Alice's Will to Finish

Article by Tara Thean

Swim with sharks. Meet a famous pop band. Stay in a caravan. These are all rather standard items to scribble on one’s bucket list – though there’s an inherent problem with most lists: they often languish, unachieved. But a British 16-year-old, facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, set out to tackle her list. And just a year after its creation, she’s managed to strike through all 17 items.

Alice Pyne, from Ulverston in northwest England, created her bucket list after learning more than four years ago that she had terminal Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She posted them all on her blog, which she started in the summer of 2011, to help her keep track of her progress. Just under her blog’s main banner, she alludes to her skepticism in completing all the items on her list: “Some are possible, some will remain a dream.”

It’s time for Pyne to update that text, because in July, Pyne ticked off the final adventure on her list: whale watching in Canada. Though whale watching had long been one of her most important to-dos, Pyne had almost given up hope of ever being able to go. “I just couldn’t believe that I was actually there,” she wrote. “I’m sure that the whales heard that I was about, cos they came out and I know that we’ll all remember it forever.”

Just 12 months earlier, she launched the blog to some unexpected fanfare. She quickly became something of an Internet sensation – the hashtag #alicebucketlist began trending on Twitter, attracting the attention of celebrities from David Cameron, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Johnny Depp, according to the Huffington Post. The hashtag even became the top trending term one morning in June, The Guardian reported.

Through her Internet stardom, Pyne has managed to get 40,000 people to join the Bone Marrow Register, according to ITV News. But Pyne, cognizant of her terminal illness, hopes the trend will continue far into the future. “It’s really good that I’m getting so many people to join the register, but what about when I’m not here?” she wrote in 2011. “I don’t want it all to stop.” Pyne then explained her next mission: to have large card companies such as Hallmark, Camden, and Phoenix become involved in spreading the word as well.

Pyne’s blog continues to attract volumes of traffic, drawing over four million readers with dozens of encouraging comments written on each post. But perhaps the greatest inspiration comes from the young Pyne herself. Near the top of her blog, she writes: “You only have one life…live it!”

via time.com

The Emotions of Color in Commerce

"We usually associate fast food brands with warm, bright colors because they catch our attention. Vibrant tones are, in fact, well received by just about everyone. More often than not, fast food is an impulse buy: while driving down the road, the flash of gold or red catches our eye and our ravenous hunger sets in, not to be satisfied until we've chowed down into a Big Mac.

Imagine if McDonald's changed out the golden arches for muted blue ones. The restaurant would lose the pizzazz and immediacy of the promise. The arches would blend in with the sky and competitors' brands would stand out and take the lead.

Blue represents security and solid stability. Because of this, banks often use blue in their visual brand marks. The light blue color Pepsi used in the Pepsi Refresh project was a nice modern blue, which stands for health, wellness, and balance.

As we all know, green has become a very important color and word in the last decade. Companies that want to be known as “green” often incorporate the color into their palette. On the other end of the spectrum, red is one of the colors most widely used in advertising. It is everywhere from fast food to lipstick, and red stands for passion, love, food, and vitality."
via themcreativegroup.com

School of Athens

Regarded as one of my favorite paintings, The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of commission to decorate the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The picture has long been seen as a masterpiece and a perfect representation of the High Renaissance

More information from Khan Academy below.

The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. These figures all lived at different times, but here they are gathered together under one roof.

The two thinkers in the very center, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left, pointing up) have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incorporated into Christianity. Plato holds his book called The Timaeus.

Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality, and the seat of all truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom.

Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle's Ethics (the book that he holds) "emphasized the relationships, justice, friendship, and government of the human world and the need to study it."

Pythagoras (lower left) believed that the world (including the movement of the planets and stars) operated according to mathematical laws. These mathematical laws were related to ideas of musical and cosmic harmony, and thus (for the Christians who interpreted him in the Renaissance) to God. Pythagoras taught that each of the planets produced a note as it moved, based on its distance from the earth. Together, the movement of all the planets was perfect harmony -- "the harmony of the spheres."

Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower right), holds a sphere of the earth, next to him is Zaroaster who holds a celestial sphere. Ptolemy tried to mathematically explain the movements of the planets (which was not easy since some of them appear to move backwards!). His theory of how they all moved around the earth remained the authority until Copernicus and Kepler figured out (in the late 1500s) that the earth was not at the center of the universe, and that the planets moved in orbits the shape of ellipses not in circles.

via KhanAcademy

I Beg Young People to Travel

 

“A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”
-Muhammad Ali

TEDx: Discover Your Capital

The 4 'Capitals to a Successful Career.'

Jullien “Purpose Finder” Gordon covers the importance of discovering the other 4.0.  

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1. Personal capital: Strengths, talents, gifts, and unique characteristics.

2. Intellectual capital: Knowledge.

3. Social capital: Network (mentors, not just Facebook friends).

4. Influential capital: Impact.

Visionaries: Tom Ford

Designer. Director. Idol.

from OWN's Visionaries

7 Tips for Creating Your Own Destiny

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By Kevin Daum

Are you working on your life or just in it? Here is the perspective and method you need to plan and execute the life and career worthy of your potential.

Too many people whine about not having the life they want. The main reason people fall short of their own expectations is the same reason most companies fail to achieve their objectives: poor planning and execution. In fact, I am amazed at how many successful executives create strategy for their business, leaving their life to chance. Often it's more comfortable (note I didn't say easier) to complain and blame outside factors for lack of accomplishment or unhappiness than to take time to work on life rather than in it.

I choose otherwise. A close entrepreneur friend, J, and I are taking our annual four days away to determine our futures and hold each other accountable. Here are the tips that will assure us of success.

1. Plan a Preferred Future
As Lewis Carroll said: If you don't know where you are going, then any road will get you there. Both J and I are close to 50, so our 60th birthdays are the milestone for this journey. Twelve years is plenty of time to make course corrections and absorb any external factors thrown at us. Our planning will be specific and measurable. We'll take time to examine and discuss the details of every aspect of our lives, personal and professional, to achieve integrated success and happiness.

2. Be Pragmatic
Neither of us will be playing for the NBA at our age (or my height). The future has to reflect what is physically possible with available resources and limitations. Pragmatism isn't in itself restrictive, however; J and I will harness our creativity to design aspirational futures that exploit every opportunity and asset we have. We'll also create filters to keep us from wasting time and energy on what's unachievable or irrelevant.

3. Decide the Who, Not the What
We're defining who we want to be at 60, not what we want to be doing. The who centers on passion, core competencies, and core satisfaction, such as material requirements. If I know who I truly want to be, I can detail what to do, own, resources I need, etc. I can also determine what not to do, own, etc., focusing time and resources where required.

Entrepreneurs Change the World

Remember when you were a kid and has dreams of changing the world? 
This video says, 'there is still time.'

Dream Big.

Keep Resisting Success

9 Reasons Why You Will Never Be Successful
By Joel of Addicted2Success.com
Photo Credit Unknown

1. Because You're Procrastinating - Yes this is one of the more common reasons for most people to never excel in fulfilling their chosen field or business. Instead of taking advantage of every waking moment you make excuses on why you can put it off until tomorrow or put the “grunt” work off until later, which is usually the most important of your daily task. Many will complain about why they’re not successful, but continue to put unimportant events ahead of what really should be a priority to anyone trying to better their situation or build a successful business and the answer is right in front of you and the sad thing is most know it, but fail to do anything about it.

2. Because You Don't Believe You Have Enough - Nine times out of ten if you ask any person or entrepreneur why they have failed in finishing or accomplishing a goal their sentence will begin with Because I don’t…. Depending on what field of business they’re in many of us could guess how that sentence will end. The sad reality is that most of us lack one thing or another and many of our predecessors have overcome many obstacles and proven time and time again that where you live, your financial status, your race, location, height, and/or belief has no take on whether or not you will be successful and it is ultimately up to you.

3. Because You Don't Truly Believe in Your Ideas - I know this doesn’t come as a a surprise to most of you especially if you have ever started a business or had an idea that you thought was just revolutionary or unique with no competition, but once you do a little research or decide to launch you see ten other businesses doing the same thing. As I’m sure you have heard this before, but it is obvious most need to hear it again a successful business begins with a great execution and a failure is well… lack there of. Most ideas have been thought of or tried and tested, but many failed because of their execution and how it was brought about. There are many reasons why the same businesses fail while others succeed timing has a lot to do with it, capital, the person or entrepreneur, knowledge on the subject and much more.

A Wednesday Message: Don't Settle!

 

“There is no passion to be found playing small -
in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
-Nelson Mandela

Inspire Me Daily

“Leaders are visionaries w/a poorly developed sense of fear & no concept of the odds against them.”
-Robert Jarvik

Become a Fan and Be Inspired Daily!

4 Ways to Conquer Fear

Article By Geoffrey James
Photo Credit Unknown

Fear is the enemy of success. Large rewards only result from taking comparably large risks. If you're ruled by fear, you'll never take enough risks and never achieve success you deserve.

If I've learned anything in this life, it's that the actions that scared me the most at the time--leaving a cushy corporate job to freelance, asking my beautiful wife for a first date, and adopting our two kids--have also paid off the most.

That doesn't mean these moves aren't hard at the time, but I've managed to retrain my brain to get past the momentary fear and push toward the payoff. Here are four ideas that I've made an integral part of my thinking:

1. Value Courage Over Security
Repeated surveys have shown that most people value "security" over just about everything else in their lives. People will put up with jobs that they hate, marriages that make them miserable, and habits that are killing them (think "comfort food") simply to feel more secure.

To conquer fear, you must consciously dethrone "security" as the thing that you value most in your life and replace it with the active virtue of "courage." You must decide, once and for all, that it's more important for you to have the courage to do what you must to succeed, rather than to cling to the things that make you feel safe.

2. Differentiate Between Fear & Prudence
Most fears are irrational and unreasonable. For example, you might be afraid to make an important call because if the call doesn't go well, you'll have to face the fact that you "failed." Or you might be afraid to confront a co-worker who acts like a bully, or to start your own business because you're not certain you've got what it takes.

It's these irrational fears that hold you back and keep you from being more successful.

That said, there are other kinds of fear that are actually just simple prudence. For example, you might be afraid to drive aggressively because you might cause an accident. Or you might be afraid to be arrested if you sell a product that kills people.

Prudence is a good thing. Just make sure you aren't pretending to be prudent--when you're just trying to avoid taking reasonable business risks, for instance, or putting yourself on the line to do what's necessary.

3. Treat Fear as a Call to Action
If what you fear is outside of your control (like an economic downturn), write down a specific plan of the exact steps that you'll take in order to adapt, if and when it happens. Once you've completed that task, put the plan aside and have the courage to forget about it. You've done what you can; it's time to move on.

But if what you fear is inside your control--some action that you're afraid to take, that is--take a few moments to prepare yourself, then do the thing that's scaring you.

I mean now. Not tomorrow; not next week. Right now, before you read the rest of this post. Call that person. Write that email. Create a business plan. Do it now!

4. Reframe Fear Into Excitement
Finally, tune in to the aspect of fear that's really fun. Think about the last time you rode a roller coaster: You probably felt plenty of fear, but you were also having a great time.

Let's face it, a life without fear--and without the courage to overcome fear--would be pretty bland and insipid.

A personal note: I want to add that there was a time in my life when "security" was so important to me that I was willing to tolerate being truly miserable. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that it was only when I changed my thinking (using the formula above) that my life came together.

Today, I'm actually really excited whenever I discover something that I'm afraid to do, because I know that something wonderful is going to happen--provided I summon the courage to take action!
via Inc

Turn Your Fears into Excitement

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Translating Our Feelings
Are You Excited or Scared?
via DailyOM

When new challenges and opportunities show up in our lives, we may diagnose ourselves as feeling scared when what we really feel is excited. Often we have not been taught how to welcome the thrill of a new opportunity, and so we opt to back off, indulging our anxiety instead of awakening our courage. One way to inspire ourselves to embrace the opportunities that come our way is to look more deeply into our feelings and see that butterflies in our stomach or a rapidly beating heart are not necessarily a sign that we are afraid. Those very same feelings can be translated as excitement, curiosity, passion, and even love.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid as long as we do not let it stop us from doing the things that excite us. Most of us assume that brave people are fearless, but the truth is that they are simply more comfortable with fear because they face it on a regular basis. The more we do this, the more we feel excitement in the face of challenges rather than anxiety. The more we cultivate our ability to move forward instead of backing off, the more we trust ourselves to be able to handle the new opportunity, whether it’s a new job, an exciting move, or a relationship. When we feel our fear, we can remind ourselves that maybe we are actually just excited. We can assure ourselves that this opportunity has come our way because we are meant to take it.

Framing things just a little differently can dramatically shift our mental state from one of resistance to one of openness. We can practice this new way of seeing things by saying aloud: I am really excited about this job interview. I am really looking forward to going on a date with this amazing person. I am excited to have the opportunity to do something I have never done before. As we do this, we will feel our energy shift from fear, which paralyzes, to excitement, which empowers us to direct all that energy in the service of moving forward, growing, and learning.

Raising an Olympian: Gabby Douglas

Yesterday, Gabby was named the First African American Gold Medal Olympic Gymnast.
Congrats! You've inspired A LOT of people.

The Entitled Bus Rider

Me: Hi, would you like to go on a date?
Girl: Yes
Me: Great!...There’s only one caveat… well…um, can you pick me up?

Chilvary is not dead, it’s just my car is. Well, the truth is I don’t even have a car and I may not have one for a while. I don’t come from money, and I didn’t have a silver spoon hanging from my mouth when I popped out of my mom. I moved to Hollywood literally with a dollar and a dream.

I am like a walking contradiction when I am invited to parties in the Hills and galas in 90210 as I roll up on my two feet, most of the time with a bead of sweat falling from my brow. While everyone else is hopping out of their 430s and 911s, I just hopped off one of the sexiest 704s or 212s you’ll ever see – some even come in fire engine red. Still, I walk in like I own the party as I wipe the bead from my forehead. I am here because I belong here.

Why? Because:

I’m an Athlete
Everyone who is someone knows this: buses do not always run according to schedule so sometimes you will find yourself at your stop on time only to find yourself there nine minutes later - still waiting. On the contrary, there will be these times: it’s 7:03 AM and you’re bus is not scheduled to arrive until 7:08. But you hear it approaching with its roaring motoric tones. “Damn, it’s early,” you think to yourself as you strap up and prepare to blast off, dipping through the crowds and spinning like a pro-football player avoiding those who aren’t paying attention and speeding up like a Olympic runner as the timecode counts down on the stop signal. Your bus arrives and so do you, a little sweat and all.

I’m a Power Networker
Most people know this too: there are some really crazy folks that ride the bus and I am happy to be one of them. You’ll find just as many people smiling and talking to their imaginary friends as you will those who are conversing with other lively beings. I am one of those too. No matter your circumstances or if you have a bag of plastic bottles on your shoulder, if you can hold a conversation then we are going to have a damn good conversation. I’ve listened to tons of stories from how people have met their spouses to advice about ‘getting laid’ to ‘living with minimal regrets.’

I’m an Adventurer
I once took the bus to go wine-tasting. Period.

But after all that, let’s just say, hypothetically speaking of course, your car happens to break down and there are no nearby taxis, your closest friends aren’t returning your calls and we only have a few dollars between the two of us. What do we do? No worries – I will know what time, when and where the bus will be to pick us up and take us to our destination.

The real adventure is in the journey.
So hey, how about 7:00 on Friday night?