Month: December 2019

Retirement eCard…work can wait. Sleep can’t.

man sleeping on his deskContinuing work on my Incomplete Book of Retirement Wisdom, which also doubles as a collection of eCards. I’ve added it to Etsy and have to rewrite it for Draft2Digital, as I misinterpreted their formatting instructions. 

Save/download the image above and send it to a retired/soon-to-retire friend or family member.
Better yet…

  • call it up in an image editing program [even a presentation program like PowerPoint will work]
  • slap an even better caption on top of mine or add a personal comment
  • export it as a JPG or PNG, and email/text message it to that person.

Retirement eCard…partner workouts?

Continuing work on my Incomplete Book of Retirement Wisdom, which also doubles as a collection of eCards. I’ve added it to Etsy and have to rewrite it for Draft2Digital, as I misinterpreted their formatting instructions. 

Save/download the image above and send it to a retired/soon-to-retire friend or family member.
Better yet…

  • call it up in an image editing program [even a presentation program like PowerPoint will work]

  • slap an even better caption on top of mine or add a personal comment

  • export it as a JPG or PNG, and email/text message it to that person.

Curation Corner: TED Talks

I can’t even remember what made me decide to include a couple of TED talks per week into my ‘procrastination schedule’, but I’m glad I did…especially when you consider what Adam Grant has to say in …

 The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers

  • ‘Originals’ live in a sweet spot between the pre-crastinators [those who ‘panic and complete projects waaaay ahead of time] and procrastinators.
  • Successful originals are often late to the party. A quote from his research: The failure rate of ‘first movers’* was 47%, while the failure rate of ‘improvers’ was 8%. Examples: Facebook came after MySpace. Google came after Yahoo and Alta Vista.
  • “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”
  • Originals fear failure just like the rest of us. But they are even more afraid of failing to try.

*I guess you could say they too are originals. Shrug.

A quote for today…

sunsetRan across this in an email from James Clear and saw it earlier in the week, as well.

“Every time you wake up and ask yourself, ‘What good things am I going to do today?’ remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it.”–Indian proverb

Here’s hoping you left something valuable with that part of your life. Keep reinventing!

Book Recommendation: Creative Confidence

word cloud creative confidenceI’ve listened to and read this book since 2015 when I took on a technology learning plan for a school district. Clearly, I didn’t take the advice below as wholeheartedly as I should have.
But this book’s many insights and real-life examples should provide the requisite *kick in the seat of the pants* [the title of another favorite book by Roger von Oech] for those of us in that ‘desire to act vs. moving forward’ fog.

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All
by David Kelley and Tom Kelley

“Many of us get stuck between wanting to act and taking action. The uncertainty of the uncharted path ahead can be daunting. Sometimes it feels as if circumstances are conspiring against us, and we find ourselves riveted in place. In corporate cultures, that hesitation can translate into what professors Bob Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer call the “knowing-doing gap”

Kick in the Seat of the Pants by Roger von Oech

Book Recommendation: Creative Pep Talk

by Andy J. Miller

Subtitled: Inspiration from 50 Artists

Colorful, inspirational, and thought-provoking.

Here is the Goodreads review page.

Some favorites:

You’ll never be ready, so you might as well put yourself out there.
–Daniel Fishel

You cannot live your whole life in comfort zones
–Meg Hunt

Roll with it & gain momentum.
— Mary Kate McDevitt