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It's Easy — Go On Try It!

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I've been thinking . . .

about being down and lifting up.

Look at that flower facing the sun.

It’s a flower. It catches the sunrise, the sunset. It gets nutrients from the ground.
It’s beautiful. You and I didn’t do that. No piece of code made that happen.

No guy or lady driving in traffic to get to some desk made those petals.
No argument over words on a page, no conversation about behavior made that light on that color.

Because bringing each other down isn’t what we were meant for.

When we stop to breathe, when we look at the light around us, we know we were meant to lift each other up.

What are you doing right now in this moment to raise someone higher?
Not only is it easy, it feels good. Go on try it.

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Jack Frost, the Lights, and What My Dad Taught Me

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When the Frost Makes the Lights

It was 21 below out west of Chicago.

My dad was born in 1907. He left home when he was 12. He got a job fixing shoes 70 hours a week for 50 cents. He roomed in a small house with a man and his sister. He did chores for his food and rent. When he was seventeen, he found a job working in 700 degree heat, silvering mirrors. It didn’t pay much, but it was work. On the day that Prohibition was repealed, my dad was 24. He and the guy who took him in opened the saloon this blog hails back to.

My never talked about being poor or cold. He told stories mostly about people and how they think.

Think smart, work hard, and take care of folks who need. He didn’t say those things. He did them.

I look at below zero temperatures on my iPhone, and I think of people like my dad who had, and have, life so much harder than we do. Can you imagine? I’m grateful for the heat I’m feeling. It’s been a while since I saw frost on my windows.

But I remember real frost and the frost that was just inside me.

I remember my dad and I looking out windows at how Jack Frost made the lights beautiful.
I’d look in his eyes and see those lights and myself reflected back at me.
I’d see what he was living for and what I was living for too.

Here’s what my dad taught me.
Own yourself and you own your life.

Head, heart, and seeing your light.
The frost can make the light beautiful.

Don’t let a little hoary, cold, frost stop you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What Do You Do When People Say You’re Inspiring?

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(Updated in 2020)

I’ve been thinking about how inspiring you are.

I heard someone say that you’re inspiring. I saw you value the words and the person who said them. You were so taken by the compliment that you didn’t know what to do.

I think you’re inspiring too.

So I’m writing this for you and all of you who inspire me. Would you listen to what I mean by that?

Inspire means to breathe.

I don’t know your struggles well, but I know you’ve faced them down, and you’re still breathing. That alone is inspiring. Add that you’re fun and easy and it’s meta-inspirational. You motivate me to think I can blast through my own struggles and come out smiling.

In other words, you make my breathing easier.

Isn’t that what inspiration means?

So please know . . .

When I say, “You’re inspiring,” I’m saying . . .

“You motivate me to keep going, doing the next thing, to keep breathing, to keep knowing that I’ll get there.”

What do you do when people say you’re inspiring?

Smile, breathe it in, and say ‘thank you,” with gusto to reinforce a positive change in the world. Glow more each time someone says you’re inspiring. So that more folks wonder who you are.

Smile. Breathe. Glow. Then . . .

Inspire everyone you can to inspire someone else down the line.

Get the whole world breathing again, right along with you.

What do you do to keep inspired? Who inspires you?

Liz

P.S. If you’re thinking this is about you, it is.

Inspiration When You’re Not Inspiring

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Be Productive

Puppy

In a perfect world, I might find every day motivating. I might wake up inspired and inspiring, filled with energy and energizing those around me.

It’s hard to do some days, especially on Mondays.

But I’m learning. . . .

I don’t think I’ll ever hit the ground running when my uninspired self is in the building. I’m learning not to force things. When I push myself to be more than I’ve got with me, I somehow start pushing other people and pushing over things.

When I’m uninspired I walk slowly, make room for big thinking, and do something to improve while I wait for the idea machine. Accomplishing one thing — a clean space a new blog post — can be incredibly inspiring.

How do you get inspiration when you’re not feeling inspiring?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Image: GeekPhilospher – free photo

New Thoughts with Old Ones

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viny_trees_and_a_curvy_path from sxc.hu

My life is like a conversation. It works when I don’t try to control it. It winds through time, making moments and memories best without me in charge. If trust my thoughts and dreams, I don’t find myself wandering aimlessly or roaming without a cause.

With a focus on what I believe, my days filter paths setting me always toward my goal.

Around the next corner, with the next sunrise, inside the next breath is my next choice. In the next breeze is my next vision. I can be whomever I am willing to invest my life in.

Up the path, down the road, across the field is an opportunity, not a place I must go. I’ll miss one to take one. If I know, then I know. When I find out, I’ll decide which is mine.

I am my life.

It’s not a hard thought to take on.

I am my life. I let go, because I can.

How do you think about what’s around the next curve ahead?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Lost Creativity and Inspiration

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Can we talk about . . .

inspiration.

Over-organization has taken me.

A week of little things, tiny things, and chasing about has put my organizational mind in control — creativity has temporarily gone missing.

I spend a silent conversation with a cup of coffee, wondering why I’m stuck with some sort of boring, straight-in-a-line, ordinary run-of-the-mill, deadly, cliche thinking. I try for the switch to turn on the electricity, but the current is more static than energy.

I pick up a pencil and start listing — literally and figuratively. Things to do are what I start writing. I put the pencil down and check around for something more rewarding.

Then I look out the window to catch that first second of sunlight spilling into the harbor.

Light-spilling-into-the-harbor-by-Liz-Strauss

It’s a light going on. It’s a sparkle of ideas set out before me.

Inspiration shows up just when I need it.

What a relief that is.

Who, what, where has inspired you lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!