What Inspires Me Today - July 31

 Joy

There has been a lot on my mind this month.

Turning 50 has made me purposefully take some time to contemplate where I've been, where I'm going, mid-ish life crises, etc.

One of the things today that I've landed on is simple joy, or at least joyful moments.

In a typical day most of us are going to encounter many people. Colleagues, family, service workers, people in the hallways.

We're all going through stuff. All of us. From the smallest things to major life events, we can all use a moment of simple joy.  A smile. A kind word, a wish for good things, a compliment.

It doesn't take much, but it can leave a long impact on someone who may need it - more than we can ever know.

What Inspires Me Today - May 4, 2023

 Totally Missed That

It's annual Goals & Objectives setting time in our office and all of the managers are meeting with their staffs to go through how we did, and what we'd like to do. It's a process that is both daunting and rewarding. In the process this year I was unexpectedly reminded of the power of listening.

And not just listening with our ears.

People are giving us clues all the time to how they are feeling, what they are thinking and how they're generally moving through life. Someone can give an "All Clear" signal verbally but physically be shouting they are not ok.  Or more importantly, a collection of events over time all come together to paint a picture we can't see with a simple question and answer.

We need to care enough about each other to really pay attention to what's happening around us. 

This is not just for managers, but also for those reporting to a manager, or just in general each other. If we don't look beyond our limited perception, we can miss something valuable, if not critical to another person. And in the same way, if we don't speak up or simply acknowledge our own needs to others, we are inadvertently preventing ourselves from getting the support or change that we need.

Too often we spend our lives hindering our communication, blocking ourselves and others from seeing a full picture and experiencing everything that's possible for us. And we totally miss opportunities for our own growth and success.

What Inspires Me Today - April 28, 2023

Trust in the Unkown

Last night I was giving my Intro1 Improv class their end-of-term evaluations.  I both love and loathe evaluation day. I loathe it because it is so time & energy consuming - and for the teachers, it's not as actively "fun" as a usual class. BUT... I love it because we get to talk about the work, how it impacts us and what it means to us.

In one of the evaluations, we started discussing the idea of being vulnerable.  Now, this is INTRO 1 - improvisers first 8 weeks of improv instruction. This is when the nuts and bolts of Yes Anding, Listening, and breaking through our internal editors.  It's rare that we get too deep into a vulnerability discussion.  However, this discussion got me thinking and inspired me in a new way.

Twenty or so years of improvising and teaching and here we are... yet another Intro 1 class turns on a lightbulb.  That alone is enough for a note of inspiration.

When you're improvising, you have to put a good amount of trust in your scene partner... that they will have your back, they won't deny the reality you've created and they will support you and your decisions on stage.  As we were talking through that it occurred to me that as improvisers we are also putting a tremendous amount of trust in the UNKNOWN.

This puts new improvisers, and I'd say seasoned ones too, in a place of vulnerability. We don't know what is going to happen next. But here we are, together in this place, supporting each other and taking a step into that unknown to see what will happen.  

This might be an underlying reason so many people have a tremendous fear of improvising.  We don't really know what's going to happen. You have to trust in the unknown and find out.

This idea plays out in our lives, our relationships, and our work as well.

We have projects, and opportunities, and work that may or may not have a clear outcome... or we know what we want the outcome to be, but the path isn't so clear.  We have to trust in the unknown all the time. 

In improv, we have our scene partners to help us find the way together.

In our work, we have our colleagues, in relationships our friends and spouses, and of course we have ourselves.  And while it feels trite... to survive the unknown, we have to put a lot of trust in ourselves as well.

What Inspires Me Today - April 24

 Paying Forward

On my way in to the office today I was thinking about many things that today's inspiration moment could be about. I guess I should be thankful that there are a lot of things surrounding me from which I can draw inspiration today. I'm going to settle on a moment from my weekend Quiet Time / Devotional.

Now before we get too into it, I don't journal the way I used to, which means I also don't spend a lot of time doing devotionals or Bible Study on a regular basis. There are different reasons for that - another time... but this weekend I landed in Matthew and the parable of the man who was forgiven of his debt and then refused to forgive someone who was indebted to him.

He, of course, was UNforgiven of his debt in the parable...

The lesson is clear... in faith, we have an obligation to bring to the world the mercy and grace that has been given to us. Any good thing that comes to us, we better the world around us by passing the power of that goodness on. A kind word, a forgiveness, a joy... 

I think the same happens on the opposite... we darken our world when we pass on any bad thing... anger, malice, resentment...  

This feel like a very trite message today.  It has a little bit of "that's been done before-ness" to it. I don't like being trite or banal, or cliche... but sometimes it helps to be reminded of the simple truth that we have an impact on our immedate world... and that has an impact back to us. 

We don't live in silos and we are not obligated to walk alone.

How much better the walk and our day is when we share some good along the way.

What Inspires Me Today - April 18, 2023

 Wipe It Down

There is part of me that's excited about this thought and a part of me that equally cringes.

Today's thoughts are on having a clean work area/home/kitchen/etc.  

Now before you get all "Yeah, get your shit together you dirty sons of bitches!" let me say that is where my cringey-ness comes in.  For the most part, I am not that person. I don't mind messiness. In fact, I think creative people tend to be on the messy side. Life is not messy, we do not need to be, nor should we be, perfectly tidy all the time.

What I'm most inspired by today is the process of tidying up - or as I grew up saying in Western PA - Redding Up.  

There is a wonderful sense of peace and purpose in a clean work area - in a clean kitchen or bathroom, or garage.  Getting ready to make dinner, bake a cake, etc feels so much lighter and happy when things are in their place and you have space to work. I know that when I wipe down my desk at work and get rid of the crumbs and dust and dirt, I feel a real sense of relief. 

But that does not happen on its own. 

Unless you have the wherewithal to have others clean up after you, you have to do the work to clean your space. It takes work to get to where you want to be, to get to where you feel good about what you're about to do.  And that work is worth your time. You are worth that time.

Sometimes we forget how much we are worth taking a minute to wipe it down so we can see ourselves shine as brightly as we are.

What Inspires Me Today - April 17, 2023

WARM UP

I've been thinking for a while about getting back to this blog - or starting a new one - with the idea of taking time every morning to find inspiration. I have a lot of thoughts on this blog that I think are worth keeping up and going back to now and then, so here I am (AGAIN) starting a new thing.

The goal is to do this as often as I can, a few times a week would be great, once a week is most likely.

So I'm kicking things off, with the idea of warm ups.

Today I forgot about this (great start, eh?) and dove right into starting reports like I do every Monday. 

But it felt jarring. I rarely ever begin my morning workouts diving right into weights. And when I'm teaching improv, coach, or direct, we ALWAYS start with a warm up exercise or four.

We warm up our cars in winter, cool them up(?) in summer.

We warm up our bodies to do physical activity.

We warm up our voices to perform.

We should be warming up our minds to work.

For me, this is going to serve as my warm up exercise for the moment. Getting my brain warmed up to thinking, my fingers into a rhythm of typing, and just easing into whatever the day has in store.

Whatever it is, I hope you can take a moment to warm yourself up for whatever lies ahead of you today, and that it gets you moving in a positive, helpful, direction. 

Vroom Vroom