To the Artists

My friend Betsy forwarded me Eric Rhoads newsletter, Coffee with Eric and his blog post, Doing Your Soul Work.  I just LOVED this quote!

Bird graphic from The Graphics Fairy. 

I'm reminded of the story of John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls telling the story of writing Name.  They were a punk band, traveling around in a van and he was approaching 30 and thinking about getting a "real job," and maybe going back to college. Or plumbing school, because apparently he's really good at plumbing, which back in the 80's would not have wowed me, but now I just think, "Oooooh, bathroom remodel!"  :-)  But I squirreled. Anyway, he was having that what-should-I-do-with-my-life? conundrum and sat down on the sofa, and wrote Name, which was their first song on the radio and the rest is rock-n-roll history. 

Here's a clip of him telling the story, but this video is too adorable not to show:

And how could we not include Seth Godin on a conversation about art?  :-)

Quote-of-the-Day: Seth Godin

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, and author of Delivering Happiness, is taking happiness on the road. He recently was in NYC with one of my other favourite authors, Seth Godin. You can see the whole interview here. I would add that Happiness's other friend is Gratitude and that Gratitude is sisters with Abundance & Generosity. Passion is the fuel for all of it. Are you happy? What's your passion? It's never too late to discover a new one or rekindle an old one.

P.S. We must've been on the same wavelength this a.m. because John Morgan's blog post today is Undefined Happiness.

Quotes for the day-year-decade

I want to write something mind-blowingly enlightened for this last day of the year/decade. But there are people out there way more el-O-quent than I. Here's an everyday quote I have posted at my desk when I feel myself getting pulled into the time-sucking Twitterverse or Blogosphere or cute puppies on youtube:

And:

Seth Godin wrote a fabulous post today, linking back to a previous one. He's in the marketing world, but I appreciate his philosophy which translates to any world:

I'm late on the boat for recently discovering Tina Seelig. She has an enthusiasm & passion that is infectious. I was watching her Creativity & Entrepreneurship video & she tells the story of a man who started with trading a paperclip, & he traded his way up to a house! This was one of many quotes I wrote down:

Then I took a Sharpie marker and wrote it on a tissue box, because why not? Just thinking outside the box. Here's to a new year of purple cows & light bulbs & FABULOUSNESS.

Fleamarket Daze

I collect quotes. I've tried to keep them in notebooks, but invariable they get shelved or I don't have them when I need them. So I've taken to writing them on recipe cards. Those are easy to carry in my purse, have at my desk, etc. The quote below is the one I pulled for today's post:

What sort of decisions do you make when no one's looking? ~Seth Godin

I went to the flea market this weekend. I got a new rug for my art studio & a v. cool wicker dining set. Oh! And a bread knife that I was in desperate need of so that I didn't have to hack thru Mum's GF bread. Toward the end of my shopping, there was a knife set with those kind of knives they have at Outback. Nice, sturdy--will also hack thru bread. Well. I was going to get a set of 6, and the seller was going to throw in a set of forks, as well. Who doesn't need more forks? For $3. It just gets better and better!

Until it doesn't. He leans in and says in a hushed tone, "I'm a thief. I get them from a steakhouse. Drives my wife crazy."

What would you do? He was packing them up in a bag.

"Oooooohhhhh. I wish you hadn't told me that." And I didn't get them. No judgement on Thief Guy, but . . . well. No utilitarian-last-forever steak knives for me.

Quote of the Day

I read this from Seth's blog and thought how true. Ideas for me are the easy part. It's executing the LIST that I've set up for myself that is the challenge: scripts for CD's, 3 books, re-writing both websites . . . time to get cracka-lackin'! :-)

On to a creativity challenge: Doug O'Brien wrote such a thought-provoking comment to yesterday's post that I'm saving a response for another post.

I wonder if this is what is meant when people say we create our own reality. Is it that we notice what we want to notice and disregard the rest, and then act as if our perception is reality?

Would anyone else like to respond as well? Calling all philosophers and writers. We can post with links to everyone's blogs. It will be like Ornament Thursday without the crafts. We'll post next Friday . . . for . . . wait for it . . . yes! Philosophical Fridays. Or just Friday. Next Friday, May 8th. Email me or leave a comment to this post and let me know you're in.

Really?

I had to call XM Radio to cancel my subscription. No Bill Hutton, no me. They automatically renewed it, but thankfully didn't have my credit card, so they billed me. Hehhhh . . . so I called and waited. And waited. 25 minutes and then I had to hang up for a phone conference, after which I called again. Have you heard the lame music they play? Remember elevator muzak? Yeah, that. In between are promos for baseball, Nascar & Howard Stern. At minute 23, Gail King comes on and says to hang on, some one will be with me.

Really? You're expecting your customers to wait so long that you've gotten Gail King to cajole us to hang on? BTW, I got to the Gail King marker both times. And this is the same number you call to sign up for service. Call us but we don't really want to talk to you.

I got a v. nice gal on the phone who was completely ineffective. There was no supervisor for me to talk to. According to XM I have a balance that I have to pay for the subscription renewal that THEY did. XM Gal offered to take a payment over the phone. AS IF. As if I'm giving my credit card for them to "automatically renew" my subscription. After all this, she told me that I would have to call back to make sure my cancellation went through. So I call to cancel, but then I have to call AGAIN to make sure I'm cancelled?

They made the mistake of sending me a customer service survey. Nice lady, stupid company. I told them I was writing about this on my blog. So here you go. My kvetching for Friday.

Stoopid Spammers

Last night I clicked on an invitation from a friend for Reunion.com.

BIG MISTAKE.

It sent an "invitation" from me to all my contacts. This is prolly how I got the initial email in the first place. I spent the next hour sending an email out to everyone warning them not to click. I'm trusting that peripheral acquaintances will say Hali Who? and hit delete. The worst is that it went to Seth Godin, the King of Anti-Spam. YIKES! Speaking of, here's quote from his blog today:

Some bosses don't want to hire people who have a vision, a personality and a shtick. That's okay. You don't want to work for them anyway.

This is so true. When I've gone on an interview I've asked myself Do I want to spend my time like this with these people? It's more like I'm interviewing them. It's nice to be appreciated for being something other than a drone. And it's nice that I have a boss-friend-mentor John Morgan who really does appreciate my schtick. Yes, I'm schticky. But so is he. Whenever he fills out paperwork he puts "philosopher" for occupation. Hahahaha I guess it's not a hot occupation like it was a few centuries ago, Kierkegarde, Plato, & whatnot. Still, it's an apt description. His Grasshopper Notes are AWESOME! Insightful, witty & wise.

Well. I'm just rambling, now aren't I? My head is swimming with a To Do List, so I'll sign off here. :-) H.

So cute! Otter from VA Beach Aquarium

...if momentum or laziness or lack of will (or focus) is the thing holding you back, it's time to get serious. When you remove the one big thing from people's list of objections, your career and organization will take off….It just takes commitment ,

not a miracle.

~Seth Godin, from today's blog post

It's Funny Unless It's Not

Humour is a funny thing. If you have to explain a joke, it's not funny. If a person doesn't have a frame of reference for something, it doesn't have meaning. If it doesn't have meaning, it doesn't count. It gets filtered out by the reticular-activating system of the brain that helps the conscious mind sort through sensory information. I'm writing kinda like Purple Cow Guy today. Anyway, here's my favourite joke:


How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fish.

Getting It Done

If you had to know everything there is to know about something before you wrote a book, no books would ever be written.
~ Larry Winget

P.S. And I forget the exact quote, but Purple Cow Guy says something like:

Well done today is better than perfect tomorrow.

P.P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISS RUTHIE!!! LOVE from Miss Halimah

I have the best road karma!

The BEST, Jerry!

You know when you're having a crappy day and think it can only get better? And then you leave your house...and it does get better *because* it got worse? I was driving down my gravel-dirt road and I got a flat tire. ("TAR" as we say in these parts). Not just flat, shredded. YIKES! I looked at my cell phone. No service. Hehhhh....but one of my neighbors-I-didn't-know, Donna, was taking a walk. She stopped & we chatted and then, THEN! Mel, the guy-who-mows-my-lawn just happened to drive by and stopped to help. He changed my tire, told me to go to Reed's Tires in Stanley for the best service & prices.
Once at Reed's Tires, I found out just how lucky I was. My other tire was not far behind the first. You need to replace that other tar, babydoll, Mr. Reed said. When was the last time you got new tars? Um. Never. Did you get them rotated...never mind. We'll get you fixed up.
And they did. 83,000 miles. Honey, you're gonna need new breaks in the back in about 5000 miles. And I know where I'll go. Seth Godin is right: give a great product and service and you don't need any marketing gurus telling you to be viral. And never has anyone called me babydoll and made it so appealing. But it wasn't just me, it was the old woman standing at the counter and someone on the other end of the phone. We're all babydolls. And this babydoll is v. grateful for the whole experience!