I found some great examples of success through sidchas you’ll enjoy seeing. Through Seth Godin, who posts to his blog daily, I learned of Abbey Ryan, who paints a painting a day. I hope she doesn’t mind my showing her ten most recent paintings, to show their beauty and so people don’t confuse a painting a day with skimping. According to Wikipedia, A recognized leader in the “Painting-A-Day” movement, Ryan’s[…] Keep reading →

I’m still busy catching up after over a month on the road, but find public performance for genuine expression so valuable I can’t help using the open-mic opportunity to practice. It’s still gut-wrenching to perform in front of an audience, but that’s a reason to practice, not to avoid it. I said after my sixth performance I wouldn’t keep posting, but the accountability of knowing I’ll post publicly motivates me.[…] Keep reading →

I’m an uncle, not a parent, and a college educator, not a grade school teacher, but I look at how people live their values in raising kids and wonder. I tried to pair questions suggesting differences between people’s values and behavior: Would you blow smoke in a baby’s face? Would you pay to put 10 tons of CO2 into the environment by flying? The pollution from flying is millions of[…] Keep reading →

Writers say “writing is easy. You only have to sit at the typewriter and bleed.” They’re talking about sharing vulnerability, I believe. It also hurts physically. I just sent my editor my third draft of my second non-self-published book. Writing takes enough effort at home. Traveling makes it that much harder. In any case, my butt hurts from sitting so long. My eyes are red from watching the screen so[…] Keep reading →

At this past weekend’s performance a couple developments. The first is that I no longer feel like a beginner. I’m far from mastery, but I’m not sweating just to go on stage, nor struggling to work up the nerve to write, nor wondering what to work on. You learn fast when everything is new, though it’s hardest then. I’m still at the stage of learning fast since I have so[…] Keep reading →

Several people from the audience said they liked the second part of this performance, saying it spoke to them, or something like that. I should be writing my next book, with the deadline for my first draft approaching, but I had the idea for these bits and couldn’t resist trying them. It’s funny that my first attempt, only a few months ago, took me months to prepare. This one I[…] Keep reading →

I’m happy with my latest performance despite the flub in the last seconds. My stage delivery didn’t get as many laughs as the times I practiced the routine with friends, which I attribute to inexperience and needing to practice more, but I’m forgiving about the result. Of the million things to learn to master it I can only learn a few at a time. I’m discovering value from developing the[…] Keep reading →