Inspiration Archives

Out of This World! (Seriously, I mean literally!)

WOW, I am jumping up and down excited and had to share this with you! I just got an email from Guy Laliberte's team- from space! Guy is currently with the cosmonauts at the International Space Station. I hope you listened to my interview with Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil and OneDrop.org. I was one of my best interview ever. If not- check it out! Anyway, I've been invited to submit three questions to Guy WHILE HE'S IN SPACE! He'll answer the questions and we'll post the mp3 file here for you to listen to his answers. I'm…

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Forgiveness Is How The World Changes

"And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him." Luke 17:4 When I was 12 I fell in love and all I wanted was to kiss her on the mouth. One day I did and it was sweeter than I imagined. That kiss made me excel at baseball, but going home at dusk was a short-lived glory for I knew when I got home I would have to pass my stepfather who would be drinking. "Where you been?" he growled as I came in. "Playing baseball," I answered,…

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Inevitable Dreams- the Global Hug Tour

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. ~ Christopher Reeve Almost a year ago we had the vision for the Global Hug Tour….. 2 people in a small prop plane, flying 31,000 miles around the world on a 5-month tour to gather inspiration, deliver 100,000 hugs and share millions with important non-profit causes. We created a preliminary flight plan, an itinerary, identified the non-profits we wanted to help and actively searched for the funding. Knowing the cause was great; we created a team…

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Twitter’s Made Me a Better Writer

Twitter has made me a better writer. When you have only 140 characters, you learn how to communicate in fewer words. After more than 13,300 tweets, I've taken this one step further and now unconsciously condense all of my thoughts into fewer words. All of my written materials, blogs, website copy, etc, are now shorter, punchier and more concise than they were pre-Twitter. My most powerful tweets all started out as something so much bigger, longer and more complicated. I edit and condense continually. Recently I was moved to offer assistance when some peeps whined about how helpless they were…

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Do Unto Others

Thanks for all of the personal emails to my last post on religion. Seems like it brought up a lot of beliefs for quite a few folks. In the last week I came across something very interesting that I wanted to share with you. In focusing on the 90% where all religions seem to agree, I went to the core of each religion- to the Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Interestingly enough, each major religion says pretty much the same thing..... (listed in alphabetical order) Brahmanish: This is the sum of duty:…

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Choose to Benefit from Adversity

Choices are all around us. Sometimes the choice is easy, sometimes it is not. Even when we have to choose between bad and worse, there is still a choice. Our life experience, good, bad and indifferent, is made up of a series of choices. Our circumstances, or childhood, or life thus far is simply a series of events that got us to where we are today. What we do with those experiences and how we use them to make us stronger is what's important. Many times people will look back at their life and their circumstances and say they were…

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Breaking Away from Your Own Mind

I want to tell you about my friend, "Jon." Jon hated his father for years because he abandoned his family when Jon was only five years old. Jon resented how his mother was almost never home, and when she was home, she was too exhausted to be a "proper" mother to him and his younger siblings. Jon thought it was unfair that she had had to work so hard, and that he had to take care of his younger brothers. He hated the poverty in which he grew up, and he blamed it all on his absent father. He carried…

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The Only Road to Travel is Love

There are two things we typically don't talk about- politics and religion. Yesterday I received an email from a friend out of the blue, telling me in a harsh way that unless I adopt the same religious beliefs he has, I'll never be happy. Funny thing is, I haven't talked with this friend in months, and even more interesting- I am happy! Because his chosen religion has brought joy to his life, his way of loving others is now sharing these beliefs with them. His religion teaches him that it's his job to reach out and convert others to his…

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Watch What You Ask For… You Might Just Get It!

Wooohooooo!!!!! This past week, one of my wishes came true. Six years ago my daughter and I walked into the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville to hear four songwriters perform. The place was jammed and the only two seats were stools at the bar. Grateful, we sat and listened to the music. Within minutes I was captivated. One of the songwriters, Josh, played a song, Forever Valentine. The song was about a 50ish year-old woman looking back at her life, knowing that we can't live forever. I was so moved not only by this handsome young guy, his incredible musical talent,…

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A Votre Sante (To Your Health!)

(The past week has been very difficult as you may have guessed from my silence. The longer I waited to write, the worse the procrastination became. Please accept my apologies in advance for the tardiness of this post.) In the last blog post I wrote about the diet I was undertaking and how I needed to see some tangible results if that specific plan would work for me long term. I've been silent for two reasons. Perhaps I shared my original "solution" prematurely, as what I was doing wasn't working for me. The last thing I want to do is…

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The Balance of the Scales- Day 6 update (for Friday)

One of the themes in my life is definitely balance. As you know, this past week I've begun the process to release some extra weight. I'm not a patient person and I want it gone now. Don't you just love arguing with reality? I don't usually get great results when I do that. Anyway, I followed a very strict program for the last week and it's not fun. I know, it's not "supposed" to be fun, but I guess I look at it this way. In my mind, there are three main indicators that what I'm doing is working- 1)…

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Changing Habits- Update on Day Five

Have you ever had a day when you had to drag yourself out of bed?  That was my morning yesterday. I just couldn't get my body moving. Koda and I even delayed our walk until mid morning, because I had little energy. It seems my body was trying to tell me something. I know I'm making changes. We are such habitual creatures. Over these 21 days I know that I'm creating new habits with a new eating and exercise plan and that changes in how I feel are to be expected. I just want them to be positive changes! The…

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