8 hours & a lunch

thursday - quote day - entrepreneurship

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it."
- Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies

"Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets."
- Victor Kiam

"Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it's about trading: buying and selling."
- Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

"The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. We're born with that quality and it defines our lives as we respond to what we see, hear, feel, and experience. It is developed, nurtured, and given space to flourish or is squelched, thwarted, without air or stimulation, and dies."
-Michael Gerber

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover"
- Mark Twain

"Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life"
- John F. Kennedy

kris rocks (a fistful of talent!)

after a soft launch of a few weeks, it's time to debut kris dunn's fistful of talent!

what is fistful of talent? kris says it this way:

I learned so much from the experience with the HR Capitalist that I wanted to do it again, but this time with friends. With that in mind we launched Fistful of Talent (FOT) in March, and I've assembled a cool, fun group of pros from Recruiting practices, HR shops and Consulting firms. The center of the conversation is talent - which includes recruiting as well as everything you do with the talent once you've got it in the door. I can’t say enough about the group of pros we have writing for the site – they’re all top notch, but come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives that makes the commentary varied and diverse. Also, we’ve got a nice mixture of current bloggers, as well as those getting their blog game on for the fist time – a development angle that’s actually one of the goals of the site…

for those of you still in HR out there, both of kris' endeavors are well worth subscribing to.

all the best!
deb

jerry white - i will not be broken

there's a must-read interview with jerry white on guy kawasaki's how to change the world blog today that he is calling "the art of survival."

jerry white co-founded survivor corps, an organization was a co-recipient of the nobel peace prize that has "broadened its mission from helping victims of landmines to helping all those who have suffered from global conflict and its lasting effects." jerry himself lost a leg in israel in 1984 due to a landmine.

i began to look for my "favorite snippet" in the interview, but the whole interview is worth the few minutes to read. it's a great perspective with applications many of us could use in multiple areas of our daily lives.
check it out.

all the best!
deb

hillary, obama, and an iPhone note

okay, okay. i've made it clear here how i would like to see things go with the selection of the democratic candidate. (and yes, thank you to all in indiana who got out to vote for hillary.) but seriously people, even I am over this. (i'm so over it, i just used a capital 'i'.) i know there are things being negotiated and what the arguments (which i think might be valid) are....but i'm someone who enjoys watching politics, and even i'm over it. can we just get on with this thing?

in the meantime.....

to this day, i still love love love my iPhone. (then again, i've never been unhappy with any apple product i've ever bought. and you can trust me, because walking into my house is almost like walking into an apple store. only 2nd to maybe to walking into dr. dad's house. no, wait. i have the apple tv, the iPhone, a video iPod and a nano. so i beat dr. dad. ha!) but supposedly, they're now sold out awaiting the **new** ones!

part of me worries that they're going to come out with something that's gonna make me want a new one. (cuz...i mean....it's all new and stuff! then again, i'm still cool with my old 30 gig iPod, so.....maybe i'll be just fine. that's one thing i love about apple. last's forever. it's the same way i think about shoes, thanks to the good witch of the south, buy the good stuff and it lasts forever.)
;-)

all the best!
deb

pDNA and finding what matters

for those of you photographer types out there, dane sanders has a new offering that's most interesting. it's called pDNA and it's a 208 question assessment that will tell you where you're at in different areas of your photography business. and it's frighteningly accurate!

and i have a bit of news.....
i'll be joining finding what matters as an expert contributor! finding what matters is the first brand by carolyn kepcher's media company, carolyn and co. (you remember carolyn from the apprentice and the donald's left-hand woman, right?) it's not fully launched yet, but a blog has started and today there are "words of wisdom" from various contributors. the article can also be found at yahoo here.

as this venture moves forward, i'll keep you posted!

all the best!
deb

shallow relationships (and from whence comes my help)

via gautam, i saw this about the value of shallow relationships. i have to admit. i struggle with this. i don't do shallow well. (well, i do shallow well. and i do deep well. it's those weird in-between spaces i have trouble with.) the thought of networking events with sharks that reek of, at worst, "i'm really just here to find out how i can use you" or, at best, "you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours and let's all keep score" makes me cringe. (worse yet, are those who are intentionally there to scope out the opposite sex and have no real business interest anyway.) don't get me wrong. an authentic exchange about "how we might be able to help each other out and both succeed" is great! but too often, it's not really about that. but i digress. in his piece on the value of these relationships, ford harding says this:

Remember one more thing about these less than profound relationships: Anyone who has been out of work or had a personal crisis learns that it is not always the people you expected to who help you the most. Sometimes the deep relationships are not as deep as we had thought and some of the shallow ones aren’t so shallow.

um.
seriously.
long time readers of this blog know i had a less than stellar year last year, and most of the people who were there for me were completely unexpected.

the thing is.....you never know. you never know exactly where that job is going to come from. you never know when you might meet the love of your life. and you never know where encouragement or inspiration might come from. the only way to be pleasantly surprised by it, is to be out there.

today, i started my day feeling apprehensive (to put it mildly) about what i'm trying to do here. and out of the blue, sherri picked today to email me and see how i was doing. i was honest. and she came back with shared experience and advice that made it all okay. about the same time, i happened to find out through facebook that jasmine star has a new blog. this lead me to check out her website for the first time. there was something about the images, the spirt of the blog and website, the music that inspired me. and it reminded me of some important stuff, like why i'm doing this in the first place.

now, i've never met either one of these women. i've 'conversed' with sherri for some time as we read each other's blogs, and come to know her and be a big fan of her and her work. as for jasmine, the most we've shared is a wall-to-wall post on facebook about the scary 'lost' smoke-monster.

and yet, there they were this morning. whether via email, a blog, a website, text messages, phone calls, or best yet.....person to person....it really does all come down to connection, doesn't it? and then i'm left, humbled, hoping that i am able to do pay it forward and do this for someone else in some small way.

all the best!
deb

going green

i've long since wished i was more 'green' than i am. i do small things here and there. i changed over to the 'proper' lightbulbs a while back. i've been seriously considering biking options as far as running to the store, etc. there are small changes that we can each make that can help. if all of us made one or two of those small changes, they'd add up to quite a major impact. so amongst other changes i've been making, i'm trying to get better at actually taking actions that i've long since known would at least....well....help.

a couple of months ago, i finally hit bottom with my bottled water addiction. cuz seriously. i have filtered water in my home. it doesn't taste bad. it has flouride, which is good. but no. i'd drink bottled water, even at home.

but i've given it up. i mean.....really. my great-grandparents lived well into their late 80's and 90's and drank tap water. (they also ate bacon, and biscuits, and pie, and all kinds of stuff that's supposed to be bad for us. but i digress.) when did we get to the point where it was not only okay to spend $3.70 on a gallon of gas (here, anyway)....but more insanely, when did it begin to seem normal to pay $1.25 for a 16 ounce bottle of water! it's water, for crying out loud!

so i was happy (pun intended) to see gretchen's post friday at the happiness project.

if nothing else, the more we remind each other and the more we talk about it....the more we can do. and, i know a lot of people read gretchen's stellar blog. so good for her for getting us to actually think about it!

so what small thing can you change that you'll barely even notice to be a little more green going forward?

all the best!
deb

special olympics shoot

last week, i had the honor of shooting our local annual special olympics. for those who are interested, you can see a few shots here.

all the best!
deb

lighten up (& take some chances)

we worry too much. we really do. we worry about whether we're good parents. we're worried about our jobs. we worry about our homes. we worry about the state of affairs in the world. we worry about whether we have the right credentials, a strong enough portfolio. we worry about our relationships. we worry about money. we worry about whether we're talented enough, thin enough, good enough.

all this worry can quickly lead one to become a 'tired perfectionist (a.k.a. a procrastinator)'. we start to think about all the "thens." "i'll lose weight, then i'll have a good relationship." or "i'll get that master's degree and then i'll find a job i love." or "i'll get together enough money, and then i'll be happy."

ah. and in the end, that's what we're really after, right? "after all these other things are in place, i'll be happy." why not be happy now and enjoy the ride? after all, most of what we worry about never happens. the problems that come are often unforeseen anyway.

and so what? so the woman says no. or the potential client. someone doesn't like your work. maybe someone doesn't like you. so what? maybe those people 'aren't your tribe.' maybe those clients weren't right for you to work with. maybe that company you thought you wanted to work for is really a bad fit for you and you'd be miserable if you'd gotten that job.

stop worrying. stop procrastinating. decide to be happy where you are. and then take some action! small actions. a lot of them. some will be right and some won't.

because the truth is that if you're growing and developing continually.....no matter where you are today....no matter where your talent level lies, no matter what degree you currently have, no matter what you have and know now.....a year from now, or three years from now, things are going to look different. and you'll look back and see progression. you'll be better then than you are now.

but only if you take a little risk and take some action.

all the best!
deb

please make it stop

myspace, linked in, facebook, twitter. are you kidding me? okay. i barely ever used myspace anyway. i have gotten into facebook quite a bit and had some fun with it. but now it's all about twitter. i signed up and then left it out there and suddenly people started following me....with nothing there.

now, darren's writing about how to best use twitter. but i'm with laurie on this one. i have a hard enough time keeping up with this blog, my (new) photo blog, facebook, and other stuff i have to do online.

so while i didn't cancel my myspace account, i did announce a while ago that i'd no longer really be there. and for now, i'm not even going over to twitter. just not gonna do it. maybe someday. but not today.

all the best!
deb