the host of Wine Library TV, but I really didn’t know anything about him. Understand, I don’t drink wine, not for any moral reason, I just never got into it.

With a title like "Crush It" I couldn't resist

In any case, I started to hear lots of positive thoughts about this new book, so I went audible.com and downloaded the audio book. Audio books are my preferred way of reading almost everything, but in this case I strongly recommend you get the audio book even if that’s not normally your preference. I will get to why I say that in a minute.

This book is about passion. Of course the subtitle tells us that it’s about making money from our passion, but more importantly, it’s about how living from your passion is the way to be happy. Gary himself as the ultimate example of this. I found his passion both enjoyable and contagious, now some will say that he’s over the top, and he is over the top. The thing is, this is the real Gary. I have no doubt about it in my mind, it’s who he is. He talks about this in the book, and how important it is to be genuine to you are and your own style.

The book is really about how to create a brand around yourself, who you really are and your passion, mostly using social media. This is illustrated very well by Gary’s own story, and examples from other people who have been successful. As I read this last sentence, I realize that “creating a brand around yourself” can sound like something a used car salesman would do. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What Gary teaches is all about real honesty with yourself, and with everyone you relate with. It’s about being genuine at the deepest level.

So, why do I recommend the audio book rather than the print version?

When Gary went to record this book, he was so passionate and so into what he’s talking  about that he couldn’t stay on the script. For me, many places where he riffs off of what is in the printed text are some of the best parts of the audio book, it gives you everything that’s in the printed book plus bonus insights.

For me though, the single best part of this book, particularly the audio book, is the power with which Gary’s passion comes through. I found this really inspirational, it was really helpful to me at a time that I was a little bit down about what I was doing online. Now as I say, Gary style is over-the-top and this will bother some people. But, it’s who he is and though it took me a little while to get into it, I ended up really loving it and loving him.

So, if this sounds appealing, check out Garry Vaynerchuk’s Crush It, either in audio or print.

What do you think about Garry, and Crush It?  I’d love to hear in the comments.

Note that the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and I get a tiny commission from Amazon if you decide to buy through one of them.

One of the most amazing things that technology is making possible is long-distance collaboration. We are able to work together in ways that we never have before. Blogs like this one are a perfect example, people comment, and join in the discussion from all around the world. But much more intimate and direct collaboration is also possible. Over the last few days, I’ve been talking with folks in the southern US about giving a talk at a conference in Kentucky. Thing is, I’d be giving the talk from New Hampshire through Web conferencing. It’s pretty cool.

It struck me this morning just how powerful this is when I ran across a link on twitter to this video:

It was created by a group called Playing For Change. They believe, and I agree, that one way to create peace is to bring individuals from around the world together collaborating in creation. One of the really cool things about this type of project, is that even when it’s “finished” we can still continue to collaborate, by sharing the work across the Internet, and in person. Here’s another video from Playing For Change which is fair introduction of themselves, and has another great song.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these videos and music, I know I did, but the real question is, what are you going to do now? How are you going to use this to make a difference? Share it with the people you love. Pass it around the Internet. Maybe host a party to show the Playing For Change film. I’m looking into showing it at the theater were I am the technical director.

How have you been moved by technology enabled collaboration? Please share in the comments.

Yesterday I talked about Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I think it is so important that I wanted to devote a 2nd post to it.

This video is a talk that Dan gave at TED in May of 2009 on some of the concepts at are in the book. The material is priceless and will give you a taste of what he does in the book. The presentation is also done amazingly well – notice how as he makes a big deal about how he’s not telling a story that he weaves amazing stories. Watch this right now! you’ll be glad you did. (I know I’m jumping up and down about this, but I really am that excited by it!)

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. They seem to have a shelf life of about 10 minutes, and thereby are not all that useful. In fact the very specific kind of goal setting that is often recommended has rarely proved useful for me. Instead, I ask myself what do I want? And who do I want to be? And how is what I’m doing right now supportive or not supportive to the first two questions?

This is something I do on an ongoing basis, and that has worked very well for me. I feel like I’m coming to a point in my development where more concrete goals, particularly around business may prove useful, but I do tend to work intuitively and haven’t felt called to do that yet.

So with that in mind, you can imagine that I was interested, but not terminally excited when I first read a blog post by Hayden Tompkins about How To Rock 2010. (Let me stop here and say that Hayden’s blog Through the Illusion is awesome and very worth reading.)

It did take me a little bit off guard when Hayden, as she often does, put her own spin on the ideas. She talked about choosing a word for the year. A word that would serve as a navigation point for the year. Her word this year is “dance,” if you want to know why you’ll have to read her post.

I casually tossed around in my mind what my word might be, if I were to come up with one, and didn’t really get anywhere. Then I read a post by Erica Douglas called 2010 Goals; 2010 #themeword; Big Announcement! (If you’re at all interested in business, particularly business online, Erica’s blog is a must read. I know this post is starting to sound like a blog pitch fest, but I really love what both of these amazing women write.)

In her post, Erica talks about starting the #themeword meme in 2007, the concept is very similar to Hayden’s. I thought this was interesting, but since I had already decided that I didn’t need such a thing, I noted that and moved on. Except that my unconscious or higher self or muse or whatever or whoever seemed to disagree. I don’t remember exactly when, but it popped into my head (and landed there with a significant amount of force) that my #themeword for 2010 is Freedom. I like this roll around in my head for a while, but the more I thought about it the more right it feels.

For me 2010 is about creating freedom

Freedom for myself; financially, from a job that I’ve mastered and I’m ready to pass on, and most importantly from my own limiting beliefs and programming.

This year is also about helping other people create freedom for themselves through my Binaural Journeys guided meditation audios. It’s interesting, I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing when I set out to create audio programs that combined guided meditation, binaural beats, binaural drumming and music. I just knew that I had felt inspired to create programs of this sort, so I did. But, in thinking about my #themeword, Freedom, I realized that Binaural Journeys are really tools for people to use in creating their own freedom.

I am truly excited about the year to come.

So, what’s your #themeword?

In college, I was fortunate to meet and study with Prof. Carol McAmis in the Ithaca College School of Music. Carol is a professor of voice, but she’s also a teacher of something called The Feldenkrais Method, and that’s what I studied with her. Moshe Feldenkrais was an Israeli physicist, judo master and teacher. He was one of the people who created the field which is now known generally as Somatic Education — that is to say teaching the body. The Feldenkrais Method uses very sophisticated patterns of extremely small, extremely gentle movements to help you to learn at a very deep level how to use your body more efficiently.

So what does this look like?

In a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement class with Carol, we would all come in and lay down on blankets on the floor of a large rehearsal room. Carol would sit on a stool and mostly read sets of instructions for the movements that we were to make. The things that is so amazing about doing this work is that you would lay on the ground, following the instructions, often feeling like you are doing nothing of any consequence. Yet, when you would get up and very mindfully walk around at the end of the lesson, I was often shocked by how different I felt, how much lighter or taller or thinner or fatter or what ever — but very different, and always somehow easier and more elegant.

One of the aspects of this work which I found so amazing is that there’s no right way to do it. Carol would never correct us in any direct way. She might give general clarification about something, but you had to figure out for yourself if what she was saying applied to you or not, everything applied to everyone in one sense, and no one in another. This is one of the key parts of the method, allowing people to have their own experience and process of discovery. It was truly amazing how sometimes the various members of our class would interpret the instructions in such radically different ways, and yet still receive powerful benefits.

You want me to put what where???

Often the instructions would become confusing, sometimes even disorienting, Carol’s response to this was always the same “enjoy your confusion.” This turned out to be an extremely profound statement for me, and one that continues to affect how I think today. By telling us to enjoy our confusion, she was suggesting a number of things. The first is that confusion is okay, and that it was not necessary to try to only many it immediately. It also taught us to stay in the experience, to really experience, accept, and embrace the confusion. It also started a process for me of learning that I could get excited when I hit a point of confusion, because most often that was the state which came just before discovery. This is something that has stayed with me, and which I remind myself of to this day. It’s an incredibly powerful thing.

When I was putting together this blog post I found a YouTube video of Moshe Feldenkrais himself talking about the importance of letting each person have their own path of discovery.

So, the next time you find yourself feeling like you don’t know which end is up, let me encourage you to stop worrying and enjoy your confusion.

I think that many of us are deeply moved by music. I believe, in fact that music has it’s own spirit, almost a sentience of its own, and when a musician is able to really let go and allow their playing to be carried by this spirit of music absolute magic happens. I love a tremendous variety of music, much of its styles and artists who are not well known at all.

I was reminded of this today when I was reading a post called The Songs That Saved My Life on the blog of sound healer Fabeku Fatunmise. (Click here for pronunciation instructions.) In my life, I’ve been very fortunate to not have the kind of experiences that he describes, but in much the same way music is something I have often turned to when I wanted help moving through something difficult. At these times, I always turn to music which resonates with me in some particularly powerful way. I think often the reason for that resonance is this connection where the artists are allowing the music to flow through them, rather than trying to control the performance.

Apple iPod (photo by 1Happysnapper)

I want to share with you in this post some of the music that has touched me deeply at one time or another in my life, my hope is that you may be introduced to something that touches you as well.

When I’m looking for comfort, more then anything else, the album I turn to is The Visit by Loreena McKennitt. She starts from a celtic base but blends seamlessly sounds from all over the world. Her music touches me deeply, and is just wonderful for getting unstuck or being soothed if that’s what I need.

I first heard The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams when my friend Sonja Bode played it on her recital when we were in college. I think it affected me so powerfully because the piece is so close to her heart – and that came through so powerfully. It is an amazing musical flight.

And then there was jazz

I love early jazz and ragtime, it moves me in a way that even the best “modern” jazz doesn’t seem to. There are so many amazing performers in this area, who I’ve had the honor to work with as the sound engineer for the Traditional Jazz Series at the University of New Hampshire.  I know that by mentioning any of them I’m going to leave someone out, but the groups that come to mind are The Wolverine Jazz Band, Bria and Jim’s Borderline Jazz Band, The Back Bay Ramblers and I know I’m forgetting several wonderful groups….

I can’t leave the subject of jazz without telling you about one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and getting to know. And that is the amazing trumpeter Clark Terry. I’ve been fortunate to both work and hang out with Clark on many of his visits to the University of New Hampshire over the last 10 years. While he has not been able to visit us often in the last year or so due to health, traditionally Clark has visited UNH twice a year. Clark is truly a jazz legend, the only musician who played in the orchestras of both Duke Ellington and Count Basie, been there and done that. Even now, in his 80s, he continues to be passionate about sharing the language of jazz with a new generation of musicians. Listening to Clark play is amazing, there is so much music in every one of his notes, it’s just a pleasure to hear.

Here is a video of Clark performing one of his most famous pieces “Mumbles.”   This is absolutely classic Clark Terry.   And by the way, keep in mind that he was 86 or 87 years old when this was recorded.

After hearing him perform this piece many times over the years, I asked him after a concert a few years ago where the idea for “Mumbles” came from. He told me the story, when he was young it was not uncommon for really lousy singers to tip the pianist in a bar or club to let them sing a few tunes. And according to Clark what they sounded like is pretty much what you hear when he does this tune.   I can imagine that they could’ve possibly sounded as good as Clark does, but it’s an interesting story of finding inspiration in an odd place.

And on to the theater….

I’m also a tremendous fan of musical theater, but to do that any justice would take all day, so it’s going to have to wait for another post.

But there is one more thing…

But that one more thing is so big, and so unusual that it needs its own post as well, so stay tuned for that one tomorrow.   (If you want to be sure you know when it’s posted, just fill out the form in the sidebar on the right, to get an e-mail whenever I make a new post on this blog.)

So tell me in the comments about some of the music that has really moved you, in your life.

It’s just about dark here in New Hampshire as I write these words. We are beginning the longest night of the year, today is the winter solstice. I’ve always found it fascinating the number of cultures that have stories and festivals that center around this time of year in the coming return of the light.

The Sun Sets - Longest Night of the Year Begins (photo by Wolfgang Staudt)

To me it is extremely significant in the focus in our culture on holidays celebrating light at this time of the year. In my little corner of the world here for most people that’s Christmas, for my family it’s Hanukkah, for others Yule and so many other festivals. Maybe it’s a natural thing that in the time of the year when dark is so pervasive that the celebrations of these festivals tend to focus on expressions of light. The range of these is amazing: the often very secular decorating of houses with spectacular lighting displays, the lighting of the candles or oil in the Hanukkah menorah, the burning of the Yule log and maybe most importantly the gathering of loved ones often around the light of candles or a fire in the fireplace.

Labyrinth of Light - A Solstice Celebration (photo by Itzafineday)

Imagine, living thousands of years ago, long before we had any understanding of why the seasons change, why the days grow longer and shorter. Imagine how frightening it could have been to notice the days getting shorter and shorter and the nights getting longer and longer, and wondering if the process would ever reverse. No wonder, it became a tradition to hold our loved ones close at this time of the year. Even today, when we have little question that tomorrow will begin the lengthening of days towards the summer solstice, we are still drawn together in the dark time of the year, to celebrate with lights.

A gift (photo by Hamed Saber)

I wish you holiday gatherings and celebrations full of light and love!

I just finished reading Greg Mortenson’s new book Stones into Schools. This is one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. If the name Greg Mortenson is not immediately familiar, he is the author of Three Cups of Tea, the best-selling book from a few years ago.

To summarize very briefly, Greg made an attempt to climb the mountain K2 in the mid-90s. He came very close to the summit but was unable to reach it. On the way down he became lost, and had to sleep in the open on the mountain. He ended up in quite bad shape, but was lucky enough to stumble upon a small village high in the Pakistani mountains. He stayed there for some time and was nursed back to health by the people of the village.

It became clear to him as he got to know the people, that the thing they wanted and needed most was a school. He decided that he would be the one to provide it for them somehow. This began an epic journey of mythic proportions, the story of which is told that his first book Three Cups of Tea. Out of this first school project, he ended up founding the Central Asia Institute, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to female literacy in Pakistan and later also in Afghanistan.

Stones into Schools picks up essentially where Three Cups of Tea left off, with a rather dramatically delivered request for help building a school for a community very high in the mountains of Afghanistan, so remote that it cannot be reached by road, only by trail. This new book centers around the building of that school, and all that was necessary to do it. It turns out, that in order to build that one school many others also needed to be built. On one level this is what this book is about. On another level it’s about the ideology behind this work, and the importance of female literacy. On yet another level, and I think maybe the most interesting and important one, the book is really about Greg’s personal journey and the relationships and the people and the discoveries that he makes along the way; the personal hardships that he faces (interestingly enough, mostly in America) and the incredible triumphs of a small number of people working very hard and with great dedication to do something that they believe is so important that it must be done.

Just to make sure that this is absolutely clear, I loved this book! I was held completely spellbound from beginning to end, moved and inspired. I was also reminded of some things which I think are very important for my own life and work, which I want to talk about in a separate post tomorrow. In the meantime please get Stones into Schools, and read it. If you have not yet read Three Cups of Tea, I think it is very worthwhile to read that book first. It’s every bit as good as the new book, and you will have a much deeper understanding having started at the beginning of the story.

Have you read either of these books? What impact did they have on you? Please comment!

Disclaimer: I am an Amazon affiliate, and will receive a tiny commission if you make a purchase through one of the links in this post.