Thanks for your patience for my lack of blogging for the past two weeks. We're on vacation with the family, enjoying the beauty of Prague, in the Czech Republic. It's such a beautiful place- perhaps one of the most beautiful cities in the world. For those who haven't been here yet, I wanted to share a few photos taken over the last few days. Please feel free to comment below and ask any questions you may have. This city inspires me! Hugs, Gail
Twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Twenty-three percent would rather lose their ability to read than their figures. When I read that Oxygen Media survey, I tried to go to my happy place. But I couldn't get there. Because I know we have a problem, one that I don't hear anyone else talking about. The problem is not just about that 25 percent of young women who would rather be hot than smart; rather, it's about a culture that actually makes that a rational choice: rewarding girls for…
I had a great conversation last week with my mother-in-law, which in and of itself, isn't remarkable. What's remarkable however, is the fact that she passed away more than two years ago. Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing today's Inspirational Luminary, Maureen Hancock. After an hour of questions, I thanked Maureen and our interview ended. That's when she asked me if I'd like to "speak" to anyone. To explain this in the proper context, Maureen is a spirit medium who has been communicating with dead people since she was a small child. After reading her book, The Medium…
Kindness matters. In fact, it may be the only thing that really does. In today's world, kindness is one of the things we appreciate most, yet it oft time remains one of our least shared attributes. We buy books about sharing random acts of kindness, yet cut someone off in traffic. We are kind with our friends, yet quick tempered with strangers. We say nice things to one another, yet gossip behind someone else's back. We've learned to compartmentalize our kindness rather than make it a way of life. The vast majority of us believe in God and follow one…
Happy Mother's Day! As a tribute to all of the great mothers, @InspireMeToday reached out to our friends on Twitter and asked this question... What's the #1 thing that your mom taught you, that you are the MOST grateful for? Just reading the tweets as they arrived, I smiled, laughed, shook my head in agreement and most of all, felt warm inside with the outpouring of such love for our Mamas. Enjoy it and share it with you mom or anyone else you know who has a mom. :) Here's what more than 100 folks who responded had to say...…
Last night President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a US military operation in Pakistan. Within minutes, we watched as America celebrated. While part of me was relieved that the head of the snake known as Al Qaeda had been chopped off, part of me felt a sadness at our revelry. Don't get me wrong- I was happy to hear that bin Laden could no longer spread his hate for America. I love this country and I've spent a good deal of my time/resources supporting our troops, even creating and delivering the World's Longest Letter of…
Wow! Here's some exciting news. I just received a copy of an official proclamation from the office of the Westchester County Executive designating May 4, 2011, and each year thereafter to be "Make A Promise Day." I want to express my sincere appreciation to Robert Astorino, the Westchester County Executive, for issuing this proclamation. It’s a big step forward in my mission to establish Make A Promise Day as a widely recognized day for celebrating the amazing power of making a promise. The proclamation underscores the power and the appeal of the Make A Promise idea. I’m thrilled because it…
Jack Henderson, our newest and one of our youngest luminaries, is a mere school boy, but he's already raised over £13,000 for the Sick Kids' Friends Foundation in Edinburgh. Jack has been accepting requests to draw pictures in return for donations to the foundation, which supports the children's hospital his baby brother Noah regularly visits for chest problems. Here's one of our favorites! Jack has many amazing pictures up on his site, jackdrawsanything.com. With over 500 picture requests, he has had to stop taking new requests as he is so busy, but if you enjoy his pictures, we hope that you will consider visiting…
The Town Board of Yorktown New York approved a "Make A Promise Day" resolution of February 15, 2011. Based on that official proclamation, here’s a draft "Make A Promise Day" proclamation that I encourage other towns, cities, counties, states and countries to adapt and adopt to inspire others to make and keep their promises. Whereas, Make a Promise Day is the only unofficial "holiday" dedicated to personal empowerment, goal achievement and integrity enhancement; Whereas, Make A Promise Day encourages individuals to turn important goals into heartfelt promises thereby increasing the probability of reaching those goals; Whereas, celebrating Make A Promise Day will…
This Easter weekend, I was blessed by a visit from my niece, Kristie, an energetic, athletic, college freshman. It was only natural that we'd take the bikes out of storage, give them a spring tune up and hit the mountains. It had been years since I'd been on my mountain bike and I was feeling out of shape and a bit intimidated by the mountains of Montana. On Saturday we set off for the west side of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, to a campground called Fish Creek. The snowy roads had been plowed but were not yet open…
Mike O'Mary believes every one of us has the power to change someone's life. When Mike was a teenager, his brothers and sisters were placed in an orphanage. He moved away to live with his father, but he visited his siblings whenever he could. While Mike always tried to do something special during the time they spent together, he never really knew what his brothers and sisters thought of him or his visits with them. But many years later, Mike received a letter in the mail. He opened it to find a hand-written note from his youngest sister. In that…
A quick thought experiment… What if God didn’t banish mankind from Eden? What if God just added the complexity of choice so you could choose to realize that you are blessed and holy and an extension of God on earth – or not? If that were true, perhaps you could realize that you are perfect, designed to learn and grow, and that everything is a blessing that’s designed to enrich your life. How would this change how you experience the world? How would being blessed change how you feel? Perhaps you’d feel more confident in your ability to handle whatever…
Nature has always served as one of my greatest teachers. Yesterday was no exception, as the spring weather in the mountains was a fun reminder for me to live in the present moment. The saying in the Rocky Mountains is, "If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes", as like life, it's always changing. It's late April, yet yesterday I awoke to a beautiful blanket of snow. Knowing that I must live in the moment NOW, I jumped out of bed and announced that I was going for a walk. My husband and Koda, our dog, decided to join…
Author Stanislaw J. Lec once said, "I wanted to tell the world just one word -- but, unable to do that, I became a writer." And writer Isaac Asimov confessed, "If I knew that I had only six minutes to live . . . I'd type a little faster." For thirty years I've been typing as fast as I can, and striving to distill all I could into that one special word. But unable to do that, I've written a number of books -- each like my children and grandchildren, different from the others, and each serving a mysterious purpose…
Throughout my career as an artist and speaker at conferences, team building events and creative workshops, many people have asked me what's the secret to working on many different creative fields and still reach a good level of quality in all of them. The secret is simple, depth. Imagine you are sitting on the rocks in front of the ocean, looking at the waters. You think you can see something moving down below, some shapes maybe, some colors. You can guess as to what is living down there, what behaviors, events, patterns are beneath those boundaries. The truth is, as…
My inspiration was during second grade at Hockaday School. I wanted magnets for my locker and then I took a class where we learned how to start a business. They taught us how to take out a loan at the bank, market and sell a product. Our class made stationary. Each of us applied for jobs. The positions consisted of a business manager, design team, advertising, etc. I became the business manager. They taught me how to write a business plan. This whole idea inspired me. That summer, I had my Mom take me to the library to search for…
The main problem modern thinking people have with the mystical realm is... over-thinking. We're often not quite intelligent enough to realize that it's the "logical" parts of our brains that insist on "logical" explanations for everything. This is like banks insisting on their own bailouts, to which I say: duh. Thus are many bright spiritual-minded folk calling for something smarter. Let us, for instance, follow the didactic brilliance of India's old Brahman priests who used to debate the divine until there was nothing left to say, knowing full well that the real answer lay in what religious scholar Karen Armstrong…
