Right now, someone in the world envies you. They admire your business. They covet your wardrobe. They lust after your husband.
To someone somewhere you look like you have it all. Your website makes their mouth water. Your pictures on Facebook make them yearn for adventure in their life. Seeing you makes them crave more.
Feeling jealous is a part of being human but what we do with this emotion is a choice. (more…) read more →
The other day I heard a woman say that escaping her life every weekend to her mountain home was what was getting her through.
Immediately, this question popped into my mind: What if, instead of looking for ways to escape, we decided to create lives we love so much that we want to stay fully in them?
Sandy beached resorts wink at us through turquoise blue eyes with the promise of “getting away from it all.” Many are seduced to leave themselves and their lives through any number of substances daily: alcohol, cigarettes, pot, sugar, pain killers, [insert drug of choice here]. (more…) read more →
I think we can all agree that we want to get the biggest bang for our buck when we’re working on our businesses–when we’re working on anything, for that matter.
If you have even a drop of Puritan blood in you, you’ll probably agree that there is something about productivity that feels divine. And I do believe it is. Our industriousness can absolutely be an expression of God, of our soul, and certainly, of our purpose.
The Value of Making Stuff
But there’s a difference between the doing that’s just doing stuff and the doing that creates results. There are certain times when just doing stuff is incredibly valuable, like showing up on your mat for your yoga practice, taking a walk in nature, playing with your kids, or sitting still and breathing.“Making stuff” and “making stuff happen” are both high on my priority list. I used to beat myself up for being so obsessed with productivity. Now, I embrace my desire to fill the nooks and crannies of my days with creation because it’s part of my contribution to the world. (more…) read more →
When people talk about wanting financial freedom there’s often an inherent assumption that the way to get there is through earning more and accumulating more.
The definition of financial freedom that I love is this:
You are financially free to the extent that your passive or residual income (income that you earn over and over again for work done once) is greater than your living expenses.
In order to achieve this goal we have two choices: increase our passive or residual income or decrease our living expenses.
I’ve always been a light sleeper. I remember being amazed as a young girl that my father could crash on the couch for a fifteen-minute nap – and fall asleep immediately. It was the same with airplanes, long car rides, and at the beach.
As I got older sleeping became more and more of an issue for me. College dorm rooms never seemed to be quiet enough. Stress from exams, internships and my first job had a drastic impact on the quality and quantity of sleep I was getting. By the time I graduated from college, I was carefully planning my schedule so that I never had social events two nights in a row – a cushion I had to create in case I slept horribly the night before. Talk about killing time.
I’m now about 90% reformed, and my restorative yoga practice has a lot to do with that (in addition to changing my diet, vitamins and meditating). The best way I can think to explain this is that restorative classes taught my body what it feels like to be in a deep, relaxed state, and it’s now fairly easy for me to access that place on my own at nighttime. (more…) read more →