“Achievement is rarely is in line with expectation; and if it is, dream bigger.”
Each time you cross the threshold and reach a goal; a goal set forth determinedly by your younger self, you may encounter both a sense of satisfaction and a sense of gnawing expectation for more, for greater. As your abilities expand and your potential grows, you’ll continue to leap-step your mind past your achievements, dreaming of the next idea and project long before you finish the current ones.
Take a moment to celebrate your current victories, and then push the envelope another turn and see what else you are capable of. Have fun.
How many times do you flip upside down and look at the world from a different perspective?
Literally – how often do you turn upside down?
Short of taking a thrill ride at an adventure-park, or bending over to pick up the trash, most people rarely turn upside down on a regular basis. The closest we might get to a 180-degree turn is propping our feet up on the coffee table or when we lie down in bed at night to go do sleep.
I think handstands should be done every day.
Handstands–that delicious reversal of direction whereby your head is close to the ground and your feet go flying in the air–are marvelous. They are also very important. Here are ten untested reasons why handstands are brilliant – and why you should take the time to turn upside down once or twice today.
In work, in life, and in play: sometimes you just have to turn upside-down.
Reason #1. They are fun. This alone is the probably greatest reason for doing anything, ever. Follow your fun. Do something fun once a day, at least. I love handstands. They are spectacularly awesome. I try to do them everyday.
Reason #2. Turning upside down lets you look at the world from a new perspective. We always challenge each other to think outside the box, to be creative and get a fresh perspective, and to craft new opinions by putting existing ideas together in unusual ways. At my job as a designer, we spent a lot of time critically analyzing what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve the product by thinking about things in a new way. This is a simple way to do something right away that lets you see the world in a new way.
Reason #3. It’s good for blood flow and breathing. Imagine your feet, suffering from all of that gravity working against you. How many times do you get off your feet? When you do a handstand, you switch gravity in your body. You turn everything in your body upside-down, putting pressure on the opposing side of your organs and lungs. The breath deep in your lungs expands and releases air better. Anything trapped down in the bottom of those lungs (imagine some of that dirty, dank, filthy city air trapped in your lungs…) can fall down and shake it’s way out of your lung space.
Reason #4. It helps with all the other circulation systems. Your lymphatic system is probably cheering you on. While your blood circulation deliveries all of those marvelous nutrients to the reaches of your body, your lymphatic system (the waste system) picks up all of the debris and garbage and filters it out of your muscles and into the different excretion systems of the body. The lymphatic system is much like the circulation system–just in reverse. And turning upside down promotes both blood flow, as well as lymphatic flow.
While we’re on the topic of biology, let’s talk about all those squishy organs stacked in your midsection. Your gut is a big pile of cool organs: your liver, pancreas, stomach, intestines, and other stuff, all packed inside you like sardines in a can. Your stomach mainly rests on top of those organs, which in turn sit on top of your intestines. Ever seen a diagram of the human body? Well, when you flip upside down, you reverse all the pressures on your insides. (Take that, stomach!)
Reason #5. It makes you happier. Screw the oxygen bank–the best way to get a rush of happiness is to deliver a massive increase in blood flow to the head. Oxygen = euphoria.
Reason #6. It makes you giggle. You play when you do handstands. It’s not like running or swimming, which are perhaps more arduous, linear tasks that feel like you’re working to deliver forward motion for a continuous amount of time. Handstands you can just do. And you can do them almost anywhere. (Trick: If you want to do a handstand, but you’re nervous about it – find a place against a wall to do them. )
Reason #7. It’s like exercise, but it’s not. It’s wayyy more fun. Although after trying to do about 10-15 handstands, you’ll probably be very tired. There are a lot of ways to be healthier, and some of them can be simple and fun.
In fact, you can do many different varieties of handstands. There are headstands, elbow and forearm stands, one-handed handstands, splits, and handstands against the wall.
Reason #8. It reveals how completely uncoordinated (or coordinated) we are. Sometimes, coordination is nearly impossible. And you fall. And it’s okay. Handstands are somewhat tricky, and it you might need a spotter or a wall to help you out. But the fun fact about being uncoordinated? It makes you giggle (so refer back to #6). And you’ve got to learn by doing. Thinking about it won’t get you anywhere.
Reason #9. You get to meet people along the way. In San Francisco a few weeks ago, my flight was delayed for two hours. Antsy and with nowhere to go, my brother and I started a handstand competition in the airport, up against one of the long walls in the alleyway. Before we knew it, we had several other people lined up for the count – including a precocious 6 year old who out-handstand-ed all of us (and proceeded to do a few break-dancing tricks, too). Handstands reveal your inner play and gives you something fun to do while waiting.
Reason #10. You don’t need anything but yourself to do it. You can do them anywhere. Like I said, handstands are awesome.
So, where are you right now? Do a handstand in your office. I dare you to. Too afraid? Go outside (brr, winter cold!) and try one in the snow or the chilly wind. Laugh a little bit. Take yourself less seriously. It’s a day for fun. And I guarantee you’ll work just as hard even while also doing handstands once in a while.
Entrepreneurs and intra-preneurs learn like crazy. (If you don’t know what an intra-preneur is, check out this list of business terms). An intra-preneur is changing the game in his or her current company by breaking the rules, building new programs, and becoming indispensible within their company. An entrepreneur is building something new (often with limited resources) within or beyond the current system: a new company, a new way of communicating, a new way to organize people or things and space.
They learn by testing, iterating, observation, and becoming a sponge for knowledge. We soak in knowledge about our given fields of expertise, and we expand our skillsets by learning about correlating fields that complement and reflect our given fields, and we strive to be better in the specific areas within and related to our business.
Last year I read a book a week, which worked (on average) although I didn’t always make it each week. (More often than not, I found time to read on planes…) Here’s my hit list for my favorites from the past year–a list of 50 of the best books I’ve read in the last year. If you only have time to read three, start with The Social Animal, The Essential Drucker, and (well, this is hard to pick only three) … Trust Agents. Those are the standouts for me this year.
Here aremore than 50 great books for the next year, which include some of my all-time favorites from the past year. Consider this your “syllabus” for the next year, if you’re committed to learning and growing. In many cases, notes are included, categorized by my areas of interest.Please note: I’ve purchased, read, marked-up and loved each of these books, below, and they occupy space on my bookshelves near and dear to my heart. I’ve linked to them directly to Amazon–which gives me a bit of money for referring my favorites if you decide to buy it (but by no means enough to quit my day job!)–and I also review some of these books in depth on this blog, so you could skip straight to the summaries if you wanted to. Regardless, that’s the “behind the scenes” bits I have to tell you in my acts of curation.
If you know of some great ones I should check out, please leave a note in the comments. Enjoy!
“Learn like it’s your job, your passion, your food, and your fuel. Learning is a necessity. Crave it.”
Marketing & Advertising
Tested Advertising Methods, by Prentice Hall Business Classics. A primer on all things copywriting and advertising.
Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Considered the father of advertising and a guru of branding, marketing and product management, Trout brings together elements of psychology and user experience to show how to describe things to the people that matter to your business–your customers. It’s not how you understand what you do; it’s how well you explain it to others, in a way that stands out.
Oglivy on Advertising. One of the premier advertising and sales books of all times. Oglivy is a genius. “Ogilvy’s writing is captivating. His work, legendary. His ideas, timeless.” I’ve only begun to dig into the genius in this book, and fully expect to have it dog-eared, flagged, marked, highlighted, and re-read multiple times over.
Information, Communication, Curation & Media
Trust Agents, by Julien Smith and Chris Brogan. Destined to be a classic. How do people become online influencers? They do more than provide content: they establish valuable relationships, reputations, and utilize media to build trust relationships as leaders and agents in an increasingly interconnected, complex world.
Information Anxiety 1 and Information Anxiety 2, both by Richard Saul Wurman, founder of the TED Conferences and author of 80+ books. For excerpts, check out this article. Issue 1 is out of print, but can be purchased used. Hat tip to Lauren Manning for pointing me to these books.
Design
In The Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. “We’re filling up the world with technology and devices, but we’ve lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives?” This is the premise of John Thackara’s book. The book is all text and theory, about design but not visual in and of itself. Main thesis? That we’re regaining respect for the abilities that people have–by becoming increasingly aware of what technology still can’t do.
Bruce Mao: Massive Change. One of the most visually-stunning, eye-candy laden books about the new inventions and technologies affecting the human race. A collection of stimulating essays and questions about how the world operates–and what designers and planners alike are doing about it.
How to Think Like Great Graphic Designer, by Debbie Millman. A series of wonderful, thought-provoking, and deliciously accessible interviews with some of the 20th and 21st century’s leading thinkers and designers. Highlighted all over, particularly the interview with Milton Glaser.
Thinking with Type, Edition 2, by Ellen Lupton. One of my favorite books on typography, layout and style. Most font and style books don’t give enough visual examples labeled and annotated to truly teach; this book is a definitive overview and beautiful guide to using typography, layout, and white space in print (and web) design.
Information Architecture, by Christina Wodtke. The illustrations can be a bit kitchy at times, but the content and organization is great. A good overview of how information flow, diagramming, and understanding sequences chains is pertinent before starting major projects or designs.
The Visual Miscellaneum. One of my favorite books to pick up with countless illustrations, diagrams, and information–visualized. Understanding how to show the story of data, and make information meaningful, is an arduous task. This is a collection of hundreds of beautiful examples. No more designers’ block!
Business & Entrepreneurship
Start With Why, by Simon Sinek. A review of some of the most innovative, influential people and organizations in the world. Start by building a foundation and culture that answers “Why” before you ask “What” or “How.”
The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufmann. A $15 book in exchange for a $150,000 education? Seems like a no-brainer. A relevant resource that I consult repeatedly. How to build value, what a USP is, how to work well by yourself and with others, and fundamentals of starting your own business.
The Accidental Entrepreneur, by Susan-Urquhart Brown. A shorter read, and less in-depth than Kaufmann’s book, but still filled with valuable information and great advice for anyone starting out. Covers fundamentals of marketing, creating a business plan, and traits of successful entrepreneurs.
ReWork, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. In an earlier post, “Thirteen outstanding business ideas from ReWork,” I cover the tips about the book in more detail. Read it. It’s short, straight-forward, and outstanding.
Enchantment
Change by Design, by Tim Brown of Ideo. Theories about design-thinking and innovation: how good ideas happen, and the processes and rigors behind developing great ideas.
End Malaria, edited by Michael Bungay Stanier. “62 Business thinkers pushing you to rethink the way you work.” Ignore the title, albeit good; it’s deceiving. This is a book of essays by some of the most brilliant across industries. Listen to them.
Management & Leadership
The Essential Drucker – The Best Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management. Considered the father of modern management, this book shifted how I think about the role of leadership and managing teams. Can’t put it down.
Getting Things Done, by David Allen. I don’t subscribe to all tactics GTD, but it did change how I thought about 2-minute tasks and the limitations of the human brain: we aren’t wired for as much as we think we are. Figure out how to override your shortcomings and really find systems that work.
Making Ideas Happen, by Scott Belksy and the founder of Behance. The system is different than GTD (focused on the action method), but another good way of re-configuring how you do your best work.
Life After College, by Jenny Blake. Crowd-sourced tips on being awesome, figuring shit out, and getting beyond the craziness of life in your early twenties. Check out the full-length review here, with references to Jenny’s super-human powers, wonder-woman outfits, and killer heels.
The Accidental Creative, by Todd Henry. Strategies for becoming a creative, even if you feel like you aren’t one. Don’t think you need this? Todd argues that we all are creatives now–it’s no longer enough just do do your job.
The Four-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss. I was skeptical of this at first, given that the man spent 15+ years testing and tweaking strategies obsessively all in the name of being able to eventually work 4-hours per week; but if you want to learn how to game the system, watch a man who does it well. (I suppose my ire is more suited towards the wannabes that followed who promised lifestyle design success–without any of the core research to back it up.)
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. Another mind-blowing organization and strategy book. My favorite premise is that the highest form of being is interdependence, and not independence or dependence. We need more thinking like this, particularly in our image-centric, ego-centric, independent entrepreneurial world. We definitely do not do any of it alone.
Psychology
How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. One of my favorite psychology writers of all time; constantly reveals how our brains work and what’s going on inside our strange heads.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini. “Influence is a science.” It’s not magic; and Cialdini outlines six principles for how people relate to each other, socially, and why tools like reciprocity, scarcity, and liking affect how we interact with each other. And it’s fun to read.
Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath. All about making ideas sticky, and the psychology of how we remember things.
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Riley. The peculiarities of being human, and how and why we repeatedly behave weirdly.
The Elements of Persuasion, by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman. Master storytelling will get you further in persuading people – effectively getting them to do what you want. And in work and life, don’t you want to get what you want?
The Social Animal, by David Brooks. Possibly–actually–my favorite book out of this entire list. A story that reads like fiction, Brooks reveals thousands of interesting insights about the human condition, all through the lens of a pair of people growing up, falling in love, and growing apart (and together again) over time. The unconscious mind is phenomenal.
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, by Neil Strauss. I’m not sure if this is a true story or not, but as a woman living in a city, this certainly opened my eyes to the games being played all around us.
Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt. The subtitle, “why we drive the way we do – and what that says about us,” tells us that it’s more about our quirks as humans than about the fact that we’ve gone and made entirely awful-yet-awesome transportation systems designed around 10,000 pound steel structures. Good read, but not mind-blowing. Full review here.
Inspiration & Motivation
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. A book on writing and life, and all the zany-crazy-personality quirks in between. Fluttering between self-deprecation and frank honesty, Lamott tells the story of the difficulty of writing and getting out of our own way. Humorous at times and painful at others, I have owned this book for more than 10 years and refer to it readily whenever I experience my own writers’ block.
Swimming to Antarctica, by Lynne Cox, one of the greatest open-water swimmers there ever was.
Do The Work, by Stephen Pressfield. Also going to add in his other one, “The War Of Art” — both are brilliant ass-kickers to doing the work and actually getting out of your own way to do something.
The Flinch, by Julien Smith. How and why to lean into discomfort, pain, and discipline: it’s not about being comfortable. It’s about getting comfortable being uncomfortable, and doing the painful or scary things. Without flinching.
Money
The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. Frank and reasonable sense about how ordinary-looking people with small-to-modest homes become millionaires by accumulation, not spending. A good reminder for me personally to worry less about “things” and “stuff” and focus on what matters (and what’s within my means).
Naked Economics, by Charles Wheelan. One of the first books that made economics make sense to me. Described the ins and outs of inflation, capital markets and finance to me. To be fair, I read this book for the first time a few years’ back and went back through it again this year, because it makes economics fascinating and interesting–and I got a bit out of the book the second time around, as well.
I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi. The full review, “$10 for a financial wizard” covers my thoughts in detail. Worth the read for it’s psychological understanding of how we actually behave around and with money, and the idiotic things we say we’ll do, but never actually end up doing.
The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. What would become of the world without humans? How would cities fall and crumble, how would the ecology of place change, what would rust and tumble?
Ender’s Game. Have read and re-read probably ten or more times.
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Depressing, by all means, but I stayed up until 5 AM just to finish this book.
“Kindness is the act of caring for the people around you; of knowing how to make both our lives, and the lives of others, more meaningful.”
Non-obligation Thank You notes. Words of encouragement. Big, fat, friendly hugs. Admiring someone’s hard work and dedication. Making yourself available to others. Turning the timer off. Telling your boss what they are doing right–and how they inspire you. Thanking someone for working hard, without any clauses or hidden criticisms. Telling a funny story to your barista. Appreciating the regular. Giving attention to someone who needs a friend.
Delighting in ordinary. Pausing for a moment to take it all in. Thanking yourself for the work that you do. Donating time. Telling your bus driver to have a nice day, and meaning it. Meeting a new person and asking them to talk about them. Just listening. Being honest with strangers. Reducing our hurry to become impatient. Paying it forward. Tipping generously.
Letting go. Standing up to a bully. Standing up for someone else. Standing up for yourself. Picking up trash that someone else has dropped. Believing in karma. Volunteering. Spending a day planting trees. Donating money to public parks. Acting generously without anyone seeing or watching. Doing what’s right, even though no one will ever know.
Have you done anything extra-nice today? Sometimes just stopping to write a thank-you note to someone I appreciate makes my day a little better, too.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ~Plato
Sometimes my Grandpa says I work too hard. I try to tell him that my work is not the same as work used to be. I work late. I work early. I take breaks in the middle of the day.
He points to the clock. It’s 6’o’clock, he says, wobbling over his cane and tapping on the table where I’ve got my laptop opened. It’s time to stop working, he commands.
I agree, and I also completely disagree. I’ve just finished taking a half hour break to chat with friends and colleagues online–spirited discussions and meeting new people and reading and networking like a champ–and now I’ve got to get back into my grind and focus on the production, the creation that I do every day.
I live in a new world, perhaps, at least to my parents and grandparents. I work in bursts of creation, usually 90 minutes to 3 hours in length, inset by pauses for lengthy conversations, connectivity, explorations, learning, and movement. My days–my sometimes 16-hour days–begin with walks, meander through coffee with great thinkers, are sometimes propelled by spurs of insane connectivity in the middle of the day, outreaching and coordinating with editors and speakers and writers and clients–and then in between it all I nestle down for sessions of quiet solitude filled with reading, writing, creation, drawing. I shutter down each day from the internet, often hours at a time (forgive me, twitter, but I schedule you out at times to play along, but I’m a ghost; not really there as much as it might appear). During these shutter hours I focus, focus, driven by purpose and deadline, and mostly, discipline.
These structure and boundaries give parameters for freedom; space to think within the allotted lines, which inevitably bend and give way once I gallop and leap beyond them. Loose, dashed lines of constraints provide the discipline required for invincible creativity, and I thrive in the flexibility and structure provided by these bare-bone parameters. As Jonah Lehrer has written, one of the paradoxes of the human condition is that we are more creative with boundaries; our freedoms and productions tend to increase within constraints, to a certain degree.
The simple recipe of 9 to 5 has no resonance with me; many suggest that the 9 to 5 is antiquated, a thing of the past. I can neither sit still nor think for eight hours, let alone be in one place or with one task. Everything about that schedule is arbitrary–the start time, the end time, the things that we must produce within that set amount of time. The only thing left is an antiquated system that we perpetuate because we don’t have the courage to think differently.
We have moved quickly, cleanly beyond an industrial age where outputs were set (“build 18 shoes, please, and send them down the conveyor belt”) a time when we knew exactly when our works’ work was done; beyond the infrastructure of the giant corporation, the relic of the 1950’s-2000’s, to today: today, we live in a world where information is ubiquitous and overwhelming, and being ‘done’ with work is never truly over. A world where information threatens to take over globally, yet somehow this collection of voices creates so much noise that it pulls us locally again, towards communities and coffee shops, to social circles that we can trust instead of constantly test (for being on top of information at all times takes far too much energy for the individual). In all of this, creative and intellectual pursuits require exceptional discipline, or else these individuals can become swallowed by the banal of chasing information and products that yield no results.
The 9 to 5 schedule, too, strikes at the wrong hours of the day for my scheduling. For me, 9 am falls in the middle of my best hours, and 5 pm at the middle of my worst hours.In any given day, I probably only have 5 hours of ‘great’ work time, time when I’m focused on writing and complex problem solving; I regard these hours as fundamentally precious and push everything to the wayside during these times. I have time for lower-level thinking tasks (batch email sending, task responses, errands, etc) – and if I don’t match my energy levels to the projects’ needs, I’ll end the day frustrated, discouraged, and unsatisfied. Trying to write during the slump of a post-lunch warm afternoon is what I call awful.
And so, I have both a peculiar and wonderful schedule. I wake up early, sometimes really early. I write in the lonely morning hours, silent and still, peaking by 10am and entering the flurry of the working world–and my job–turning onto the networks for a while, answering calls as they come in. On a lucky day, I’ll close the office door, turn off the phones, and continue to write until 11 or noon. On a bad busy day, I’ll have meetings all morning, eroding the precious hours of productivity with talking. (I’ll amend that: the busy, coordination days are not my favorite, but they are what set the stage for later days of productivity and creation. It’s more likely than not that I need a balance of both, that one doesn’t exist without the other). Still, I take steps to arrange meetings only during times when my energy levels match the needs of collaborating with others. Knowing that I only have a few “good” hours each day makes me carve out time differently.
I am a fastidious multi-tasker; in that I do many tasks throughout the day and let some percolate in the back of my mind while focusing most of my energy on the job at present. (This is distinctly different from trying to do things at the same time. Rather, this form of “multi-tasking” is akin to multiple burners, one on high, several on simmer. I think you’ll burn the food if you try to cook it all on high at the same time; but you can have ideas brewing on the back burner, certainly). Through it all I follow my energy flows closely, watching when my exhaustion peaks, when my lethargy sits, when my vivaciousness is at a high; and I match the tasks at hand to the problems I need to solve.
When I switch from writing to design, the office changes again, transforming into a new space to produce: I design best to pulsating music, so my office–or my coffee shop, wherever I am working–turns into a pseudo-dance party, techno beats and rhythms coloring the flurry of my designs. Most days involve dancing, thinking, and dancing again.
Throughout it all, I set targets and goals and deadlines, knowing the importance of self-discipline above all else–and in the mornings, I write out fresh post-it notes with clear, tangible goals and deadlines. With each, I strive to hit the 4 pm or 5 pm mark, a practice I’ve honed over years of incremental steps. My habits are reinforced daily: I know now that the projects have to be finished; to me, it makes sense to then try to do everything I can to finish them early. Deadlines are arbitrary; work expands to fill the space you give it. The sooner I get done with a design puzzle or a press release or a meeting, the sooner I can get back to precious creation. No sense in wasting time.
And then, to dream, to kick on my dreamers’ hat again, and to watch the world, grasping the importance of being and the inspiration that’s required for any good work, I walk. And I walk a lot, exploring and moving frequently. Usually at least once between 3 pm and 7 pm–these are the times when during a puzzlement of problems, or of mounting frustration, I’ll push back my chair, stand up, spritz sunscreen on, grab my hat and keys, and wander. I leave the closed, strange office environment and sometimes I break into a run or a sprint, and I run, work pants rolled up, shoes exchanged for sneakers hidden underneath my desk, blouse replaced by a long-sleeved shirt. And I’ll run until I’m out of breath, looking out on the Sausalito waters, shaking my brain’s thoughts around until they settle like loose chips in a bucket, falling individually into place. Within a half an hour, I’m back at work, back at the desk, and without fail, the brain is working again–
–and it’s like morning, when I get back from a walk, and I’m ready. I eat, and I sit, and I take the next chunk of time, usually 2 hours, and I figure stuff out and get it done. In a precious day, sometimes up to 3 days per week, I’ll hit a second stride and find a creative flow to work for 3-4 hours. And I’ll chase it, producing quietly and steadily, building a stream of writing and coloring my desk with designs and drawings, and I’ll sigh at the end, satisfied, full, and tired.
Each day is different. The days the focus stays, I’ll finish a project with a 4-hour stint, coming home late to a glass of wine and a quiet yoga session. Other days my brain is clouded and maxed and I leave early, taking the afternoon to rest and recover and interact and play.
And that, that’s what I can’t say with my eyes when I look at my Grandpa. It’s just one thing that’s different in the world from when he used to work and the way that I work. His calculus, diff-e-q, tangential brain sits me down and marks up notes on electrical circuitry and my infantile, kinesthetic self squirms at being forced to sit; I feel my skin itch and crawl with the inability to roam free; and I know that it’s not just the generational differences that are at play. I must be free. Free to create. And you? You, do what works for you.
What a year. First, a huge thank you for everything and everyone wonderful from December: it was the surprise ending to an already-unforgettable year. I was blown away by the shout-out onPro Blogger and the response to the recent Do Something:Slide Share presentation. (which reached 80,000 views!) WOW. I’m completely blown away! Based on the reviews and reactions, I want to make a small coffee-table book version, since so many of you emailed to ask if it was available as a stand-alone document. I love this idea! More soon!
Second, I am so glad that people enjoy stopping here. It’s been such a joy to meet so many new faces and I’m thankful for those gutsy folks out there who took the time to stop by my internet home, check out the work, send an email, do something they were afraid of, and then tell me about it. Honestly: you are my HEROES. Some of the most courageous of you sent me a message and said hello and how much site has meant to you–that you “get lost in it,” that you “identify with the ups, downs and struggles,” and that you “love how much I share.” I had no idea! For me, sitting here, writing behind this computer, I am grateful. This was the best Christmas present of all: knowing that I can connect with so many of you. Thank you.
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To all of you, Happy New Year.
Holiday mail!
One of my favorite things to do each year is sit down and reflect on the year past. I write a quarterly letter to myself (yes, it’s nerdy–just don’t ask what I call it!). The letter helps me stop and review what’s working and what’s not working. The best way to get better is to look back and see what you’ve done so far–and where you can get better. Feedback is brutal, but it’s okay: it might sting in the short-term, but it’s good for the long term.
So, as you can imagine, I love writing my annual holiday letter! Here’s a picture of this year’s stack, stamped and ready to go. I thought I’d share a bit with you–although please, sit down and have a cup of coffee (or two) because this post is going to be a looooong one.
Where it began.
Where did this year begin? In a set of annual December prompts, one of my favorite Reverb questions is “where did your year begin?” And I sit, behind this desk of mine, looking back myself from a year ago.
I wish I could paint a picture of it, of how much has changed in a year. A year ago, I wasn’t a long-distance open-water swimmer. A year ago, I didn’t have this job. I didn’t even have this blog, in fact–it only went live in June, days before I went to my first conference. (I wrote another blog, that I used posts from to build this one). A year ago, I wasn’t living in San Francisco.
A year ago, a lot was different.
A little over a year ago, as the new year was approaching, I was living by myself in a tiny garage in northern California, without a bed of my own, just my treasured sleeping bag and a borrowed twin bed.
Sometimes I feel ashamed of telling this, as though I won’t ever be able to get it–IT, LIFE–right. As though you could get “life” right. Sometimes it all feels like pretend; a story of someone else’s life, an idea that I fabricated, like I’ll wake up and pinch myself, and it won’t be real anymore. For most of the summer of 2010, I lived in a small tiny garage apartment, a room-within-a-room attached to a house the suburbs, alone by myself in a room with no windows, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. Almost all of my things were packed away at my parent’s houses or in storage; I took with me a book shelf, a bag, and my computer electronics. It’s raw to be with nothing, with no one: all you have, really, is you. Who you are.
In the evenings, I’d dress up in my one black dress, putting the city on, my high heels teetering and clacking on the floor in the hollow house, made-up and dressed up, driving the 30 minutes down the dark highway into the city. The lights of the Golden Gate Bridge would beckon after the rainbow tunnels; the city sparkling, telling me to come be a part of it.
The glitz and the glamour of the city disappeared as I drove home, slowly, the silence of the car deafening, and I’d retreat to my temporary home across the bridge, over the windy hills of the 101 and down into the sleepier, quiet, dark towns of the North Bay, the Marin headlands. Cyclists sped past me on the Bayfront trails as I walked and wandered through the towns. Safeway was Safeway; suburbia was suburbia.
And so, I saved. I wanted to be back in San Francisco so badly, but I couldn’t afford it. I thought about selling my carbut decided to keep the car and scrimp and save money for a few more months. In October, I saved up enough money to move into the city. At the beginning of the year, I got my things out of storage, drove to my new apartment, and started again.
Most of my friends don’t even know I ever left the city.
Unpacking all my things made me realize how much I could do with out.
And in December, when I got to the city, I said YES.
Yes to the city, Yes to new things, Yes to escaping the tired and the dreary, Yes to none of the same, Yes to opening new worlds. Yes to meeting new people, to starting a new life, to actually doing the things I said I wanted to do.
Sometimes you just need a little motivation …
A word?
If I could sum up this year in a word, it would be “yes.” This year was a year of yes; an experiment in trying new things, meeting new people, and getting out of my comfort zone. It’s easy to stay at home, read books, and do the same thing over and over again; it’s much harder (for me at least!) to get outside and push myself into the uncomfortable places where growth happens.
At the beginning of 2011, I vowed to do several things: many of which failed, and many others which were more successful than I imagined. In that list, I wanted to write more, start a blog, travel, speak Spanish again, do more open water swimming, and change my job. And here, another year has gone by, and I’m taking time this December to look back and see what’s changed, for better and for worse, and understand where I’ve come from. I really learn a lot by looking back and using it as a guidepost for the future.
Travel
I adventured with my sister to London and Paris in April (and got conned); on back-to-back weekends in May and June I made it to Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon. In July I went to Tucson, Arizona for a roller-coaster weekend of heat, humidity, thunderstorms, and long talks with my Grandpa; In October, I found myself in New York, Toronto, and Philadelphia for both work and fun, and in November, my work took on me to Los Angeles and San Diego. Finally, in December, I escaped the city to Costa Rica with a group entrepreneurial women to reflect on 2011 and plan for the 2012 year ahead. Perhaps 2012 will be a bit less nomadic, but life on the road was fun: it meant I get to see so many more faces that I don’t always see.
Projects, Jobs, Dreams + Ideas.
In March, after years as a full-time draftsperson/designer focused on landscape architecture and urban design, I started a new position in communications and marketing for architecture and design industries, which we created anew. I’m now spearheading our communications endeavors for our seven offices, with a focus on business, strategy and marketing. The projects on my plate vary from website design + strategy, internal + external communications, designing for print and web, publications, meeting with editors, coordinating conferences, and bringing more visibility to our firm and work. In short, it means I get to write and design.
Innovating work within an existing company or by building a new company fascinates me, and has been the theme of this year: new job, new career, and many, many new projects. It’s an exercise in learning, growing and adapting, so I spend quite a bit of time in the late evenings and early mornings self-teaching, or reaching out to folks to get advice and feedback on these new processes. The job and my own interests (which often fold into each other in unexpected ways) – have taken me to several events including Start Up Weekend, Blog World, WDS in Portland, ASLA’s national conference, ULI and Green Build.
Launch! Landscape Urbanism.
In March we launched the Landscape Urbanism beta site, and in September launched the full site, a process in team-building, strategy and design that taxed my capabilities and stretched my limits, certainly. It’s amazing to be able to point to something and say, “we did that,” – and see a project that was an idea built into reality. These are skills and lessons I’ll never forget. For the complete breakdown of post-hoc lessons learned, see “The lessons you need most (part 1)” and “20 lessons from launching a project (part 2).”
The best of posts: 2011
This blog reached new hits, with some of the most well-loved posts including:
Last year I asked myself what the scariest athletic event I could do would be, and I decided to go all-in with my open water swimming. It’s hard to believe that two years ago I had my doctor tell me I might never swim again. This year, in May, we did a 6 mile Bridge-to-Bridge swim from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate bridge. In June, we did a 10 mile “Prison to Prison” swim from San Quentin to Alcatraz, crossing the San Francisco Bay. And in October, my friend Nate Damm finished his walk across America.Why? Because we wanted to do something worth talking about. I am so thankful for my health and ability to be outside, to move, to live. There’s nothing like running the San Francisco hills in the early morning and watching the fog roll away to help me achieve clarity and motivation.
Lessons Learned.
Through it all, there have been some persistent meditations that keep cropping up as I work through projects and dreams that are tiring, difficult, taxing, and challenging. I’ve found, over and over again, that the hard work is worth it. It’s no easy feat, “designing your life,” but the benefit of persistence, dedication, and embracing challenging goals has been by far unbelievably rewarding.
It’s not without lessons, tears, fears, and scared moments. Yet without a doubt, the more I do the things I’m afraid of, the more joy, happiness, and love I experience. There is a direct correlation.
Nothing I do is ever alone, and I am grateful, encouraged, inspired by the people I am surrounded with. Living in San Francisco again has been a joy in unexpected encounters, adventures, and meeting new smart, talented people who are working hard to create amazing things. People like YOU have taught me and shared with me over the years, and I’m lucky to have you as my friends and family.
Some of my favorite quotes from this year, for inspiration and motivation:
I’m sitting on an airplane, staring out the window, reflecting on the year past and how quickly it seems to have gone by, and thinking about all the adventures I’ve been on. December is a time of pause: we can stop and look back, and, if we really do our diligence, analyze how we can improve and get better.
I’ve met so many people this year who want to do things, but something’s not working: there’s excuse after excuse after excuse; ideas that don’t make it off the drawing board; self-defeating mechanisms that work against you instead of for you. I can’t say that I know what I’m doing all the time, but I’ve developed a few tricks that have worked along the way. And here, on the airplane, I can’t help myself: I quickly scratch out a list of motivations, of voices that I wish you would hear when you’re working hard, when you’re trying new things. This is my manifesto for 2012: to making things happen. You need to make it happen.
Do something.
This is my mantra for the year, my vision behind my actions. You won’t get anywhere faster by sitting and thinking about them. (And I realize the irony of sitting and thinking about this, even as I do it: sometimes moments of reflection are prudent. But here on the airplane, the things I’m happiest about from last year are the actions I took. The things I DID.). And I know this to be true, from the life I’ve lived so far: you need to act, even in the face of uncertainty. You need to try new things. Fail beautifully. Fail miserably. Get stuck. Be frustrated. Make microscopic movements in better directions. But above all else, we must do something.
Do something.
Here’s the presentation: Fifty handwritten notes for you, as always.
I’d like to interrupt the middle of winter for a short escape to the pure life: la pura vida, costa rica.
This past week I spent living in Costa Rica with a group of six women for an entrepreneur’s retreat. For many people, particularly small-business owners or entrepreneurs, working from home or abroad is a real possibility – we just don’t do it or take advantage of it as often as we should. (In the case of people like me, with a “real job” and severalsideprojects, I did have to take a few vacations days – but it’s always worth it).
For just under a week, a group of women from across the United States traveled to Quepos, Costa Rica, to share a house and combine vacation, fun, entrepreneurship and learning. In addition to ziplining, exploring the jungle and spending time in the surf and sunshine, we spent ample time unplugged and away from computers. Instead, we exchanged ideas, talked about our fears and successes, and compared notes and ideas on both current and future projects. Each person had an exciting story: a different career track, advice to share, and processes and questions to consider.
For me, December is the time to slow down, reflect, take stock in what has happened over the year past, to see what you’ve done with yourself, and plan ahead for the year to come. It’s always a time when I need to spend extra days in quiet reflection, analyzing what worked (yay!), what didn’t (which can be frustrating and disappointing), and figure out how I might change or tweak my existing systems to get better results in the future.
Some of our reflection questions: Each day, we shared questions and thoughts about our current progress, our future goals, and our business aspirations. We spent an hour (or more) each day talking openly about the following reflection questions:
What’s holding you back?
How do you define success?
If you could be in (or on the cover) of any magazine, would you want to be? Which one would it be, and why?
What do you have to offer and what do you need?
What are your goals for next year?
Thoughts and reflections: Here’s my personal list of take-aways, questions, and reflections from the retreat; these are ideas that I’m starting to spend a lot of time thinking about. (If you have any advice or ideas, please share!)
Down time is necessary. This was the first time I stopped working for 5 straight days. I’m embarrassed to admit that, to myself even. Recently I’ve been struggling with burnout and exhaustion, and I’m starting to realize how vital it is to take breaks.
Unplugging is good. Creativity does not necessarily come from technology, computers, television, cell phones, facebook, twitter, google, blogging, cars, or any other thing that we’re currently using in our day to day lives.
Is comfortable bad? I don’t know the answer to this question. I’ve now asked myself it over and over again for almost a month. If you want to participate in the conversation on this topic on Google Plus, there are some interesting comments and ideas being exchanged.
How do you know when to change? Again, a question I don’t fully know how to answer.
What do you do when your systems aren’t working? As a personal glimpse: I’ve been very discouraged and frustrated at projects lately that either aren’t completed or haven’t turned out well. One of the important lessons I learned was that each project you work on, it’s a test of the process and the idea. Several of the projects would be more successful with tweaks and changes to the structure and process. Everything is a work in progress, I suppose!
Focus. Following on the themes above, I often struggle with chasing too many ideas. Allie said it best: “A man who chases two rabbits, starves.”
Decision waffling: Sometimes I get completely stuck in the decision making process. Do you?
What are you afraid of? What is it that is holding you back?
We are often the ones to get in our way first. So much of what we do and say comes from our monkey brains, those mental traps that don’t serve us but rather, burden us. Interfacing with other people is often the best therapy for getting out of our own way (Feedback, friendship, mentorship, coaching, conversation all serve to stimulate idea progression rather than stalling in an endless loop of self-chatter).
Comparisons are ruthless. I’ve learned this one before and I’m reminded of it again: we can’t compare ourselves to everyone else, or we will always fall short. Harvard suggests that Facebook is making us miserable — and I’m inclined to agree.
Gratitude. As always with traveling, I am grateful and humbled. The opportunities I have I cherish. Things I am grateful for:
New views. Alternative perspectives. I love looking into new cultures and experiencing the world from a new set of eyes. Travel lets you do this.
Language. Language lets you think in another form. It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on my Spanish, but I was delighted and surprised that my college lessons kicked in after I dusted the old cobwebs off my internal Spanish neurons. One of my dreams is to be fluent in at least two languages, and I’m now back to solid intermediate level. (Another dream is to live in a Spanish-speaking country for at least a month and re-learn the language, getting closer to fluency. More on this in as events transpire …)
I love people. I love meeting people, skipping over fences, hopping, dancing, hugging, and celebrating.
An excess of things. Leaving the country always reminds me that I own too much stuff, too many things, much of which burdens me. I am always inspired to get rid of things and de-clutter my life.
If you’re interested in doing a trip like this:
What is your purpose? Why do you want to do this trip?
What kind of people would you like to meet? What kind of people would you learn from?
Expense, wise, the highest cost is the flight;
Housing can be extremely affordable with co-sharing;
Food and meals can be shared and cooked in, keeping it in budget.
Transportation and travel time is significant – remember to allocate this into your time.
Plan ahead for major events: we scheduled in advance about 3 months, booked tickets to certain events (ziplining, etc)
Some coordination on the back-end (with clients, schedules, and events) is definitely required.
And for you? What are your dreams or goals?
How did 2011 turn out for you?
What worked well? What are you proud of?
What do you want to improve? What didn’t happen that you wish you had done?
What are your goals and dreams for 2012?
How are you going to make them happen?
Closing thoughts:
This trip kick-started my December year-in review, where I reflect on the year past, study what worked and what didn’t, participate in the month-long Reverb prompts, and prepare for the year ahead. I’m excited to be participating in Reverb 11 this year. Reverb is a month-long set of prompts for you to participate and reflect on the year past. Kaileen Elise put together a list of questions. I usually answer about half of them, and I’ll post some of them here and some of them on mytumblr if you’re interested in following along.
I’m grateful to be able to do this, to meet people, and exchange ideas. “To exchange ideas, to engage in conversation, to meet new people” – these are the golden nuggets. Not just sitting behind a computer screen.
As always, I encourage each of you to *do something*. This is the heart of life. Not sitting. Not waiting. Not idling. Do something.
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I’ve spent time with a wide range of folks – people in start-ups, people in recently established businesses, people in small companies, and people in large companies. This question comes up a lot, yet you can’t seem to figure out whether or not to stay or go. Whether to try something new. If it’s possible to fix something that’s an existing problem.
Given statistics that say that as much as 80% of people don’t like their job, and some 25% of us are un- or under-employed, I scratched out a quick flow chart for questions to ask yourself about your current job — or a job you are considering. (To download a free PDF of this file, head over here, or click the image below to save as a jpg).
Reflection Questions: (Answer Yes, I’m Not Sure, or No)
Am I my best self in this relationship?
Do I believe in the product, organization, or service?
How does this job make me feel? Good, Accomplished, Satisfied?
Am I challenged to be my best?
Am I growing and learning?
Am I meeting or surrounding myself with good people doing interesting things?
Are people in this organization open to new ideas and receptive to each other?
Is this the best use of my skills and talents? Aka – Am I indispensible?
Are there people I can learn from and look up to? Do I have good mentors or advisers?
Do I want to become my boss?
If yes: (More than 5? Rock on! You nailed it!)
If I’m not sure or No: Ask the following follow up questions:
Will this change?
How long will this take to change?
Is this non-negotiable?
Is there somewhere else with more YES responses?
This is an exercise I do every few months, as well, to check in. Sometimes I’ll meet a friend for dinner and we’ll talk about what we want to achieve and what our goals are. I check-in regularly with my own progress, debating what the best career path is and how to keep myself up to snuff. Some of the questions I ask myself I find myself asking other people over and over. My focus is always on trying to figure out problems, understand how things work, and discover how to make tweaks to make things better.
And so, — voila! — a one-page cheat sheet of notes straight from the notebook in a dorky little flow chart. I use these periodically to determine whether or not to take on freelance work, whether or not I’m happy at my current position, and also to determine if your job is a good fit for YOU. By many accounts, it may be a great job — for someone else. If you have a few “yes” answers below and a few things to figure out; congrats, you’re in good shape. If you have more than half yeses, and a few things to work on, killer. And if you have all yeses, like the folks I recently bantered with about their new start-up, then you’re doing what you were made to do.
What do you think of this cheat sheet? Is it helpful? Let me know if you have other questions you would ask if you’re trying to figure out the right career fit.
Design
Inspiration & Motivation
