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Jamie Oliver Putting a Dent in Child Obesity

February 16, 2010 in Make a Difference with 0 Comments

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

What’s your MISSION in life? What’s the one thing that you want to do that’s going to leave the world “a bit better” when you’re gone? Life gets more interesting when you start thinking bigger and start trying to make a difference in the lives of people outside your family, friends and co-workers.

Jamie Oliver has an ambitious goal. His wish is to teach every kid about food and make a serious dent in childhood obesity. He’s been at it for seven-plus years.

This talk from TED is goose bump inducing.

Pretty amazing, isn’t it. You can just see the passion in his voice, in the way he is pleading with the audience. That’s the power of Making a Difference…or at least doing everything possible that you can to try and make a difference in the world.

Makes me want to step up my game and get clearer about how I’m going to help people and find a way to do it Bigger, Better and Faster than I’m doing it now.

Let’s start charting our path to putting a serious dent in the things we want to change, starting today.

How Not to Hurry in 9 Steps or Less

January 30, 2010 in Simplicity with 0 Comments

I hate running around like a chicken with my head cut off. That feeling of too much to do and not enough time is not a fun one to have…every day of your life.

If you’re suffering from that and playing the silly game of “More is Better” then you need to change things immediately.

It’s time to put the brakes on and offload some of the burdens that are dragging you on so you can go off at a more relaxing (read: sane) pace.

This won’t be easy to do, especially if you’re wired for speed and your organization is obsessed with taking on more and more work without regard for the quality of results.

In short, it’s going to require a change of mindset as Leo Babauta suggests in his brilliant post How Not to Hurry.

Leo lists out 9 Tips for a Slower-Paced Life in his post.

1. Do less
2. Have fewer meetings
3. Practice disconnecting
4. Give yourself time to get ready and get there
5. Practice being comfortable with sitting, doing nothing
6. Realize that if it doesn’t get done, that’s OK
7. Start to eliminate the unnecessary
8. Practice mindfulness
9. Slowly eliminate commitments.

I have been actively working against #7 since the beginning of the year. Less clutter, less stuff, less commitments, which ties in nicely with tip #9. See which of the above you can incorporate into your life. Figure out which item is causing you the most amount of pain and mental irritation and tackle it first.

I’ll leave you with the quote that Leo started his post with. It’s a great reminder that if you’re hurrying, you’re not doing things the way nature intended.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” ~ Lao Tzu

The Simple Power of Changing a Routine Question or Answer

January 27, 2010 in Simplicity with 0 Comments

We tend to live our lives on autopilot. Routines make living life easier because we don’t have to figure out every morning whether to drink coffee or tea before we shower or what TV program to watch while getting ready for work. Routines and standard practices make everything simple so we can focus our attention and our thoughts on bigger, more pressing things.

I’m a huge fan of routines and I follow a bunch of them – everything from picking out my clothes the morning before to prepping for the next day – because I free up a bunch of time. How much time? Who cares, I know it works. But there’s one thing that having routines set you up for. Know what it is? It’s not a fun answer, but you probably know it.

BOREDOM.

When you eat the same things every day, talk to the same people, visit the same websites, sleep the same hours, do the same things before bed, wear the same clothes week after week, you lead a boring life.

As you can probably guess, I’m urging you to shake things up. No, you don’t have to shake things up to the point that you disrupt your life (unless you want to do that) or have a bunch of people asking you what’s wrong with you (unless you’re looking for some attention).

You can change things up by doing one small thing different today. What kind of small thing?

When someone asks you how you’re doing, you respond with something other than “fine” or “not bad.” How about you respond with “FANTASTIC and you?” “Couldn’t be better,” will get a reaction. Whatever you think of, answer in a way that people, especially people like you, never do.

Then do something to carry this simple idea forward a few more steps – ask them how they’re doing and STOP. Stop walking by them, stop doing something else, stop typing on your computer. Stop and LISTEN to what they say. Then respond with another question.

Now you’ve started a conversation. Maybe you’re unprepared for this, but the person you’re going to talk to wasn’t prepared either. See what develops. One thing is for sure, if you change up this tiny little routine response we all do, you’ll have a lot more friends and know a great deal about them too.

You can also change a routine by asking a different question when passing someone in the hallways or when you bump into an old friend. Instead of saying “how are you” you can say “Hey I was just thinking of you. Whatever happened with…” and ask about an old project you worked on together or a mutual friend.

You get the point. Switch up the conditioned, routine questions and responses and you’ll begin to have a little more fun in those normally boring moments between waking up and going to bed.

Imagine what you could do if you changed your route to work in the morning, what websites you visited or shows you watched. Do something different. It doesn’t have to be something big or dramatic, just something big enough to make a difference in your routine.

Have fun with this idea and let me know how it goes.

Turn Your Passion into Profit

January 18, 2010 in Passion, Second Paycheck with 0 Comments

Dan Dunn is a painter who has found his niche among the thousands of artists that go unknown. He created his own unique painting style that has transformed his life.

He used to do caricatures at Six Flags as his first gig, and then looking to take things to the next level, he started a company that had him going all over the place drawing people’s faces. 200 events a year and he was still deeply in debt. It was about that time that inspiration hit him.

You could argue that he’s still painting faces and that the portraits are pretty close to what he was doing before, but now they’re done in “Paint Jam” style. He’s created an experience for the audience. He entertains the audience while he paints and in less than 10 minutes a beautiful work of art is created.

In the process of making that mental switch from doing things like everyone else, Dan has created a profitable niche for himself by THINKING DIFFERENT about his skills and what he could do to add value to this world.

Pick a topic, any topic and Google it. You’ll find dozens of people who are quietly (or loudly) making a profit from their passions. Go ahead and type in anything and you’ll see Google Ads running on the right side of your browser, which means people are paying for your attention. Click on the results and you’ll be taken to websites, blogs and forums where people are interested in those topics.

Go ahead and type in what you’re passionate about, no matter how small you think it is, someone’s making money from it…not that money is their sole motivator, nor should it be yours. I’d argue that you go further, get more out of it and yes make more money if you’re in it first to share your gift with the world.

Go ahead and Google what you’re passionate about. Whatever the topic is, whether it’s real estate, taking pictures, marketing, simple productivity or lifestyle design, you’ll find someone sharing their love and their wisdom with others. And they’re making a buck in the process, which doesn’t hurt when it comes time to pay the mortgage and the electric bills.

Sometimes you don’t even have to come up with the idea yourself, you just have to see how big someone else’s idea could be and take things over.

These people fought through the dips in their lives. They fought through having no money, no resources or no definable niche that existed before they walked through the door with their desire to breakthrough.

They persisted and continued to WORK at their Passion until the day came when people started lining up at the door asking for more. Your day can and will come someday soon, but you have to stick with it through the ups and the downs. Everyone has something to offer the world. Sometimes it just takes time to find your voice and your platform and your audience.

Your audience is the hardest part to find, but they’re out there waiting for you. Don’t let them down.

And if you’re in need of inspiration from time to time, think of Dan the Paint Jam guy. He went from sketching caricatures for $20 a painting to $40,000 a painting, doing pretty much the same thing…with a twist.

What’s your unique twist/take on things?

Getting Organized One Drawer at a Time

January 17, 2010 in Simplicity with 0 Comments

Getting organized isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially if you’re a pack rat or are passed the age when your mom or dad cleans up after you. Likely if you’ve struggled with clutter for years, you have some deeply rooted habits that are going to be hard to change.

So how do you overcome it? You do it one drawer at a time, that’s how.

The secret to achieving any goal in life is to commit to it, take one small step and then another and you don’t stop until you succeed.

This year I’m committed to living more simply. As an author, I love books and I have tons of articles I’ve collected through the years and I have tons of folders with printed ebooks, old magazine articles and just plain stuff. Every day since the New Year I’ve been meaning to clean out my office. Aside from sending some magazines to the recycling bin and packing up a couple of books, I really haven’t made a dent in the clutter. That is until today.

Today I decided I was going to clean out the top drawer of my desk. I forced myself to do this by saying I couldn’t go out for a run or do anything else until the drawer was cleaned.

Know what happened?

Cleaning the drawer took about 20 minutes and once I finished, I tackled another drawer and then another. Cleaning out that first drawer built momentum and I cleared out a bunch of the drawers and my filing cabinet. Total time invested: one and a half hours.

I felt great for having cleared out a bunch of stuff and as weird as it might sound, I’m excited to tackle the rest of my office tomorrow and it all started by cleaning out one drawer.

If your house is in desperate need of a cleanup, why not start with one single drawer. If you only clear out that drawer today and do nothing until next weekend, you’ll be on your way to a clutter-free house. But I bet you will not be able to stop after cleaning out the one drawer.

Go ahead and start now. Pick a drawer, a room, a closet or even your garage and give yourself just 20 minutes to clear out stuff. You’ll be amazed at how much you accomplish, just because you wanted to clear out one drawer.

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Jamie Oliver Putting a Dent in Child Obesity

How Not to Hurry in 9 Steps or Less

The Simple Power of Changing a Routine Question or Answer

Turn Your Passion into Profit

Getting Organized One Drawer at a Time

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