Category: inspire14

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words

words

I am a words person through and through.

One of my great friends, who is my mentor, a fellow author and all round brilliant person, drove down to our shack today and we spent the day with tea, a storm and a two year old.

The sun may have been hiding behind the clouds, but one thing we were not short on was words.

Simple story telling words.

Deep wisdom filled words.

Funny tale type of words.

Dreaming kind of words.

Encouragement into our future kind of words.

We spoke for hours on end and I promise you there was not one word spoken about another in comparison. There was not one word spoken that pulled other writers down or other creatives compared too.

We spoke words of life.

These are my favourite days.

There is nothing more discouraging for me to walk away from a conversation full of gossip, talking about others and tearing people apart.

I honestly abhor it.

It leaves me feeling dirty.

I am no saint.

I need to count the cost of my words often.

But I want to be thrifty with my words, knowing that they build both life and death.

I want to live a life of encouragement, truth and beauty.

I have been thinking about these words of late and the way that I handle my relationships.

Truthful; honest… not filling my conversation with over the top untruthful flattery. Being real, being authentic, being truthful. Not saying things that I don’t mean, just to make the person like me. Careful Truthfulness. I am over flattery.

Gentle; more vulnerable…As a leader I want to be gentler with those around me and also mostly myself.

Fearless; Stepping away from people pleasing…I want to be a person who is Brave in my conversations, fearless of people and okay with who I am. Reminding myself that I am enough. I am sick of trying to impress others with my words. I want to be truly authentic.

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What are your words for this season?

Let us be a people that choose our words carefully.

Speak tomorrow

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A defining day; my creative gang

maxi gang

maxi gang one

maxi gang two

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My little man Maximus has a little gang.

Sierra, Harrison, Chloe and Maximus.

They climb forts, they dine together on pikelets, carrot sticks and drumsticks, they discuss pertinent topics like helicopters, fire engines and Lightning Mc queen.

Together they are a force to be reckoned with, fighting the badies and finding new adventures to explore.

We all need a gang.

Who is in yours?

Creativity done in collaboration is one of the finest pursuits of life.

Today I walked a foyer full of homemade goods, that women had spent hours, painstakingly creating, hoping someone would catch their eye and buy their wares.

A room full of creative conspirators, wanting to inspire and make goods that can help their family thrive.

I was proud of my creative collaborators today.

They were amazing.

Today marks a very special day for me.

I officially sold my very last paper back copy of my first book Capture 30 days. It is still available in an updated e-book format, but the very last copy is a milestone that cannot go past without celebration.

I remember the very day that those 3,000 copies arrived on a very single, very green young woman’s doorstep. The courier didn’t understand my fear as he dropped them on my doorstep. I wasn’t excited, I sat on my porch with my creative co- conspirators and I flipped out.

What was I going to do with that many books?

I had made an expensive and big mistake.

I had no idea that the day would come, when I would sell my last copy and silently remember.

I remembered my fear, I remembered my excitement, I remembered the 15 year old that wrote a list and on top of that list;

To write and publish a book.

3,000 sales may not ever make the best sellers list but today I’m proud. In 3,000 homes, in bookcases, at the back of cupboards, on bedside tables, sit my thoughts on creativity and inspiration.

I just had a go.

What do you need to just have a go at doing?

Jump in.

Be bold.

Gather your gang.

You never know the day might come when you sell your last copy and that sense of satisfaction that you did what you set out to do, will arrive.

All my love

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My creative capture gang: (who without them this project would have never happened.)

Steve and Elaine Fraser

Kym Basoka: Graphic designer and all round best friend.

Bonnie Machell: Photographer and dearest discusser of all things life.

Penny Webb: Head cheerleader

Sue Gifford: reformatted e-copy.

Sarah Churchill: editor extraordinaire!

Thanks for being my co-conspirators in creative crime.

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creative community interview

Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH

I was interviewed recently by Elaine Fraser from Beautiful Books all about creativity and harnessing its power.

The interview was published today on her website with questions such as…

  • When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?
  • What have been some of the detours you’ve taken along the way?
  • What did it take to discover to your unique voice? Have you found it yet?
  • What have you mastered? Are there tasks, skills, or opportunities you’ve had to develop, or that you are still developing, in your field?
  • If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?
  • What change would you like to see in the world?

Click here and read the interview and my answers today.

Have a great one!

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being famous

Yesterday one of my face book friends wrote this status update;

‘I have finally got to 1,000 friends here on face book, but in real life I think I have about four.’

I also made a quote design from a status update from a group of creatives I love here in my city…

being famous

I am still in the aftermath of watching ‘The Fault with Our Stars’ at the movies yesterday and it has got me thinking how our society rates success by ‘how well we are known, rather than how well we have lived.’

The Mac Donald’s effect has taken over our culture as a definition of success. If we mass produce something and make it accessible to everyone, that is now brilliance.

What about the quality?

What about living a quiet and authentic existence, creating beauty in our moments with those we love dearly?

A quote from John Green that arrested me yesterday was this…

how wide is your love

Why do we think being loved widely, makes us a success?

Why do we believe that our quick rise to fame in culture is a great attribute for our resume?

Why do we believe that large numbers following or attending something means that it is truthful, excellent and successful?

Some of the most inspirational people I know, aren’t even on social media.

Some of the most creative people I have ever met, are loved deeply and produce out of that place of security and possibility.

Some of the most astounding feats have happened and have never been captured or reproduced anywhere except the moment when they were created.

I heard someone once say,

‘We are living our lives trying to impress people we will never meet, buying the lifestyle with money we don’t even have, to please people we don’t even like.’

Big is not always better.

Fashionable is not always cool.

Brilliance is not often found in a highly marketed package.

Happiness is rarely found in large moments of success.

Why do we think so many celebrities struggle with their daily lives outside of the spotlight?

I want to be loved deeply, by a core of people, who know me and who trust me.

I want to live true to who I am, who I was designed to be, who I am purposed to be.

I want to be happy.

Happiness is not found in large moments of consumerism.

It is found internally when we make peace with who we truly are.

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okay? okay?

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Living in a wrecked kind of haze this week. Yesterday a story was told and today people responded and a little six year old boy got his first ever toothbrush.

Living today in the midst of human stories that are brilliant, snotty and heart aching at the same time.

I don’t know whether there is a message in the times or if I am seeking authentic stories and they keep finding me in a puddle of tears but I snuck off to the movies by myself this morning and was completely undone.

I am lucky it was the 10.30am session, with a spattering of people who together sat in the dark envelope of the theatre and cried endlessly.

The Fault in Our Stars, is the most breathtakingly real movie I have seen in a very long time.

It will take me weeks to unpack the explosion of inspiration in my heart, but mostly I came away with a sense of urgency to live life to the fullest with every moment given.

Live now, when opportunities arise, grasp them, don’t think too much just jump.

Moments can be fleeting or they can be pools of possibility inviting us to jump into their infinity.

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Time is fleeting and the life we are given speeds by, but at the same time some moments can last a lifetime and it is not the length of the moment but the opportunities grasped in the midst of it.

We can wait our whole life to truly live or we can go with the possibility and be ever changed.

Like my friend Beth this week. She was booked to fly to Berlin, but in one moment, she decided to throw that plan away and to stay and help.

To help someone in need.

To accept the possibility of one story.

To live beyond fear, what if and could this possibly be okay?

Who is waiting on the other side of our decision to have a go?

What story is waiting to be written by our courage shown to stop, listen and act?

By worrying about the what ifs, we can miss the potential in the moment.

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

I walk away from the last couple of days so grateful for every opportunity I have with my little family.

I feel determined to say yes, to the little stories that come my way (even when they are inconvenient) and I feel overwhelmed at the possibility to live a substantial life in the quiet of my own little place in this world.

I don’t want to live out loud.

I want to quietly live authentically to the beliefs that I hold.

Letting my yes be yes and my no be no.

Living beyond the fear that tries to contain me.

Aware of how truly blessed I am to have found love.

Grateful for every human story that I encounter and truly listen too.

To see every person not as a number but a possibility. To see every human not as their behaviour but the story behind the pain.

To see every moment with the potential of radical real life.

Authentically painful and brilliantly real at the same time.

I could keep on writing, sentences that probably don’t mean much to anyone else but me.

Go watch the movie.

Then breathe deep.

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That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

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