Looking for a practical list of way to be more creative? You’ve come to the wrong place. Want to think differently? Read on…

1. Procrastinate till the final countdown – I dunno about you but that’s when my best shit comes out. In fact, procrastinating until after the final countdown can really help you get your ass in gear. (Not recommended if you trade your time for money on someone else’s clock – great if you’re a free agent who makes your own deadlines)

2. Spend some time “mashing” ideas. Pick any two unrelated ideas and try to mash them together, find all the secret ways in which they intermingle and then figure out how they relate to Kevin Bacon. Read more

Last month, after unsuccessfully shopping for a loaf of bread under $4 that did not list corn syrup as an ingredient,  I started baking bread.  As I’m neither a saint, nor a perfectionist, nor do I have time to knead bread while my children make “science experiments” out of any and all liquids they can find, I used a bread machine. Every other day for the past month, I have dutifully measured out and piled eight ingredients, one over the other, into a mountain of powders floating on a warm oil slicked foundation of water. I put the sloshy concoction into the bread machine, push some buttons, and four short hours later a loaf of whole wheat bread is born. Read more

 

I wasn’t surprised my post entitled You’re Not Awesome resonated with so many people, I was however surprised at how many discussions regarding depression I’ve been having in the last 24hrs because of it: depression, how to handle depression, signs of depression, and how to get happy again. (Although I’m not a therapist, I have quite a bit of experience helping people understand emotions as a former life coach.) These kinds of discussions always seem to follow tragedy, especially suicide, however, the information I’m about to share with you usually doesn’t, and I think it’s a shame. I am pulling a few pages out of my life coaching playbook, it’s been sitting dusty on the shelves of my mind for a few years since I stopped coaching, not serving anyone but me, that’s a shame too. Read more

Today, someone I never met took his own life in front of his neighborhood church. Today I looked at all he presented himself to be online, a helpful, wonderful, productive citizen – and I would have never guessed he would ever have wanted to take anyone’s life, much less his own. Every piece of his online persona was so warm and wonderful. Today people that knew him are grieving, and baffled, and angry, and my heart hurts for them. Read more