Blog

It’s not easy being an artist. First, you have to come to terms with the fact that you are one. Which isn’t easy in a world that is generally ambivalent (at best) and sometimes hostile (at worst) to the sensitivities of the artist and his or her art. You also then have to put yourselfRead more

I was recently listening to the podcast Off-Camera with Sam Jones and his interview with actress, Holly Hunter. In it she talks about, how who we are in between takes – is how we want to be in the take. In other words, we’re not “acting”. We are simply being. But then the director shoutsRead more

Los Angeles is a car culture. If you’re going two doors down to Chipotle, you hop in your car. (Calm down. Everyone here drives a Prius!) Regardless of where you live, though, most of us get around using a vehicle. Let’s say you want to go to the beach. Every day of the week, youRead more

Are you anxious? Nervous? Irritable? Depressed? Fearful? Panicked? Lonely? All of the above? Ruling out other personal factors . . . Guess what the main contributor to those low-level evolutionary states is? Yup . . . Your trusty friend that you can’t go without. Your partner in crime. The love of your life. Your dailyRead more

  You can see Part 1 of this lesson HERE. 5. Look at how much you’ve grown and accomplished this year. I know it’s hard to believe at times because we engage in this insanely soul-crushing illusion of compare-and- despair-ism that renders us always ineffectual and less than. It might be one of the mostRead more

“I’m sick of it.” We’ve all said it. And many of us end up allowing that to become our mantra at some point in our lives when we feel stuck and powerless to change. It becomes the battle cry during rough periods in our career. Or while we’re in a rocky relationship. Or when weRead more

In times like these”¦ Being in Rome as I write this and seeing the ancient ruins, I often wonder how often throughout millennia conversations have started with those exact words. A lot of people are asking, “How did we get here?” Maybe the better question to ask is, “What next?” I know when great upheavalRead more

You can do it. You know how to do it. You are doing it. What keeps you from doing it fully are two sticky myths about creating that are hard to shake. 1). The “greats” are greater than you. We’re all human. We’re all talented and capable and brave and scared and strong and weak. The problemRead more

Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Canadian rock band Tragically Hip really lived up to the adage “the show must go” on this past week. He has terminal brain cancer. He performed what may be his last concert of his life last weekend. I wasn’t there ”“ but the accounts I’ve read ”“ and a studentRead more

We often don’t think we are. Awesome. Or we vacillate between delusions of grandeur (“I’m king of the world!”) and downright self-annihilation. What if we just set the dial more in the middle? That pretty much all of us ”“ by being here on this planet, walking a walk (whichever one we’re on!) and doing the best weRead more