This year I have decided to get into action and live with more intention. One way I am doing this is through regular creation and sharing of content, whether that be written, video, images, or audio. What follows is an attempt to clarify my own vision and purpose for the content to come.
Why I’m Creating and Sharing
- To “help [others] not just learn new information, but make sense of it all in terms of their own businesses and their lives.” (Judy Lee Dunn, bobwp)
- To be part of the “critical mass of badasses who are willing to dare, fall, feel their way through tough emotion, and rise again” while trying “to solve the problems in the world that feel intractable: poverty, violence, inequality, trampled civil rights, and a struggling environment, to name a few.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- To to challenge the status quo with bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness. (Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)
- To “change people with [my] work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change [whole communities].” (Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)
- To increase my capacity “and willingness to lean in to discomfort and vulnerability.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- To take what I am learning about myself and the world around me to change how I’m living in lasting and real ways.
- To write as a way to help me process the breadth of information I consume, and I’m exposed to on a day-to-day basis. (Alexander Jones)
- To experience the “love, belonging, and joy” that comes from a “willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- To practice spirituality.
Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to one another by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and belonging.
— Brené Brown, Rising Strong
Core Beliefs
- “Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- Our “experiences can profoundly affect the people around [us] whether [we’re] aware of it or not.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- “Creativity is the mechanism that allows learning to seep into our being and become practice.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
Principles to Guide My Process
- I will “stay curious about [my] own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- I will seek to “understand and stay curious about how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are connected in the people [I interact with], and how those factors affect relationships and perception” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- I will “lean in to discomfort and vulnerability.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong)
- I will embrace “the scientific spirit — the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine — it always keeps the way beyond open — always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake — after a wrong guess.” (Walt Whitman)
- I will “hold [my] faith with open hands, living with great conviction and yet at the same time humbly admitting that [my] knowledge and perspective will always be limited.” (Rob Bell, What We Talk about When We Talk about God)
- I will imagine things complexly. (Complexly)
Conclusion
What will truly come of this process, I do not know. But I’m going to practice in public knowing it will be imperfect with the belief it’s the best way to make progress.