10 Wishes for a Wondrous New Year (& links to others)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tm9pWNXOJM Do fewer things better. Find the power in less striving. Make spaces in each day.
Vision + Mastery for No-Goals Creatives this New Year
Gist: Vision and mastery can make goal-setting palatable for creatives. I never make New Year’s resolutions. (I don’t feel so bad knowing that Luck Factor author and psychologist Richard Wiseman’s study points out this practice’s futility.) I used to never make goals. I…
The 48-Hour Sulk Rule & the Creative’s Occupational Hazard: An Interview with Mark McGuinness, Part II
In working with so many creatives and entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve found that we generally react – initially – to rejection and criticism in one of two extreme ways. One: We bolster up. Nod in acceptance. Carry on as…
The Psychology of Rejection & Criticism: An Interview with Mark McGuinness, Part I
Just the thought of receiving criticism for ideas and works – especially creative ones – can paralyze otherwise successful people. And yet experience and research keep bearing the same dictum: Criticism and even rejection don’t just “make us stronger.” They…
3 Ways Creatives Can Invite Darkness to Play (+ a video poem)
“In the middle of our life journey I found myself in a dark wood. I had wandered from the straight path. It isn’t to talk about it: it was such a think, wild, and rough forest that when I think…
The Thinking Body Behind Brainpickings
Here’s something for you to think about – or jump about, as it were. Body Thinking Helen Keller visited Martha Graham’s studios several times in the 1930s when Merce Cunningham was part of Graham’s troupe. Keller had never danced and…
What We Really Long for in a Retreat from Work (& a chance to do so)
Every seven years, Stefan Sagmeister and his entire New York City-based design firm take the year off from work. They don’t vacate. They incubate, experiment, and play with ideas they otherwise would never give themselves time and space for. Most…
The Surprising Way to Boost Your Creative Genius
The idea seemed innovative in early 2010. An iPhone app that lets users share their whereabouts with their friends. Afterall, Foursquare had come out around 2009 and made digital real estate all about location, location, location. In fact, to Kevin…
The Dangerous Yearning for Creatives & What to Do About it (+ video poem)
We are the yearning creatures of this planet. -Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer-Prize winning fiction writer There’s no love in me without your being, no breath without that. I once thought I could give up this longing, then thought again, But…
The Metaphor That Harms Creatives & Entrepreneurs (+ a Hafiz poem video).
Metaphors matter. There’s a metaphor that bothers me because I think it’s harming creatives and entrepreneurs. It seems benign enough. It’s the symbol for justice, after all. Yet, I’ve seen and heard otherwise talented, hard-working people bludgeon themselves because they…
