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What’s wrong with simple pleasures in life?

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I recently had my annual check-up and was asked a standard question on the form: How much coffee do you drink?

 

“Three cups a day,” I wrote down.
The young female doctor scanned my answers and told me to cut back to one a day. “Three’s too much,” she said in a scolding tone.
I did what I always do when I disagree with someone. I tell them, “I’m from Europe,” as though that lets me off the hook.
I’m sorry, but there are some habits I enjoy, like my coffee before the gym, my coffee around 10 a.m. with a Danish cookie, and my coffee after lunch.
I refuse to change because statistics show one year that one cup of coffee is acceptable, but three is not. And the following year, caffeine is supposed to be good for you.
Simple pleasures like coffee or tea, should be enjoyed and not used to make you feel “bad” when you’re already doing everything you can to live a healthy life like: working out, eating fresh vegetables, fruit, lean protein and no fast food.
Now that I’ve been able to vent my frustration, time for me to grab my mid-morning Peet’s coffee. If you have not heard the story I wrote called: “My Italian Lover,” (trust me; it’s related,) you might enjoy a laugh.
What are your simple pleasures in life?

How to make a "someday" dream into reality. Chris Guillebeau talks in LA.

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Last Friday evening, one of my recent dreams became a reality: I met Chris Guillebeau. I arrived early and parked myself in a plastic chair, second to front row seat, inside a fun and funky bookstore called, Book Soup, in West Hollyood.
Bursting at the seams, a crowd of enthusiastic fans of all ages, including a young boy, (you can view photos taken by Dyana Valentine,) came to listen to him speak. There is a photo of Chris talking to me in the middle of all the pictures. You can’t miss my bright red sweater.
Chris talked about: how to live a remarkable life in a conventional world. He believes the two most important questions we need to ask ourselves are:
1). What do you really want to get out of life?
2). What can you offer the world that no one else can?
He mentioned a common theme that crops up when people e-mail him about taking action for something they want to do, or to change in their lives.“I worry I’m too late.”
Chris replies, “The best time to start was probably last year, but failing that, today will do.”
Unfortunately, I did not hook up with Jodi Sagorin, whom I wrote about last week.
I have many “someday” dreams that I plan to make into reality.  
What about you?
What dreams do you wish to make into reality?

Be a risk taker, make a Google connection

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 Jodi Sagorin author of blog
Have you ever Googled a topic that interests you and found someone online that you’d like to connect with?
Well, here’s what happened to me yesterday morning. I Googled “Gutsy People” since I’m intrigued by risk-takers, and nineteen-year-old Jodi Sagorin, and her blog, “If you never did, you should,”  popped up.
I was fascinated by this young woman and her passion for adventure, and risk-taking. Was she born with it? How did it develop? Did it come from her parents? And then I noticed an article in the Orange County newspaper, my local paper, “Irvine teen chooses India over prestigious University.” Jodi wanted to volunteer in India to empower women in poverty-stricken areas.
I sent Jodi an e-mail asking if I could interview her and if she was still in India. She wrote back, and she’s now in Orange County, only one town north of me, and is also a huge fan of Chris Guillebeau’s, “The Art on Non-Conformity.”
So why did Jodi start her blog?
“To show people that it’s possible to live a life of adventure. I traveled a lot with my parents as a child. My dad’s the gutsy one! He’s a skydiver, heli-boarder, surfer, snowboarder, skater, anything and everything.”

How did you become Gutsy? What influenced you? Is it something you’re born with or you develop?

I was definitely born gutsy and I have the battle scars to prove it. My parents had their hands full with me, constantly yanking me out of trees, out of huge surf, you name it. The nurses in the broken bones department in the ER knew me by name. Although my gutsiness is inherent, I’m a firm believer that anyone can be gutsy if they make the decision to be. If you’re not born with it, work on it. Challenge yourself. Get out there. Dive in. Jump off. Launch. It’s so worth it.
What motivates you in life?
Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to live a full life. Full of adventure and full of experiences. I’m always dreaming, goal-writing, scheming, and sparking. I think that’s what it’s all about. I guess my motivation is the fear of conformity and mediocrity.
What would you like your life to be like at 25, 35, 45?
Toughie! My answers are the same for each one: I want to be running a few businesses I love, traveling the world, jamming and collaborating with awesome people, jumping off things, dreaming, doing, and staying enthusiastic about life in general. I guess you can throw in an awesome guy and possibly some spawn of my own, too.
What would you tell someone who’s afraid of change?
Get over it. Embrace it. Live a little. We’re all a little scared of getting out of our comfort zone, but once you realize that change is progress, life gets a whole lot more interesting. Make the decision to be remarkable.
Who do you admire?
I admire a lot of people and have tons of people I consider heroes. The ones that come to the top of my head are: Seth Godin, Chris Guillebeau, Danielle Laporte, Lachlan Cotter, and Jonathan Mead.
Chris Guillebeau
So tomorrow evening, I shall meet both Jodi and Chris Guillebeau at his Unconventional Book Tour in Los Angeles
at Book Soup (8818 Sunset Blvd.), Friday night at 7pm — hope to see you there!
Do you have any stories to share about people you admire?

How to achieve the ideal work-life balance

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Let’s talk about work-life balance with best-selling author, 
renowned CEO and performance coach, Nigel Marsh.

When Nigel turned 40, he decided to step back from the work force and spend a year at home with his wife and four young children. “I found it quite easy to balance work and life when I didn’t have any work. Not a very useful skill, especially when you’re not making money,” he says. He then returned to work and spent the past seven years, studying the work/life balance, and came up with four observations.
Four Observations on work/life balance
1). If society is to make progress we need an honest debate. The core issue is that certain jobs and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day to day basis with a young family.There are 1,000’s of people working long hours at jobs they don’t like to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.
2). Governments and corporation aren’t going to solve the issues for us. It’s up to us as individuals to take control and design the life you want. It’s important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation. Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with. It’s in their DNA. We have to be responsible for setting and enforcing the boundaries that we want in our life.
3). We have to be careful with the time frame that we chose upon which to judge our balance. We need to be realistic. You can’t do it all in one day.
We need to elongate the time frame without falling into the trap of thinking
I’ll have a life when:
  • I retire.
  • My kids have left home,
  • My wife has divorced me,
  • My health is failing.
  • I’ve got no mates or interests left.
A day is too short; after I retire is too long. There has got to be a middle way.
4). We need to approach balance in a balanced way. Other parts to life are:
  • The intellectual side
  • The emotional side
  • The spiritual side
To be balanced we need to attend to all areas.Nigel tells a story about spending time with one of his four kids. He took Harry to a park, then to eat pizza. Back home he gave him a bath, read him a story and tucked him into bed. As Nigel left Harry’s room, Harry said, “Dad,this has been the best day of my life. EVER.”

“I hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t taken him to Disneyworld or bought him a PlayStation,” Nigel remarked.
Nigel points out that small things do matter.“Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think it can transform society.””We can change society’s definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins,to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like.”

“And that I think, is an idea worth spreading.”
So what are your questions or comments for Nigel?
I highly recommend his book, Fat, Forty and Fired. I shall post his responses to your questions in a future blog post. (Nigel has a deadline for his upcoming book.)
Thanks so much for your interest on this fascinating topic of work- life balance.

What is Panic-itis? I’m letting you in on my secret

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 Woman's Thoughts Pictures, Images and Photos

Lately, I’ve been suffering from a case of panic-itis. Now there are two ways I can handle this topic: 

  1. The Professional Way, “Five Simple Ways to Fight off Panic-itis,” or
  2. The Gutsy Way, “Say it like it is.”

Which one would you like to hear? Well, tough! Today you won’t get the professional way. My head feels like taking the easy route. 

So what’s going on? What are the symptoms of panic-itis?

  • A night with blog topics floating around my mind. Which one to pick? Thankfully one popped out.
  • 684 e-mails in my inbox. (Oops. I should perhaps not have revealed this, but don’t worry, I’ve taken care of all of them.)
  • Researching improvements I would like to make with my blog in the future.
  • Panic-itis over perfecting my final query letter to submit to agents. It has to be ready before my kids come home in two weeks.
  • A book proposal? How about a business and marketing plan? That’s easier for me to write.
  • Wondering how I can get 2,000 subscribers so I can impress a future agent and publisher. Now wouldn’t that be super. I’d be grateful if you would like to subscribe thus helping me promote GutsyWriter.
  • Panic-itis on how to use Twitter effectively. Great advice from GetintheHotSpot.

Now it’s time for the sun to come out and shine on Miss Footloose for being the featured success story on the Expat blogger website. Many of my blogger friends know her blog: Life in the Expat Lane. She is a brilliant writer and her stories always make me laugh.This is where I go when I want to get rid of my panic-itis.


What about you? Are you suffering from panic-itis?

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