Barbara Brooks created Flamingo Strategies LLC to help clients stand up and stand out, through telling and sharing their stories of impact and purpose.
Hacking Away at Happiness is her blog.
We tell ourselves honest lies all the time. Don’t we all—especially we artists and writers—need to believe in the relevance of our work? And don't we ache to be heard?
I say I want him gone. But ambivalence keeps me from getting the job done. And my lack of commitment annoys me more than the empty traps.
Why can't we accord everyone in our lives the same presence of mind we give a climbing partner? Don't we all need focused, unconditional support?
"Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.”
For 2018, what if we resolve to re-solve? And in that process, we soften? We may see that we haven't always been right. We may see that we don’t have all the answers. And we never did.
Delivering on the promises we make to ourselves—no matter how small—is important. I've procrastinated enough. I need this now more than ever.
Captive to the need to please and the need to know, I had lost touch with my intuition. Evidently this happens a lot. Especially to women.
How can we be 10% truer? 10% more vulnerable? 10% more open? For me, it begins by knowing there IS another 10%.
When we are floundering—especially when we are floundering—how can we find and follow the through line of our lives?
Why must we label our foibles as failures? There are so many ways it’s good to be bad. Why not have fun?
It takes work, but I believe we can learn to live comfortably in the middle way. AND we can also choose to do things the easy way.
By recognizing my choice as something other than failure, it came earlier and with more grace. But something else was different too...
I'm not scared. If I don't earn enough to feed the beast, I will change her diet or find new sources of food. Or both.
Since losing my steady income and free health insurance, I have also lost a lot of stuff. Stuff I didn’t really need and won’t replace. If abundance is such a blessing, why do we fritter it away?
A self-identified Former Misfit said it best: “The seemingly unbreakable cliques from 40 years ago were shattered and replaced with mutual respect and willingness to reach out to others.”
Today, on the eve of Yom Kippur, I’m picturing a massively thick Moleskine notebook. In it are the names of countless CEOs and workers, investors and entrepreneurs.
Sadly, managers rarely expect employees to contribute at the level of HABU. Rather, they say, "That's Sally's job," or "Swim in your own lane."
Today, parts of Miami are under water and miles and miles of sand have again eroded. Hurricanes are stronger now but so are we.
I get it now! I am client zero. And yet it is so easy to neglect my emotional and creative health.
With a good WiFi signal, work can be done from anywhere, but great work can only be done when the worker feels inspired.
