It wasn't long after she learned to walk that Lucy started dancing. It began with little head bobs and knee bends. Now, when a fast beat is bursting from our living room stereo, Lucy is the first one to come running. Spinning, twirling, and bouncing, she's a whirling dervish of dance moves. I hate it that we lose that free-spiritedness as we get older. Most of us, anyway. Me included. …
[Read more...] about The Danger of Cartwheels and Car Dancing
[This article was originally published over at Dumb Little Man. There is a great discussion to be found in the comments, including one from Gary himself!] I am a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. If you've never heard of him, he became famous for his online TV show, Wine Library TV, in which he brings wine tasting to the masses. Rather than being uppity and condescending, Gary's everyman style is down-to-earth, passionate, and fun. (He's been known to compare wine to various breakfast cereals.) 2009 was a breakout year of sorts, with the publishing and promotion of his best-selling book Crush …
[Read more...] about Why You Might NOT Want To Be Like Gary Vee
Are you living life to the fullest? If you had to name one person in your life who lives their life to the fullest, who would it be? Did anyone immediately pop into your mind? Now, be honest... did you name yourself? I hope so. But if not, why not? It's never too late to be make some changes so that your answer to that question is a confident, "ME!" Need some ideas of what changes to make? Here are 20 signs that you are living life to the fullest: …
[Read more...] about 20 Signs That You’re Living Life to the Fullest
We've had several speaking gigs since the Olympics has started and I'm finding it's a great conversation piece for people. There seems to be a common denominator of interest: the individual stories and montages. The most inspiring ones are the ones where the Olympian overcame a major adversity to get to where they are today - whether injury, personal defeat, loss of a loved one, or just years of discipline and sacrifice. If you're not happy for Shen Xue and Zhao, the Chinese pair skaters (and married couple), who finally won gold, then you may not be human. That's simply an awesome story! …
The end of a fireworks display is always the most exciting. It’s loud, colorful, and frenzied with big, bold activity. That’s how we imagine our lives to look like when we answer the question: What would you do if you only had six months to live? We’d go down swinging in a spectacular grand finale, of course. Go skydiving. Tour Paris. Take a cruise. Visit the pyramids of Egypt. Climb Mount Everest. Paddle down the Amazon. Run a marathon. …
[Read more...] about Your Life’s Sexy and Exciting Grande Finale
This week, Jason, Lucy and I attended the wake of a friend of ours who lived just 13 years. Just by hearing that you may say, "How tragic," but I would say back to you that actually, Jesse lived morein his 13 years than most people live in 85. Being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when he was three, he approached his childhood with an attitude of appreciation for life and persistence that he could (and would) be able to do all of the same things a kid without the disease could do. …
When our world officially admits it's another year older, lots of people come up with resolutions. "I resolve to lose 90 pounds." "I resolve to quit smoking once and for all." "I resolve to win the lottery." Considering how many resolutions are upended by the consumption of an entire bag of Doritos in one sitting or how many gyms look like ghost towns on March 1st, it's amazing that we go through the trouble of of making them in the first place. Indeed, the mandate that we should all come up with some sort of New Year's Resolution is a rule that doesn't exist. …
What are your favorite memories? You know, the mental Polaroids that will stay with you forever; the treasured times spent with friends or family that always seem to get brought up and relived when you're together. For me, just off the top of my head, I think of my wedding day, the day Lucy was born, family vacations in Door County, two surprise birthday parties, early-morning fishing trips with my dad and uncle, feeding giraffes with my mouth, and an eighth grade school field trip to Chicago to eat at Ed Debevic's and watch Michael Jordan play hoops. Those memories all occurred at …
Lucy is mobile. She rolls, scoots, crawls, and pulls herself up on things. I'm considering taping my eyelids open because I know that if I blink, she'll suddenly be walking, running, and asking for the car keys. I'm certain the little jet setter has cried more times in the last four weeks than she did in her first seven months of life -- and 95% of it is all her own doing. (I'll chalk the remaining 5% up to her footie pajamas that make the kitchen floors more slippery and treacherous.) Curiosity is what drives her. She's always looking around, exploring, and discovering new things. In her …
[Read more...] about The Right Way to Tackle Life, Brought To You By a Nine-Month-Old
I remember practicing my autograph when I was in the seventh grade. I filled up the margins of notebooks (most of them math, I'd guess) with my official John Hancock. It looked nothing like how Mrs. Smith expected me to sign my book reports: straight with neat loops and perfectly spaced letters. I had determined early on that if it was legible, it wasn't a real autograph. I must admit that I did wonder why professional athletes couldn't do a better job of writing their name. Some of them just wrote their first and last initials followed by nothing more than lines. It seemed rather …
