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.
Painting with watercolor helped me heal. In my process, I saw a metaphor for how we create our lives. I saw hope for the New Year.
How can people like me—people like us—embrace essentialism without sacrificing the enthusiasm that is our power?
Even on the days we feel scared or bored or invisible, of this we can be certain: The best years of our lives lie just “over the hill” up ahead.
The fate of the Earth already is inscribed. But through our actions, we have a fantastic opportunity save our planet from doom.
Life can be hard. But every difficulty or setback also brings the potential for beneficent outcome.
We must send our little birdies out of the nest. Even if they say they need us, or we believe we need them, it’s better to cut the cord.
Why is it necessary to do the hard thing? Because the path of least resistance is a terrible teacher. And the obstacle is the way!
There’s nothing selfish about noticing the rhythm of your offers, and what comes back in your direction. If something feels out of whack, it probably is.
For quieting the monkey mind, there’s nothing better. It forces mindfulness, reinforces simplicity, and even subsistence tasks bring joy.
Swimming is refreshing. It’s meditative. It’s an act of total immersion. But landlocked is a state of mind.
If you study the market and know your stuff, you can choose the best time and place to try that big thing for which you aren’t quite prepared. As the kids say: you can “send it.”
Whether we aim to jumpstart our writing—or to make sense of our lives—isn’t everything we need to know located in the glimmers we experience or observe?
There can be huge return on quitting (ROQ). But only if we actively commit to something that is of greater value to us.
With aging—as with cooking or any other creative pursuit—we need to master the basics before we can play around. Hooray for us. At 40 and 50+, we are masters!
My podcast habit begs the question: When is listening—or, for that matter, writing this blog—a valid use of time, vs. a trip down a rabbit hole?
On average, Americans know 42,000 words. And yet, in business and in life, we use the same ones over and over again. So people are likely to tune us out.
Liars are everywhere and consequences are nil. But by telling the truth we distance ourselves from the bad guys. And we experience real personal gain.
Life choices aren’t just about what we want to do; they’re about who we want to be. So, it helps to know what matters to us most.
Reset the same goal over and over. Try new ones. Take breaks. We’re playing the ultimate long game. And with any luck, it won’t be over anytime soon.
If we keep singing or writing about something—and hoping for the truth in our words—then we can make them true. Love is the seventh wave, I say love.
