writing : blog
“The best things in life are not things.” – C. & J. Woods On Sunday, August 28, 2005, as I cleaned Cheerios off the kitchen floor for the 59th time, and just after the contents of a 12.5 fluid ounce glass bottle of maple syrup were ceremoniously unleashed onto that same floor by a 36” tall human tornado named Tess,…
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“how like the bumble bee I am in my work or my life i see where i want to go and in my panic i forget to look for the open window” -Marybeth Fidler This week, I had an extraordinary experience with chili peppers, mints, a smoking cook, and big doors.
“When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.” -Tuli Kupferberg One interesting thing about life is that at a certain point, it all starts repeating. Or perhaps it’s been repeating all along and it just takes a certain distance (age?) to begin seeing the patterns that emerge, again and again. And perhaps those patterns keep emerging because we keep not seeing…
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“Put down your clever,Let your partner affect you:Tenets of Improv” – review of Keith Johnstone’s Impro on HaikuBookReviews I recently had an interesting experience that revealed to me a big truth, a Big Truth, that is, in capital letters. It was an encounter with a client. My business partner, David, and I were working with the senior team of an organization…
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“A lot of disappointed people have been left standing on the street corner waiting for the bus marked Perfection.” – Donald Kennedy Since leaving Freedom High School on Independence Boulevard with its (subtle) school colors of red, white, and blue and its aptly named football team (The Patriots, of course), I’ve carried a certain pair of pants around with me…
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"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." – Alan Kay (American computer scientist and researcher) My daughter Emma and I watched a show on Animal Planet last Saturday that made me laugh. Then it made me think. And then it made me realize I had laughed because I could identify with the people who made me laugh in the first place….
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"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it." -Joseph Campbell If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la. What can I say? There’s no defending it. I won’t pretend it…
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“Sheridan’s gifts as a teacher were as rare as the purity of his passion. Wherein did these gifts lie? In his brilliance? Yes. In his mastery of his subject? Of course. In his capacity for lucid, concrete, and vivid explanation? Again, yes. But there is another factor, one whose roots lie in magic or the supernatural. Sheridan had charm.” –Jonathan…
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Every summer, I escape to the beautiful countryside outside Portland, Oregon, to teach for a few weeks at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. It’s a fantastic learning space, with people from all over the world. This summer, I’ll teach two 5-day courses: one from July 25-29 on “Building Effective Diverse Teams in Organizations” with my friend, colleague, and co-author,…
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"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt In the fall of 1988, I sailed around the world. Actually, that sounds more romantic and rugged than it was. It’s not as if I was hoisting…
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Patti Digh is the author of six books, including bestsellers Life is a Verb and Creative is a Verb. She travels the world teaching others about mindfulness: to live fully, love well, let go deeply, and make a difference. Patti's comments have appeared on PBS and in The New York Times, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the London Financial Times, and many other international publications. She writes a thank you note every morning.
