Archive for the ‘Learning’ Category
My Creative Process (on a Napkin?)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
Some of my most productive meetings have taken place in bodegas, street corners, coffee shops, and at times, the ladies room. I have found that engaging in visionary conversations is easier when in it’s in an informal environment. Everyone, including myself, lets their guard down. Informal meetings and conversations have provided many rich and vulnerable exchanges.
Capturing my most creative ideas happens the same way – in free-spirited places and with inspiring people. I write my ideas on whatever is in my pocket – my iPhone, a business card, a napkin, my hand, a notebook. It’s fun to have to translate various scribbled notes on papers stuffed in my pockets or in my bag. Years ago, I had a boss in the South Bronx who drafted his best ideas and proposal outlines on paper towels or napkins. When he had an idea, he wanted to make sure he captured it. I remember many meetings with his ideas scrolled out on paper towels.
Twenty years later, and I still find myself writing ideas and notes on napkins. I love capturing my creativity in the moment with whatever is at hand. I know there are many good ‘apps’ that would probably work just as good as the napkin method. Then again, maybe it’s time for a napkin app.
How do you capture your best ideas? What is your creative process?
And if you see me, I may just need to borrow a scrap paper or napkin.
Mary Anne
Failure That Matters
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
The author and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields recently posted a blog, Why Failure Must Be on the Table, which describes the experiences of failures as gateways to opportunities. He writes, “Entrepreneurship–or any process that seeks to evolve the status quo–requires you to regularly test commonly held limits and beliefs. The natural outcome of this is that sometimes you’re right, other times you’re wrong. Either way, you never know until you get out of your head and take action in the world.
The potential not just for failure, but failure that matters, failure you feel, must be on the table. If it’s not, then what you’re setting out to do is either so safe or so devoid of the potential for impact that success might allow you to check a box on a piece of paper, but beyond that, nobody’ll care. Including you.”
We must know that what we are embarking on has the capacity to fail and yet give us as entrepreneur’s incredible lessons to grow and stretch. It’s the learning process and taking the leap that distinguishes the success stories to the stories that never get told. At times, it may feel like ‘a leap of faith’ but it brings us closer to the edges of our dreams. We push ourselves and do it afraid, because not doing it is more painful – and we fail ourselves.
Fields adds in his blog, “So, yes, living, acting and deciding to move forward in the face of potential failure isn’t easy. Especially when it requires you to go all in. And especially later in your lifecycle when you’ve got more on the line. To risk success in art, in business, in love, in life is, indeed, a bit terrifying.
But really, what’s the alternative?”
What is the alternative? Take the risk – and be willing to leap into failure that matters.
Mary Anne
Are You Listening?
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Are you listening to the voice calling within?
Are you listening to the voice asking you to stretch?
Are you listening to the voice that is dreaming bigger?
Are you listening to the voice challenging you to be bold?
Are you listening to the voice declaring that you are ready?
Are you listening to the voice reminding you to do it afraid?
Are you listening to the voice that recognizes you are growing?
Are you listening to the voice that says now is the time to start?
Are you listening to the voice that is telling you to take that big leap?
Are you listening?
Mary Anne
12 Books for 2012
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Here is my list of 12 books I have on my reading list for 2012 – Enjoy!
1. Man Seeks God – My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner
2. Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd
3. Cleopatra – A Life by Stacy Schif
4. Onward by Howard Schultz
5. Me by Ricky Martin
6. Just Kids by Patti Smith
7. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
8. What the Buddha Taught
by Walpola Rahula
9. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemmingway
10. Palace Walk: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 1
by Naguib Mahfouz
11. Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt
by Normandi Ellis and Gloria Taylor Brown
12. YOU CHOOSE! What other book is a MUST read for 2012?
As you can see from my list, I enjoy books about traveling, spirituality, memoirs, and of course, stories about Egypt. Happy New Year~
Mary Anne
Better Than the Great American Novel
Thursday, July 21st, 2011
I picked up a copy of Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I am often hesitant to pick up writing books because I am afraid they will be telling me all the things I am doing wrong as a writer. As I opened to the preface, I read, “Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.” The words went right (and write) in. The next thing I knew, I was highlighting page after page and phrase after phrase. I was so lost in the book, I even missed my train stop coming into work. I found myself smiling, underlining paragraphs, breathing slower, and grabbing pen and paper to jot some writing ideas down.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write a book. Could I really write “the Great American Novel?” In many ways, I already have. I have published three years worth of blog posts that include stories, poems, antidotes, and meditations. It is my great American novel. I just keep writing, even when it sounds like gibberish. I have come to discover that it is the processes and the practices that have been the real jewels in my life.
As Goldman says, “Some days you don’t want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don’t wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run.” Do it anyway. And keep doing it.
It’s time to color outside the lines and write beyond the page margins. It takes practice. It takes trusting the voice inside. It takes giving ourselves permission and space to create. It takes embracing all that is around us. Anything we take deep enough will take us to the very place we are longing to go and grow.
What is your Great American Novel that is bursting to come forth? As Goldberg says, “Once you connect with your mind, you are who you are and you’re free.”
Keep going, creating, and drafting-
Mary Anne
Creating a “triZENbe” in 2010
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
As 2010 arrived with anticipation, so too did all the questions. What do I want to happen in 2010? What are the deepest contributions I can offer others this year? What is my focus/theme for 2010? What I am willing to do afraid?
At first, these questions became quite overwhelming. To answer them, I decided I would get still and just listen. I repeated the questions over and over as mantras. My focus for 2010 came to me with the words ZEN and TRIBE. I want the peace of stillness and the love from gathering people in welcoming, generous, and supportive ways.
Can I create a new energy of both ZEN and TRIBE? Yes, because it already exists inside of me. I am naming this new energy: triZENbe. This year I will focus on being still before leading, gathering people in whatever ways I can to generate more tribes, and creating community meditations. The triZENbe definition is still unfolding and it is very exciting. I hope you will join me on this journey.
What contribution will you offer yourself and others? What are some things you are willing to do afraid? Create your own triZENbe. Experience the whole you in 2010!
Here is to Zen filled peace and the fullness of gathering in tribes,
Mary Anne
My Favorite Books in 2009
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
As an avid reader, I search out books that will broaden my thinking, open my heart, teach new ideas, and provide inspiration. I have put together my list of the best books I have read in 2009 (many of which were not published in 2009). Rather than give a synopsis of each book, I am including the book title, author, and a quote that moved me or inspired me. Hope you enjoy. Please feel free to recommend books you think I ought to add to my 2010 list.
(PS I will be sharing some of my best inspired lessons, insights, & meditations of 2009 in an upcoming blog~ stay tuned!)
My Favorite Books of 2009:
My Stoke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
“By paying attention to the choices my automatic circuitry is making, I own my power and make more choices consciously. In the long run, I take responsibility for what I attract in my life.”
A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink
“Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. These six senses increasingly will guide our lives and shape our world.”
The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist
“Reciprocity allows us to acknowledge each other in appreciation of our unique gifts. Reciprocity is like the breath we breathe in – no more than we need.”
Radical Forgiveness by Colin C. Tipping
“We recognize that Divine Love operates in every situation and that each person receives exactly what they want.”
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strought (this is the only fiction book on the list)
“Don’t be scared of your hunger. If you’re scared of your hunger, you’ll be one more ninny like everyone else.”
I Need Your Love – Is That True? by Byron Katie
“Your most intimate relationship is the one you have with your thoughts.”
Who Would You Be Without Your Story? by Byron Katie (Yes, she is that good!)
“I have come to see that this mind is seeking a place to rest. It’s seeking peace.”
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
“Love in your mind produces love in your life.”
Who’s Got Your Back by Keith Ferrazzi
“Each of us is responsible for creating the safe place. It is a conscious choice that we make to create the environment that invites others in.”
The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson
“To “cure” him, in terms of trying to tear the autism out, now seems to me completely wrong. Why can’t he exist between the worlds, with a foot in both, as many neurotypical people do?”
Happy reading! Mary Anne
My Tribute to Michael Jackson
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Michael Jackson - Apollo Theater NYC
I have been watching the television coverage about the life and death of Michael Jackson. I sang my heart out all weekend listening to his songs. I cried when I stood at the memorial at the Apollo Theater. I stood alongside so many people of all ages, races, ethnicities shedding tears, writing on the memorial wall, taking photos, and singing his songs at the top of my lungs. The entire way home, I blasted WKTU and sang “Billy Jean”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “ABC” over and over again.
It is so easy to get caught up in the media circus. I don’t have the time or the patience to separate truth from fiction. All I know is this — I loved his music. His death feels like I lost a piece of my childhood and the innocence of that time of my life. It was life before social media, full-time tabloids, and 24 hours of streaming news. It was a time of adolescence and blaring MTV videos.
I have vivid memories of singing and dancing to Michael Jackson videos in the basement with my sister. There we would be, after finally getting cablevision, and I can still see that brown box with the long wire, playing channel 29, and blasting MTV until we heard the pound on the side of the wall from our parents to “Lower the music!” With his music, I felt like I could sing and dance. I imitated him like so many other young people. From “Beat It” to “Heal the World,” his music has been a part of my life through adolescence into adulthood.
Michael Jackson’s death at the age of 50 evoked great sadness in me. I found myself saying he was too young. I feel this way because I lost my mother at the age of 55 and the anniversary of her death is approaching. The more I thought about it, I realized I was the one putting the age limitations on life. Perhaps people pass in their own time, and while I may miss them and want them to live longer, it is not for me to judge that they were too young to die. People pass at an age that they need to move on — and it is for me to learn how to move on with the lessons and gifts they shared.
Life is a gift. Every day, every sunrise, every breath is a gift. As a friend once told me many years ago that we can toss “the flowers” while the person is alive so they get to hear it.
Michael Jackson was many things to many people and although he was controversial, he was also a brilliant musician, artist, dancer, and influenced music beyond words. I don’t know his whole story, what happened in his childhood, or even what happened the day he died. All I know is that his music inspires me, makes me smile, and move my feet. His lyrics are contagious and powerful. How can we not be inspired by the words, “If we wannna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make that change.”? Thank you for the music, Michael.
Dedicated to the life and legacy of Michael Jackson. Rest in Peace.
Mary Anne
Who’s in Your Cabinet?
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
OK, I’ll admit it. I have been intrigued with everything about our new president. I have been watching every little thing President Obama does – from the swearing in ceremony, to the dance with the first lady, to the first day of signing executive orders. I have been amazed at the shift in the thinking, the hope of what is possible, and the potential at what this country can do with one another.
I was intrigued by every new Cabinet position announced by President Obama. I thought about what kind of Cabinet I would want to create. I began to generate a list of new Cabinet positions I would like to see.
My list of new Cabinet members includes a Secretary of Humor, someone who makes us laugh and reminds us not to take ourselves so seriously. I would also appoint a Secretary of Play, someone who reminds us that play is important for our health and well-being. In this position, the member would help us remember all the games we played as children, give us time to sing, to dance, to drum, and to color outside the lines. Finally, I would appoint a Secretary of Coaching so when all the predictions of doom and gloom come our way, there is someone asking the important questions about possible solutions. They will ask us how can we solve some of the most important dilemmas and they will keep asking. The Coach will believe in us when we forget and remind us that together we can do anything.
There are a lot of economic, social, and environmental issues to work on over the next four years. May be adults can relearn to ask more questions, take more naps, and connect the dots. Perhaps it is time to we all give ourselves permission to color outside the lines.
Who is in your Cabinet? Have fun!
Mary Anne