Reflecting on Tony Hsieh's Death

I've been disconnected from my old world for awhile now...the one where my identity revolved around being "a connector" among and amidst technology entrepreneurs. It was the world of start-ups, the world of venture capital, the world of creators and engineers and a world predominantly led by men. It was a world where I never truly felt like I belonged, despite having many positive experiences and magical moments along the way. I always felt like a circle that didn't fit into the square or a triangle that didn't fit into the circle, deeply yearning to create a community for other misfits, a bit like the infamous Island of Misfit Toys that Yukon Cornelius, Hermey the Elf and Rudolph fell upon in the Arctic tundra. It was in this world of hardware, software, apps and IoT that I had the opportunity to not just meet Tony Hsieh, whose death came with great sadness, but also hang out with on occasion. I hadn't realized that he stepped down as CEO of Zappos in August after 21 years, not until I read of his death, which just so happened to be on my birthday. 

Credit: Renee Blodgett[/caption] Death is such a heavy word for most of us and there's no doubt, I felt a deep sense of sadness both in my  heart and gut when I first learned of the news, a very common reaction when we experience the loss of someone we once knew. Yet, in my new world which is predominantly led by Consciousness and Spirit, I know that his 'death' isn't really 'death' at all -- it is a mere shedding of his shell -- aka the mask and costume -- he chose to wear for yet another physical experience. Those still embedded in scientific materialism may see this as perhaps a 'religious statement' however it couldn't be further from my meaning. As folks like Bruce Lipton, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Gregg Braden, Mark Gober and countless others have written about, we are now aware that the bridge that has always separated science and spirituality is getting closer and closer every day. We know that powerful healing and elevated states of awareness can happen through meditation. Evidence points to the notion that consciousness exists outside the physical brain, almost like data stored in the cloud, to take an analogy from the world of technology. Knowing that Tony's Soul and his Consciousness lives on, why shed a tear of sadness? It is because within this physical plane of existence, we grieve the loss of a 'being' who came here to bring light, joy and happiness, the latter of which was even in the title of a book he authored: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.

Despite this innate knowing, we realize we can never look into the person's eyes again, not in their latest physical manifestation anyway. Nor can we hold their hands, hear their laugh or share a cup of coffee. And so, there was a jolt to my physical system when I heard the news despite that innate realization that his Soul lives on and becomes reconnected to universal consciousness so to speak. "It" becomes part of the aether, part of the Void, part of the All That Is and part of the Cosmic soup. As a misfit himself, I always felt that he somehow knew this and is one of the reasons he didn't project some of the traditional fears that so many others plug into, at least not in any of my direct experiences with him. I can't recall the exact moment I first met Tony but I think it was in 2007 in Austin -- long before his  'Happiness' book hit the market. By the time the book was released, I had already experienced many special "Tony moments" including a Zappos tour to better understand his vision of what customer experience, loyalty and appreciation should look like.

At Zappos Above and below: great memories at Zappos. Credit: Renee Blodgett Above and below: fun and creative energy at Zappos. Credit: Renee Blodgett Above and below, fun times at Zappos Creativity throughout the workplace at Zappos. Credit: Renee Blodgett Tony also invited me to their holiday parties, and on one such event, a pair of shoes was waiting for me upon arrival that was a perfect match for the 1920's flapper outfit I chose to wear that evening.  Renee Blodgett, Shore Slocum and Jeni Holt at Zappos Holiday Party. Credit: Renee Blodgett

 

Then there were interactions at Austin's annual SXSW, which was all about parties -- thrown by individuals and vendors -- and they went on for days. They weren't the kinds of parties we attended during the "heyday" of Comdex and CES that ended around 11 pm -- SXSW parties would carry on throughout the night -- every night -- for a week, and often we'd end up at some all night joint for pancakes at around 5 am. Those who were part of this eco-chamber well remember SXSW and it's "magic moments."

 

It was SXSW 2007 that Evan Williams set me up with my Twitter account directly on my phone in one of those long corridors well before the Twitter frenzy hit, Robert Scoble looking on with a beaming smile to demonstrate how 'cool he thought it was.' I remember thinking at the time: 'another ridiculous name for a start-up that has no meaning.' But, I respected Ev and the rest is history. That same SXSW, I hung out with other technology visionaries (and bloggers) as we ventured from party lounge to party suite. Zappos had a gathering and if my memory serves me right, it was here I was first introduced to Tony. Calm and centered were two words I'd use to describe him, which amidst the chaos of SXSW's youthful glam and tech illuminati was hard to pull off. Simply put: SXSW was full of inventors, creators, engineers and artists and all the frenzied energy that came along with it. Alcohol too of course. It was either that same SXSW or subsequent ones (likely both) that I'd jump aboard Tony's rented bus which would transport us from party-to-party. Sometimes, we wouldn't get off at all and the bus became the party with plenty of beer along for the ride and even a decorative balloon artist on board to boot.

 

It turns out that Steven Rosenbaum who shared those same Austin experiences had equally fond memories as he writes in his own beautiful tribute to Tony on MediaPost. Luminaries abound became the order of the day in those fun but often misunderstood days of technology creation and advancement. Tony was among the few that were not just truly respected but truly liked. Whether you were drinking beer with him at the TechSet Blogger Lounge in Vegas or Austin or hanging out with him over much better food at LeWeb in Paris (Geraldine & Loic LeMeur certainly knew how to throw a party and curate a menu), if you met up with him, you'll remember another important quality that Tony possessed: Presence. As entrepreneurs rose in fame (and bank accounts), so too did the ego and with "it" often came 'lack of presence,' where you always felt that they had somewhere more important to get to or someone more important to talk to other than you. We've all been there and it's an inauthentic and empty feeling, isn't it? 

Tony Hsieh speaking at the Tony Robbins Business Summit I attended in Vegas in 2009. Credit: Renee Blodgett

 

On another occasion, there was an awkward moment when I was turned away at the door of a 'nearly all male' poker party that I was invited to by several entrepreneurs in my 'circle.' As I recall, it was in some 'power suite' on the top floor of some 5 star hotel I don't remember the name of, and suddenly Tony was at the door and told the person to let me in. He did so with a balance of both softness and firmness and a smile that simply let you know that 'all would be okay.' And of course, all was okay. Those who knew him well and shared in these special "Tony moments" understand this feeling. As Sarah Lacy wrote in her Business Insider article about his passing, Tony was "fundamentally someone who wanted to make people happy." She also shared a story I resonated with as it was similar to my own experiences with him over the years. During an uncomfortable moment deep in an underwater cave, Tony took her hand and like I felt in my own special "Tony moments", let her know that all would be okay. You see, he had that way about him and people just 'felt it.' You know that beautiful quote from Maya Angelou: "people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

-- Maya Angelou

Tony lived that. In 2011, I had an idea for a photo book and began shooting entrepreneurs across industry sectors who turned to heart as their 'go to' for decision making. Tony Hsieh was among my 'picks' -- it was a project that I never completed but had a blast in the creation process. I don't even remember the city where we had the photo shoot but I do remember that it was just the two of us in a small hotel suite where the lighting was far from ideal. My own primitive lighting system wasn't good enough for the backdrops and so we had to make do. He was more than indulgent when I asked him to stand on the couch or up against silly props, and he simply smiled in a way that always put me at ease.

Above and below, from our photo shoot in 2013. Credit: Renee Blodgett Photo shoot with Tony. Credit: Renee Blodgett

 

When his book came out, I somehow found myself at nearly every book party and not just in the United States. There were parties in France and Ireland, as well as in the likely suspects in the states, like NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Austin. He would hand his books out like candy so I had collected many over the years and at one particular event, he gave me more than a dozen. I used to keep them in the trunk of my car and after a networking gathering or a coffee or lunch meeting, if I felt the person could benefit from his book, I'd give one away. This went on for years and we used to joke about it whenever we saw each other. "You'd think that you worked for me," he always said with a laugh. The truth is: I loved the book and it felt so 'full' compared to the 'emptiness' from so many other start-up books I had read at the time. His 'voice' exuded heart and purpose...at least it felt so to me.

Tony Hsieh signing books in Austin after his Delivering Happiness book release. Credit: Renee Blodgett

 

And, his passion echoed elsewhere as well, which went on to create community, the Happiness Bus Tour and others within his sphere who would also spread the value of happiness as an important ROI at the workplace.

Jenn Lim speaks at SXSW on Delivering Happiness, extending the message beyond a Happiness Bus tour. Credit: Renee 

 

Tony's Soul Imprint Lives On

So friends, I write this piece as a tribute to his 'physical experience' as Tony Hsieh in this timeline and in this reality. I write this piece as a nod to the contributions he made to humanity, speaking up and out on the importance of living from a place of heart, purpose and ultimately a higher consciousness. Although I lost track of him in recent years, the last two times I saw him, there was a sadness beneath those dark eyes. I couldn't explain it nor did we have time for a "heart-to-heart" but I could sense and feel it -- one of those innate kinda things we all have from time-to-time. As an empath who now teaches about consciousness and spirituality, I've always felt people's emotions and not just from time-to-time, but almost always. 

 

It was as if his own "magic moments" had come to an end, or at a minimum diminished so much that he wanted to be elsewhere, like the Island of Misfit Toys. As a visionary, he loved to build and create so perhaps being at the top of an empire just didn't offer the same magic. Had his most vibrant contribution to humanity felt too distant to recapture? Whatever it was, I noticed it both times I last saw him, deeply buried in his soul that others may have seen as well if they were present enough to feel it...sense it, know it. The one thing I feel, sense and know now is that the Soul chooses its purpose and its 'story,' as well as its timeline and its own reality. You see, in a quantum world view, the particle and the wave exchange places. They can be one or the other or both. Physical matter such as our perceptions of who we are as physical human beings, the skyscrapers in the cities we frequent and even the houses in which we inhabit are projections in a way....and less real than we perceive them to be. Even if Einstein couldn't make peace with all things quantum in the days of Bohr and Planck, he knew this deep down too. Remember that we are not outside of time and space but we are time and space. From a mathematical model/perspective, its like a "fusing of the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold." 

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." -- Albert Einstein

And so my friends, Tony Hsieh's Soul and its beautiful imprint lives on. Or, if that's too much for the scientific materialists among you, then perhaps you can handle the notion that his Consciousness lives on. But for us mere mortals still imprisoned in our 'shells', living out this one quantum string that shows up as a theatrical play we perceive as reality, we shall miss his physical voice, touch and embrace. Or, the perception of them anyway. We could say then, that from a quantum perspective, RIP Tony Hsieh takes on a new meaning, one which is full of life not rest.

The Coronavirus: A Spiritual Perspective!

You could say that words poured through me, not out of me.

 

What a turbulent and unpredicted ride over the last few weeks as we have all been dealing with a tsunami of news reports from around the globe. Unlike many health related risks in the past, Covid-19 is impacting the world – all of us, not just one country or region. We can no longer feel safe because it’s happening “to those people over there” as humanity’s ego so often does. We are all being hit by a virus that we as a global community are still trying to understand.

 

The Coronavirus itself isn’t new but the strain is – as such, even the medical community is in unchartered territory as are the hospitals who are trying to ramp up support, beds, and supplies if the pandemic spreads.

 

On top of being in unchartered territory, the fact that we don’t have enough testing kits yet, we are faced with even more uncertainty and doubt.

 

We’re told that it is highly contagious – that it can pass through hair and eyelashes, can live on physical substances, such as stainless steel, metal and plastic for up to 3 days. (think grocery carts and door knobs) and on cardboard for up to 24 hours (think Amazon packages and UPS boxes).

 

With this deluge of information -- some of it hype and some of it real -- how do we know what reality is? And, can we truly control that reality?

 

WHAT IS REALITY?

 

As with any flood of fear-instigating data, there’s always someone who can financially benefit and often it tends to be large corporations, pharma and yes, governments. The result of hysteria and panic can be potentially worse than the virus itself.

 

 

So even if some of this is in play, it doesn’t mean that the facts from medical doctors are not very real nor does it mean that the threat isn’t very real.

 

Some people have raised questions such as: “if we are truly to step into a greater consciousness, knowing what we know about manifestation and the higher vibrational energies that we all hold, are we not giving into the fear being created around us by staying at home?

 

 

 

Are we not giving into mass consciousness? Are we not allowing ourselves to be controlled? Are we not creating more damage by staying away from others when at this volatile time, we need to be unified more than ever?”

As with everything in a Quantum World view, there are no absolutes and so the answer is YES and NO.

 

Consider this: if there are no absolutes and only probabilities with multiple layers and complexities, imagine that Covid-19 has its own consciousness. What if humanity called its consciousness into our dimension on purpose?

 

OUR COLLECTIVE SOULS RESPOND TO HUMANITY'S AND GAIA'S HEARTACHE

 

In a world of growing isolation where so many have been building stronger relationships with their phones and social media accounts than the loved ones in front of them, we have been starving for a type of human connection that doesn’t exist in a data bank in the cloud.

 

We are craving for a re-connection to the Earth, one which humanity has been pillaging in unhealthy ways for decades upon decades.

 

Gaia herself is calling out to be healed, asking humanity to wake up and see the repercussions of our actions.

What a better way for humanity to ‘get the message’ than for its consciousness to call forth an intrusive and disruptive consciousness to wake us up, even if that be in the form of a virus.

 

The Laws of Attraction and Repulsion ensue, that we as individual energy forms and yet part of the ‘whole’, will repeatedly bring forth whatever it takes for us to either wake up, or repeat the same pattern of disharmony over and over again.

 

Enter the domino effect which disruption often creates, where we are forced to take a step back and get out of the mud.

 

Our eyes have been so glued to a tree for so long (aka digital screens) that we have lost sight of the forest, the collective good and ‘all that is’ we are an integral part of. In this process, we have no choice but to return to our innate understanding that all is interconnected regardless of our belief systems, the color of our skin, the culture and language that we perceive defines us and so on.

 

We return to Oneness knowing that we are part of a universal consciousness and that universal consciousness is part of us– we don’t operate out of time and space but we are time and space, not separate from it.

 

In other words, what if the virus is in fact a medicine for humanity, a sort of self-correcting one?

 

BUT, WHAT ABOUT PHYSICAL SEPARATION? HOW DOES THAT HELP US HEAL DURING SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY?

 

There’s no question that there will be physical and emotional ramifications from this so called self-correcting medicine. Family members, especially those whose immune systems are compromised or the elderly, may die. We will miss the physical connection we have grown accustomed to in everyday life – at work, school and in our communities.

 

There’s no denying that all of this feels painfully real in the physical world in this dimension in the here and now. But, how we interpret, process and handle the crisis we are faced with collectively as a global community is what is so critical to our healing.

 

Many have been living and suffering for a long time from a different kind of pain….a disconnection from themselves, from others and from Gaia herself. For those who were awake or in the process of “waking up,” there was an unprecedented inner knowing that we better change our ways or die.

 

When the natural order of things – all living things – are in disharmony, Gaia needs to rebalance and because we are connected to Gaia’s consciousness, that combined consciousness comes forward as ONE energy to self-correct.

 

The natural laws of the Universe have kicked in, forcing us to go inward and remember what’s truly important. Once you do, you’ll begin to see a bigger picture consciousness that is presenting itself from a macro-view. Rather than see the virus as some kind of evil manifestation, imagine that it as the emergence of divine intervention.

 

As with every re-balancing, old ways of doing and seeing things will die. Old orders, archetypes and structures will die off or at a minimum, diminish so a new way of seeing and doing things can finally sit into the creator’s seat, get the voice it deserves and ultimately begin to thrive.

 

So, rewind the clock back to when I said that in a Quantum World view, there are no absolutes to the answer of “are we are giving in to old patterning by isolating ourselves right now?”

 

Let’s look at a YES response. Yes, because we don’t want to feed and give voice to the fear that could emerge on a global scale if we allow it to, which leads to the ego raising its ugly head. The fight or flight mechanism of “I better save myself or I will die.” That is a lower vibrational mindset that doesn’t serve us or the collective whole.

 

Let’s look at a NO response. No, because we are allowing a new consciousness to emerge to correct the natural order and going with the ebb and flow of that energy, a bit like a martial artist approaches his or her opponent. Remember that we still exist in a human body which can catch the Covid-19 (known as a novel virus) even if our immune systems are strong.

 

While it may not have a deadly impact on those who are young and healthy, it doesn’t prohibit us from being a vector, which means we can ‘host’ the virus and pass it along even without symptoms or ever getting ill.

 

So, because we are connected to other living things, we need to think about the impact we could have on others, especially those with impaired immune systems and the elderly. From this perspective, we have a social responsibility to carry out social distancing, at least for a little while.

 

For those of you who feel that being together during this time is the most important thing, consider a higher purpose, that of the natural law of order correcting itself. Rather than feel stressed and anxious, use this time to go inward and reflect.

 

This is also a time for allowing what is, a time for allowing just you and your Higher Self to BE in silence with the here and now. Alone. Listen to your inner voice that will guide you in ways that no one else can.

 

MINDFUL INTENTION: Peace, Love, Inner Knowing

 

If this is a time to reflect and be alone, does that mean during this time, we don’t provide support to others? No, of course not – remember that we are all connected after all.

 

But, first and foremost, it means understanding the energy of the Covid-19 consciousness and working WITH the energy, not fighting it, nor retreating out of fear but out of respect for the energy. In understanding how to work with the energy of a new consciousness we don’t yet understand, being humble is part of the process. We want to go with the flow of what the bigger picture has in mind for humanity, from a place of EBB and FLOW. Qigong masters understand this well.

 

Also during this time, mindful intentional meditation and staying in a high vibrational energy of unconditional love is what is also called for – it is not only powerful and healing for ourselves, but for those who are infected with the virus and the planet as a whole. This is about emerging with the FLOW of Universal Energy, not taking one side or the other.

 

Think of it as a retreat for soulful reflection and in that inward time, we can also support others energetically (remember there are no borders or boundaries to our energy fields).

 

Then, we may re-emerge feeling renewed physically, emotionally and mentally. On the other side lies a world which has shed a layer of skin or two and shall show us a new consciousness we can either embrace or not.

 

I hope we all learn from the lesson and embrace it collectively as a whole. Rather than fight it, go to fear or over analyze it, truly feel into the blessing that this correction will ultimately create for humanity.

 

Blessings to you at this time.

Simplifying Your Life Connects you to Your Life Purpose

I’ve been spending more time thinking about mind/body balance and soulful, purposeful decision making more than anything else lately – in my personal life but also in my business life because let’s face it, our work is where we spend most of our time.

I’ve been asking what mind/body balance and purpose means to people and have extended this question to other cultures. As someone who runs an online travel site dedicated to Transformative Travel, I have access to people from around the world and know first-hand how much knowledge, insight and ancient wisdom we can learn from people whose views are as foreign to us as the Chinese alphabet. This is particularly relevant in the midst of current events and unnerving shifts in politics, including rhetoric that global leaders are embracing as acceptable lately, particularly in the states, the Philippines, Venezuela, Russia, France, Germany and England. I could go on….but that’s not the primary point of this share.

Photo credit: johnhain/pixabay

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the feedback I got from Asian and Southern African voices were a little different than the types of things that came from the hearts and minds of those living in North America and Europe. And, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Millennials had a different take than Baby Boomers. That said, one measure of happiness and joy remained constant regardless of demographic, culture or age: connection and quality time with people who they valued most in their lives, whether that be family or friends, or both.

Truth be told, we like to spend time with people who make us feel good about ourselves and the world around us. We also like to connect with people we feel understand us and so when ideas, thoughts, products, services, people or things fall into our path that are inherently different to our world view, our first inclination is often to reject it and flock to safety: our friends and family who understand us, or at least in our perception.

The problem with this strategy as a “go-to pattern”, is that it is more likely than not, to keep fears alive within us which limits us from our biggest potential. There are three things that can set you free from those fears, at home, in the classroom or at work.

First, we are enough exactly as we are…perfect, in fact. While this may sound like a new age concept for my East Coast and Celtic friends, or the kind of thing you’ll read in every self-help book you’ve ever come across, it is not only critical to understand this statement, but embrace it and I don’t just mean intellectually: “I got it. I’m good.” Our DNA actually needs to know this as a “truth.”

We come with baggage – all of us. We come with hard-coded conditioning from the families and communities who raised us and while some of it has inherent value that keeps us guided and even grounded at times, some of it throttles us, holds us back and tells us through a small dark voice that we’re not capable at doing X or Y and that X or Y may be our life purpose or at a minimum, something that brings us joy. That voice may tell us that we’re not cute enough, or tall enough or thin enough or smart enough, or athletic enough or whatever rules were engrained in our heads at an early age.

Knowing that regardless of where we spend our time – the people we love and keep us in that comfort zone – or strangers we meet on our life path who may push us far beyond that comfort zone, we are good enough exactly as we are. This realization and acceptance will allow you to be in a quiet place with no one around you at all or in a noisy place surrounded by foreign tongues and ideas, and embrace all that is, exactly as it is, without trying to change it to what you can handle. The truth is that you can handle it all if you change your belief system.

Second: be present and grateful every single day. Being present and grateful when you’re in a quiet or noisy place, will allow you to take in every texture and layer of an idea, person or thing. When we’re not present, we miss all of those layers, which are essentially the intricate voices that allow you to reach new dimensions. Presence and Gratitude raises your frequency and when this happens, you will hear insights and observations (or feel them) that will dramatically change your life at home and at work. Don’t try to understand how this works – just believe and know that it does and you may just be surprised.

Even though I’m more of an artist in the way I approach the world, I am also a very analytical person by nature and that combination has made me a good marketer over the years. The biggest mistake I made early on in my life, was trying to understand how something this esoteric or unfounded scientifically could pave the path to success. While science is now catching up and there are new correlations every year, it’s still hard to embrace something we don’t understand. Bottom line: don’t try to analyze how the simple act of being present and accelerating your awareness for gratitude will unlock problems and stagnation in your life. Trust me: go with the flow on this one and beautiful new things will come knocking at your door.

By focusing on what we do have, rather than longing for what we don’t, we begin to see the world differently. It is suddenly full of textures, tastes and smells we never imagined was possible to experience. You can start this process through a commitment of only 15 minutes a day -- half of that time will be making notes about what you’re grateful for in your life (that day) and half of that time will be spent staring at something in nature and truly be present with it.

It can be a tree, grass on the fields near your house, flowers in a park or your garden or a butterfly – anything that you’re drawn to is the right thing. Focus on its beauty and stay present with the process. Remember it’s a short commitment of time, so give it a try and see how you feel after a month.

Some people refer to the daily note taking process as a Gratitude Journal, but call it whatever works for you and be as specific as possible. In other words, the things you jot down can be as mundane as how the fabulous color of your living room walls make you feel or as simple as holding your child on the couch while you watch a movie. Cooking with your best friend. Having tea with your mother. Taking a morning run on the hill near your office. You get the idea.

The third point is all about purpose. Have you ever thought to yourself or out loud – what is my life purpose? You may have spent your twenties searching for it, traveling or adopting every hobby or sport you could, or maybe you didn’t focus on it until mid-life, in your forties or fifties, after you had gone through a few life crises or lost a family member. Perhaps you’re in your twenties and thirties and are still wondering or perhaps you’re older and knew early on in life and are still living that purpose today.

Wherever you fall on the list, there’s always room for creating new purpose. Even if you’re joyfully living your purpose today and have most of those questions answered, each decision you make (including the small ones), should be a purposeful one. Regardless of whether you’re a CEO, a head of a department, running a community, a teacher or lawyer, retired, a mom, an entrepreneur or an artist, purpose matters a lot. It doesn’t matter what hat we wear during the day, making decisions that are purposeful and soulful, ones which are truly aligned with our nature, are the right ones.

We will know when we make a purposeful decision because we will feel centered, and on our path. And, it is the fluid one, you know, the path that may or may not be the road less taken, but it is the one which flows with ease, like a river that naturally moves over the rocks beneath it like a dancing angel that floats through the stars but never clashes with one.

When something isn’t aligned in our lives at home or at work, our souls are out of sync and you know when you’re there because you’ll feel it in your body. A misaligned life often shows up both physically and emotionally.

Verbally, it may come up in more traditional ways we see around us every day: ongoing complaints about our boss, a disagreement with a management decision that may or may not even affect us, or conflict at home you don’t quite know how to fix. When our daily lives don’t feed and nourish our souls, it’s time for a reset. Get quiet. Listen to your inner voice. After all, a silent voice is the one that always transforms the world. First and foremost, we need to do it for ourselves. It’s not a selfish act to nurture what matters to us most – our values, our passions, and especially our purpose.

When you’re truly making purposeful decisions that feed your inner voice, every door will open. The right job will emerge. The right partner will appear.  The right life opportunities will present themselves. You will be set free, to flow down that river at your pace, one which isn’t defined by someone else’s voice or rhythm.

Comments welcome. I look forward to hearing what has worked for you and what hasn’t here and on my reflective voice column.

 

Gratitude & Remembering America's Core Values Will Set Us Free

Given how much travel writing I do these days, I rarely post anymore over here which is where it all began. Two of my former blogs became Down the Avenue when I started publishing to the web, now more than 15 years ago. Truth be told, Down the Avenue is like an old friend. When the blog editor opens and I see it's old familiar interface, it's like going into an old coffee bar you used to frequent in your home town.

The difference is, that instead of opening up an old fashioned notebook in that same coffee bar and putting pen to paper like I did for many years across many continents, I type in a window and all of my personal ramblings come out, word for word. And, instead of those ramblings getting buried under a bed or in an attic somewhere that may someday be seen by a select few, the words get published for the world to see in a matter of hours, and often minutes.

When I'm in a reflective mood or simply need to make sense of something, I turn to my favorite cafe (this longstanding personal blog) and it all comes out. Once it's out there in black and white, it's so much easier to see that our lives and the world is far from black and white.

After the election, I like so many Americans were stunned with the outcome. While my intuition told me that Trump would win months before it became reality, a voice deep inside me wished this nation of immigrants would see through his sad but brilliantly navigated narcissist roadshow.

The truth is that racism and fear of others not quite like us, has always been front and center, especially for the white man. I grew up in that world. While I may not have been surrounded by Conferderate born conservatives, I was surrounded by people who told me to stay away from the other side of the tracks, you know, where poor black people lived because, well....it wasn't safe. My thinking as a child was that if it wasn't safe, why don't we invite them over to our side of the tracks where it was safe. Seems logical doesn't it? At least in a child's mind, who hasn't learned about fear and hate yet, it is.

I started traveling because I craved diversity which my small home town in upstate New York had very little of. I wanted to know how others thought and lived and ate and slept and walked. My grandfather was a conservative and while he had his own prejudices that he often shared about the Poles, Italians, Czechs, Dutch, Germans, Jews and others who lived among us, it was often with humor.

That said, underlying tones would remain, enough for me to want to see their worlds first hand. That same grandfather voted for Reagan and sent my uncle to New York Military Academy, the same school Trump went to and during the very same years. Founded in 1889, this private school,which we visited on more than one occasion years later, is spread across 120 acres in rural Cornwall. I think it was perhaps therapeutic for my grandmother or somehow confirmed their decision that sending him there was the 'right' decision to ensure he was on the 'right' path. I was sent to private catholic school by the very same grandparents for the very same reason.

You see, there was so much fear that we'd end up on the wrong side of the tracks if we didn't have discipline in our lives and military and catholic institutions are designed to bring you just that. For me, discipline is internal, not external as defined by an institution, school or political ideology.  When we stray from our own voice, our own knowing, our own intuition, our own understanding, we can get in trouble. 

Forgive the musings, but the reason I bring up this story is because it has to do with divide, something which plagues our world right now. 

You see he believed in the rags to riches America, that this country was the place that his granddaughter as a woman could most succeed. When I used to talk about living in Europe, he said "if you want to be astronaut one day, you can in America, you can't achieve dreams like that in Europe. Even though there haven't been any women presidents, why couldn't you be the first?" As hard and difficult as he was at times, he used to say things like that to me all the time -- anything was possible. This was rare for the male generation of his time and while he expected me to set the table and help my mother clean the dishes after supper, he never expected me to only consider teaching or motherhood because that's what women did.

I guess my mother knew that too since I never gave birth to a child, I've supported more than one man and have worked my ass off since I was 14, starting with washing dishes for Italian-run restaurateurs who never stopped screaming at each other. When you're raised by a man who runs their own business, you learn to have an entrepreneurial spirit. From as long as I can remember, I've made my own source of income. 

To make a living, I've mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, wheel barreled sand, sold chocolate, cosmetics, and books door-to-door, worked in rural fields, sold art in Holland, picked greengages, grapes and oranges, patched and sewed in foam and glue factories, washed dishes, milked cows in Israel, managed restaurants, taught English in Kenya, bused tables in Belgium, waited on tables and tended bar on five continents and 8 countries, photographed events, performed plate smashing and dance ceremonies in Greece, sold ice cream in Australia, played piano in England, co-led swing dance classes, created direct marketing and advertising campaigns, written articles, authored photo books, led communications and marketing teams, run departments at a software and hardware company, given presentations and speeches, managed accounts and clients at PR agencies, launched start-ups, run my own communications consultancy, drafted creative briefs and written strategic plans. 

Whoah Nellie - are you tired yet? I am and that's the point.  

When people are surprised that anyone with a brain voted for Trump, I'm not. I know this other America because I grew up in it and around it. My America was one where you could buy a house and afford to send your child to college. It was doable for the working class family and even easier for a middle class one. It's 68 years since my grandfather paid $4K for our corner house, the one that would become my childhood home. They made sacrifice after sacrifice to make sure I had a better life (after all, that's what most parents do) and yet I still can't afford to buy a home in THIS America.

While I may live in one of the most expensive cities in the country and a former Google employee apparently paid $2 million in cash for a tear down house on my street, I realize that San Francisco and the Bay Area isn't reality. I get that. What is reality is that while house prices may not be $2 million in Phoenix or Seattle or Denver or Dallas, they're still far beyond what the average American can afford today. College is through the roof and our weekly grocery bill is absurd.

My monthly rent would make anyone with an above average salary bowl over, my health insurance payments even with a high deductible are nearly $700 a month (that's nearly $9K a year) and they just went up again and I have no health issues. I'm told that because I'm over 40, they'll go up even more with Trump's proposed healthcare plan, which quite frankly simply isn't doable. I can't work enough hours in a day to sustain these growing costs and so savings get depleted every year.

I think to myself often: it's not as if I haven't proved that I can do whatever it takes to make a living and am humble enough to go there. But...I'm tired. Most people are. And, this my friends, is why American born citizens are angry. It's not just white laborers and manufacturing plant workers who are wondering how to survive but 90% of the country. Will there even be a retirement fund? The Silicon Valley bubble I live in don't understand this 'other world' and that's why they were shocked when Trump won the election and I wasn't.

There's too much pain out there. While we were all immigrants once upon a time making a living on this great land, many of us expected (or at least hoped) we'd be better off 30 years later rather than struggling more than ever to pay bills, college loans and a mortgage. We all have our own stories of how we struggle and why we're tired even with a great education, skills and oodles of rich tried-and-true experience.

This tired group voted for Trump.

While I may feel some of their same pains, I couldn't conceive going there, because I don't believe in divided nations, divided communities, divided families, the result of a fear based approach to governing. After every decision and tweet, there seems to be more racist rallies, marches and incidents. Why? Because these decisions and words violate how we feel as unique individuals who make up the United States of America: Asians, Jews, women, blacks, Muslims, Mexicans, Italians, the list goes on. Conde Naste so elegantly wrote in a piece about the executive order on immigration which has turned into a Muslim ban, many of whom see as a religious war: "Above all of it loomed the spirit of the order itself, a sharp and cynical act from the highest office of this nation that, in spite of its many stumbles, has stood more than any other in modern history for refuge, for openness, for fairness and opportunity."

As a born marketer and brand expert, I saw it coming -- Trump is a brilliant rally chief. Making America great isn't about turning back the hands of time, nor is it to create a mantra that suggests we aren't great as a nation today. Let's face it, we are at a crossroads and the decisions we make during this very pivotal time will determine whether we continue to lead the free world -- or not.  

NPR's Robert Siegel interviewed Yale historian Timothy Snyder this week, who is known for his sprawling books about war, genocide and the descent into dictatorship in mid-20th century Europe. His latest book "On Tyranny" addresses the concern about the rise of Donald Trump, and his lessons range from establishing a private life and listening to dangerous words to being weary of paramilitaries.

Says Snyder in his interview:

"The president has never given any indication that he understands or respects the rule of law and the things that the presidents have done so far. And this speaks directly, I think, to the central threat, suggests that he is deliberately spreading a world of unreality. And this is exactly why we have to understand history, because where fascism, to use your word, begins is with the neglect or the repudiation of the real world. Fascism says what you and I experience as facts or what reporters experience as facts are irrelevant. All that matters are impressions and emotions and myths.

And so when the president and his aides set out to create a world of alternative factuality, that is the catalyst which helps us slide from one system to another."

As alarming as that sounds, it's what many people feel is happening to our democracy (we do live in one right?) yet can't quite put the same words to it. They're feeling a loss of control. A loss of fundamental freedoms.

Why these new orders are impacting so many Americans, including third generation white ones, is because it feels like a betrayal of our nation's history, principles, laws, and customs. And, as Conde Naste also writes: "a betrayal of her spirit and aspirations." 

Since the beginning, America's attractive power enticed millions of immigrants to leave the comforts and security of their homelands for the promise of hope, opportunity, and a liberty the world had never known.  They also unleashed an entrepreneurial spirit that created unparalleled prosperity and spawned the greatest generosity ever exhibited by a country.

Several years ago, I wrote a book review on Rescue America, which devours why we're flailing and how we can return to an America we can be proud of again. They make countless references to American history, the Constitution, the principles behind freedom and what it means to be "free."

They take a deeper look at the Declaration of Independence, why it was created and what our forefathers wanted for Americans as a result. Equality and improving the human condition was a large part of what the "greats" who ran this country wanted; they also wanted a unified America.

"The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition...is so powerful a principle...(it is) capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity...(and) surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions." - Adam Smith

Thomas Jefferson didn't really propose an ideal on equality, but rather recognized and acknowledged an equality that already existed. What Jefferson meant by the Pursuit of Happiness and a "free" America was the inalienable right of the pursuit of happiness that one is free to become the best self that one is capable of becoming.

I love this as much as I love the benefits that Abraham Lincoln envisioned for Americans: the capacity and the freedom to choose, by the quality of one's decisions and by the inherent value and ownership of the fruit of one's labors.

"The man who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year, he will hire others to work for him." -- Abraham Lincoln

As a nation, we have achieved astonishing wealth -- if you combined the wealth of the Greek, Roman, Chinese and English empires, the wealth generated in America over the recent century would supersede them. And yet as free and democratic as our virtues are, most of us are struggling in today's America.

It's clear from the recent chain of events, we've lost a lot of important things along the way, the concept of gratitude being a big one and that attitude needs to come from the top so it can trickle down. The way out of this mess of course is action from the bottom -- continuing to exude gratitude regardless of how tough it gets, fighting for our freedoms and personal voices, ensuring that we always have a free press, not a constrained one and a healthier and happier life for all, not just the wealthy white. 

Those who voted for a different America didn't think of the consequences of a leadership that uses fear to increase their power rather than service to lead with integrity. Diversity is after all, our biggest strength and guidance from the top matters a lot. Our children ARE watching and that's the point -- this generation is learning about what kind of leadership is acceptable for the most powerful leader in the western world.

"The direction in which education starts a man, will

determine his future in life." -- Plato

The mentors we meet along the way and the guidance we get determines our direction even more than education. It also determines our resilience and our ability to take one more step amidst negative set backs.

This is why voting for someone with a moral compass matters more than the laws they implement. As a nation, this guidance is what makes up our core ethics, values, the way we treat others and the way we look at the world. 

What happens when the principles that gave you all you possess eventually lead to distracting and damaging habits and attitudes that take you away from those principles and lead to the wasting away of prosperity?

Do you abandon those principles, or do you recommit to them through honor, discipline and commitment? Isn't it time that as a nation we unite more than ever and work on restoring and recommitting to America's core values before its too late?

 "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves

neither liberty nor security." Benjamin Franklin

Photo credit: New Ten Commandments Website

Entitlement stands at polar odds with personal responsibility and gratitude. When we come from a place of gratitude, it's astonishing what's possible in our lives and how it flows to others around us. Everyone benefits. Gratitude is critical to restoring our spirit and our values, individually and collectively as a nation.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." John F. Kennedy

The best thing we can do is to sit in another man or woman's shoes as often as possible. By demonstration, we show that we embrace all Americans, not just those who look, dress, act and worship like us. These acts will not only squash the hate and fear-based rhetoric that suggest that all Muslims are dangerous, all blacks carry guns, and all Mexicans are drug dealers, but it will set our hearts free as humans. From this place and as united citizens, we will only vote for and hire candidates who will truly serve this nation, not destroy it. Remember it's not just the economy that is flailing, but our spirits too, which is a far cry from what it means to be American. When our spirits crumble and shatter, our nation's spirits will too. And this my friends, is far more dangerous.

In Honor of International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and there's no greater woman in my life than one who isn't alive anymore. Here's a toast today to my grandmother, a resilient yet loving woman who was born in 1916, the magical spirit who raised me. She was physically by my side until she died of cancer when I was 16, and has emotionally been by my side ever since.

Many years ago, an entrepreneurial friend of mine who also an author of technology and other business books sat me down to do a 'reading.' Mystical by nature, he is one of the few people I know who plays in both the science and spiritual realms, embracing them both equally and with ease. It was an aura reading and during my session, he saw a warm yellow glow around me, an angel of sorts he said, and as he described it, I knew it was same warm yellow as the shutters on my childhood home in upstate New York. This aura was a protector of sorts, he said, something I have always felt throughout my life.

You've likely heard the phrase 'he/she marches to the beat of a different drum.' There's always one family member who does just that and they are often referred to as the black sheep, the one who strayed from what the rest of the family considers 'normal.' It is often the different drum folks who appear to have no discipline externally, but inside, discipline drives them. It takes courage to take the internal road again and again.

"Just Trust Yourself & You Will Know How to Live." - Johann Wolfgang von Goet

She lived her life to powerful and passionate drum and raised me to live my life that way too. I think about that different beat often these days as our country cries in so much divisive pain. I recall a precious moment in the back patio of our wood paneled den, an add-on to the original house, and one my grandfather built by hand. I was cuddled up with a stuffed animal and one of those hand-knitted afghans that she had knitted as it was a cold winter's night. She said she planned to always be there to protect me -- her voice is as clear today as it was 40 years ago. 

With my wide blue child eyes, I looked up at her and asked why I needed protection. With sadness in her voice, she said. "Because you will choose a more difficult path and I won't be there to help you. And, because you're a woman in a man's world." As children, we never think our guardians will disappear, leave or die because it's not in our realm of possibilities yet. I remember thinking: well I'll protect you too forever and ever, as small children do. There's always a forever and ever.

It took me many years to understand the man's world piece and how prolific it is, largely because I have always ignored traditional rules. They have a way of catching up on you however because reality is reality and as a woman, you'll eventually hit a stone wall you'll need to overcome in which case you need to make a decision: how do I want to cross over? 

Mom always said to take the high ride and so I always have. There are times when we need to make tough decisions and be harsher than our nature, in order to stand up for ourselves and for what is right. That often comes at a price and as women, we often weigh the price. If we are protecting our children and a way of life for them, we may temporarily make that sacrifice out of love. And, sometimes we need to stand up and say No More, Enough. And, sometimes we need to bond together with other women to support what they're going through when you know they've been dealt a bad card and only by unifying can we overcome.

I applaud International Women's Day for being there as a day we can celebrate each other. I, like many women around the world, marched on January 21 (I even shot some video on the day), wrote about the proposed cuts on Planned Parenthood, and go out of my way to make sure no little girl suffers from poor self esteem. As a woman who went through Anorexia in my teens, it kills me when I see girls who feel unworthy and make unhealthy decisions because of it. We should embrace individuality, regardless of how we and the girls and women around us want (and need) to shine.

My grandmother and other powerful women in my life served as mentors and guides and in some cases, angels. Their faith in me gave me faith in a universe that will always provide what we need, when we need it....when we have faith in ourselves. Without family support and my dearest friends being far from my own back yard, I rely on that belief system which starts with gratitude and a sense of purpose.

Deep down, we all know our purpose and must live our lives beating to that purposeful drum, regardless of what that path and calling happens to be. Our inner voice guides us to that path and it's merely up to us to listen and follow that voice for true magic to happen. More often than not, I've been a solo journey since 16, and my grandmother's spirit has been with me, reminding me to take the high road, have dignity, honor, integrity and grace when ugliness gets in the way, whether that be in my personal life or business one. And along that high road, sometimes we need to make wrongs right and have the strength and courage to do the right thing, so that other women around us and who are not yet born, never deal with the same issues.

"Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History." Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

My grandfather played a role in that too.  When I was a teenager and about to embark on a year abroad to South Africa on a scholarship within days, I had just ended playing a piece on the piano that my grandfather loved. He came up behind me sitting on that mahogany wooden piano stool and put his hands on my shoulders, a rare move for this disciplined and often hard man born into a 1916 world. "Whatever happens, I want you to know that I'm leaving you the house and everything in it when I die." Where did that come from I thought? It was so out of the blue. "Your mother made me promise that I would do this before she died and I'm going to honor it. There will be will anger towards you, not from your father but from your uncles but there is nothing I can do about that after I'm gone. They won't understand." Then he repeated: "I promised your mother and I agree with her: this is the right decision."

I guess it had something to do with both of them wanting to protect me. The truth is that the money I got from that corner house in small town America barely scratched the surface. Living in Silicon Valley, it didn't even cover two years of rent after taxes but in her own way, it was an effort to make sure I was taken care of as the only girl in the family. And sadly, my grandfather was right. My favorite uncle whose knee I bounced on as a child, who I devoured oysters and drank wine with as an adult and who I understood the most, never talked to me again.

This has very little to do with me being a woman as it does family dynamics and the fact that situations like this after a death are not uncommon. It saddens me in this world of growing divide under the current leadership however, that we don't pay more attention to what connects us rather than excuses to break important bonds, whether they be family ones or personal ones.

We have to remember that our view of how life should be and how people live their lives, is one microscopic view, such a small lens of which to see the world around us. And, as women, I feel the need to think beyond again and again, is even more critical. Putting ourselves in someone else's shoes (when it's a man's shoes, think about how he was conditioned - this is key), gives us the strength to break through barriers.

Women, at least the ones in my circles around the globe, have exceptional nurturing spirits. The feminine energy is known for this and now more than ever, we need to cherish it and share it with everyone around us. And, we need to do whatever we can to not just give girls and women the ability to shine, but to thrive and make their own choices about their bodies and their lives. Here's to the incredible women still living in my life whose heart and spirits touch me every day.

Proposed Cut of Planned Parenthood Funding by New Administration

As I listened to the discussion over the new Administration’s (can’t even say his name) proposed $250 million cut of Planned Parenthood on NPR this week, I thought "is this a throw-back Thursday joke of some kind?

This de-funding proposal, as all listeners of the latest developments know, is for standard women’s reproductive health services since federal funding doesn’t fund PP abortion. As someone who has lived in Africa twice and helped to bring on TEDx speakers to address the importance of birth control and empowering women in Africa and other developing regions of the world, I find it astounding that in the supposedly most developed country in the world, we’re having this conversation in 2017. Apparently most Americans still support Roe v. Wade (most recent numbers from Pew Research say 69%) and we've come so far with women's equality and rights or have we?

I was raised by my grandparents which means that my conditioning came from people born in 1915. Think about it. When I went on the pill for the first time after returning to the U.S. from living abroad, it came from Planned Parenthood – I wasn’t in an at risk category but felt safe going there when there were few people I could talk to about birth control. The grandmother who raised me died when I was 16 and I wasn’t about to turn to my grandfather. Yet, an interesting thing happened after I finally disclosed it to him. He said, “smart move – I’m glad you took the initiative, especially without your mother here to guide you.” Then we started talking.

He told me about a hospital scene when my grandmother was giving birth to my dad and the doctor asked him if there were any issues, what his decision was: to save my grandmother or the baby? I asked him with my wide open 21 year old eyes, “What did you say?” “Of course, I told him to save your mother. What kind of question is that?” as if I was a fool for not knowing the answer. My eyes watered up. Pro-lifers will likely say that the baby’s life is equal to the mother’s and sure, it is – after all, in an ethical argument, all lives are equal. After all, if there were labor issues in this scenario, I wouldn’t be here to write this heartfelt stream of consciousness or whatever it is turning into. Moments after his response, it occurred to me that the doctor asked my grandfather to make that decision. “Didn’t mom have the right to make that call herself?” I asked him. “No,” he responded. “It was the man’s decision.”

My grandfather was about as Republican as it gets, conservative about a lot of things and born in 1915, was an adult during times like this and yet he was pro-choice. Here we are having this conversation over a hundred years later as to WHY any government has a right to decide for a woman about her reproductive health? To decide for or in any way, impact a woman’s constitutional rights? Oh United States of America in all of your intellectual, financial, military and world power glory, haven’t you become smarter? Don't you know that women and diversity are the pulse of this powerful land?

How and where did this country get so lost? To a place of putting other desires above honor, truth and dignity. We have charted into a new world and definition of what it means to be an American or at a minimum, what American will now project to and come to be defined by the rest of the world.

Let’s not be so complacent or remotely okay with a new status quo, one which has begun to suggest that a man or woman’s honor, word, integrity, or conduct means nothing. How do we explain that words, conduct, and honor are not fundamental to America's ideology to our children who are watching and listening every single day? Words can’t describe how I feel as a woman listening to what is happening to this country and knowing what is yet to come in the next four years. The PP cut is just the beginning of many decisions that will take us far far back in time.

Meryl Streep summed it up in 5 powerful sentences in a response to the President’s Elect’s distasteful mocking of a reporter’s disability: “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a move. It was real life. It was the moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life. Because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing”.

Turn Back To The Land That Shaped You This Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! On the morning of another Turkey Day, I reflect on the things I am grateful for, and there are plenty despite it being a rocky year.

I salute this day to the people in my life who stood by me during the rocky and the joyous and to a place which shaped who I am today – the Adirondacks.

In a world where we look at miniature screens more than we talk to or perhaps even touch people or a tree, I think we all too often forget about the importance of nature – the land that originally fed Americans when they first landed in New England so many moons ago…..my and your ancestors. It was about Communion. Harvest. Sharing. Being Thankful. Joyous for making it to a New Land, a land which was so ripe for harvesting and planting, they did.

When I was a child, our nourishment still came from this land. In our home, we didn’t eat chemically modified food. I was lucky to be raised by my grandparents who held values from the turn of the last century, led by a misfit grandfather who showed me how to tend a garden and even more importantly why knowing how had so much value. Some of the things we grew in that garden we ate on the holidays. My grandmother canned everything, from jams and jellies to blueberries to make pies and tomatoes, which we used for sauce in the winter.

I challenge you to two things on this Thanksgiving day as we gear up for a month long holiday season of commercialism and even more technology being thrown our way as an important “must have” in our lives.

First, return to the land that raised you….the hood you call home and really look at the earth where you played, first learned how to ride a bike and perhaps where you first swam in a natural body of water such as a lake, pond or ocean. Be with it. Understand it. Feel it. Be grateful for it in a way you may never have. Teach your kids how to be with it and feel it.

Secondly, think about everything you put in your body and…your children’s bodies. If it’s modified and not natural, don’t do it. Really think twice about supporting a horribly “gone-wrong” food system in this country that can only change if everyone stands tall and says NO MORE to fructose corn syrup, GMOs and processed boxes of crap.

Eat healthy and wisely today and every day moving forward. Be thankful for the earth that raised you and the fact that you can make choices every day about how you treat people and what you eat.

If we don’t give time and energy to our land (and to how food is planted on our land), there may be a time where that choice is no longer ours!

A Toast to Silence Along the Jamaican Coast...

For the second night in a row, I hadn’t bolted the door. When I woke up, I had that dizzying feeling you get when you’ve passed through too many airports in a short period of time, wondering where you were and what day it was.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard except for a distant bird’s call that didn’t remotely sound familiar. I tried to put my attention on it so my mind didn’t race off into the land of thought, the ever land of thought that never seems to shut down. What hadn’t I done the day before that still needed my attention and all the things that so often steals precious time away from the serenity that this precious island had to offer.

I was on the very same Caribbean island that I read about for the first time when I was ten, and while I hadn’t heard of Reggae or the Blues yet, the novel painted such a rich picture that I knew the rhythm and beat by heart, so much so that I imagined drums on the ceiling of my bedroom and if anyone ever asked me, I would swear they were real, as if a helicopter dropped them by night and parachuted them away the moment daylight hit.

My imagination couldn’t have been more vivid at the time and dancing colors of multiple rainbows were part of the canvas of life I painted for myself each and every day; it was a beautiful innocent time where stormy grays and dark blacks didn’t exist, not even in my mind’s eye. It was the start of my exploration of music and I so wanted to be the character in that mystery novel I can’t recall the name of, just so I could dance all night and write music all day.

I wanted braids in my hair with bright purple ribbons and to see the sun set so far south of a coast I only knew as bitter and cold. I had finally gotten to Jamaica and while I was far away from that ten year old self, I couldn’t help but wonder where the character in the book had lived and what they were doing now. After all, the character must have been based on someone’s experience a long long time ago and to this day, I’m convinced of it.

The story shaped my musical path and the kinds of destinations I gravitated to for so many years and while part of me longed to dance the night away with purple ribbons woven through soft brunette braids, this journey was to experience a different side of Jamaica….the silent side.

The breeze began to move the wooden shutters in the French doors of my room which led out onto a stone patio which faced a windy Atlantic sea. As they moved, I could see the flickering light of early morning, the sun so much brighter and warmer than what greeted me at home.

Still fatigued by a long year of travel and transition, my groggy state stumbled towards the flickering light and slowly opened the door I forgot to bolt and as I did, the wind grabbed it away from me, blowing it wide open and with it, the other side.

I stood there in my black knickers and turquoise sleeveless top with the lace v-neck top that barely showed a tan line from the day before feeling the warmth on my face, completely aware of how healing it felt. Wiping my eyes, I heard the silence within the silence as I suddenly noticed a flock of tiny little yellowish white butterflies dancing in the sky, eye level between me and the bushes in front of my cottage.

I smiled as wide as a child does every minute of the day. No more racing, I thought. No more activities, I begged. No more to-do’s, asks, demands and bills I wished. Just butterflies, the here and now butterflies before me that were as precious as an unaware newborn.

Like a newborn would, I watched them buzz around the sky as if it were the most magical fairy tale ever seen. I breathed in the sun, gazing from left to right, taking in the lush green tree to my right, the crashing waves up against the rocks ahead of me and the bright pink bourgainvillea flowers that lay scattered around the gardens. They were everywhere in Jamaica and I never grew tired of seeing them.

The beach area to my right and left was known as Treasure Beach in the St. Elizabeth Parrish, one of 14 on the island. It is called the "Bread Basket" of Jamaica in that it is most known for its farming and fishing, and provides 80% of the agriculture in Jamaica. The grass and trees were lush and green for unlike the dry arid California that continued to face a drought, rain wasn’t a stranger to this land.

The rains often hit during the afternoons in the Fall and so mornings were typically glorious, loaded with sunshine, happy birds and dancing butterflies.

Not in the mood to open a laptop or cell phone, I looked around the room for something to bring with me to the Adirondack chair on the patio since I was oh so not ready to face other people’s voices just yet.

There were two fashion magazines on my bedside table and a Holy Bible underneath the night stand, something provided by the property. I realized at that moment that I hadn’t picked up a bible in at least a couple of decades and so with a curious but wry smile on my face, I grabbed it and slowly made my way outside.

While I do believe in God, I'm equally able to connect with atheists and agnostics for the simple reason that I believe that religion and religious dogma is the root of so much pain and destruction in the world, which has resulted in more division than unity. I probably subscribe to more of a Buddhist’s view of the world than anything else perhaps and within that context, I now see the bible as a fascinating book with poetic writing that can provide masterful insights into the mind of mankind and the instincts that drive his or her ego.

I read a few passages from Matthew and while beautifully written, I felt they didn’t provide as much guidance to someone lost or in need as Pema Chodron or Ken Wilbur does, at least for me. Lost in pure reflection, I closed my eyes as I felt the sun quickly heat up as early morning made its journey to mid-morning.

The sounds began to change, as simple as the pace of the wind and the waves which continued to crash upon the shore. Jamaica is the kind of place that makes it easy to believe in God or if you really can't go there, then a Universe that will provide exactly what you need when your heart is open to receive.

As I opened my eyes, fearful if I didn’t my mind would start racing on all the things that made me a slave to life rather than me creating one, I saw once again the dancing butterflies buzzing around, unaware of time and likely unaware of thought itself. I wanted to be that butterfly, full of so much energy and beauty, knowing that it brings the same pure smile to a baby as it would a 90 year old man, and even more importantly, for the same reason.

I wondered if butterflies knew that when they finally blossomed from their caterpillar state that they had such a short life to live and in that knowing, they focused on happiness and joy through the only ways they knew how…. by dancing lightly and freely through the air. Or, like the character in my Jamaican novel, did the butterfly not realize how short its life would be but simply decided to focus on painting a new canvas of life each and every day, one that would bring them and others around them pure joy?

For my Jamaican character, it was writing music and playing drums and for the Jamaican butterflies before my eyes on that beautiful morning, it was dancing through the sky as if thought didn’t exist and never would.

Perhaps my two Jamaican experiences would overlap after all, the fictional fairytale I had only known as a child and the real one that was as memorable and precious as the story, but rather than a life filled with music, it was also filled with silence. Both were equally perfect and both swept me away into a different land, where there was no time or space for thought, but only smiles, laughter and peace.

What Can You Find Out About Yourself on Ancestry.com?

I've always been fascinated by ancestry for as long as I can remember, but probably moreso because as a child, I knew very little about my blood mother, who we used to all refer to as my "real" mother. In fact, story has it that she simply disappeared when I was around 2 and that little was known about her except that she was living in Florida and from French descent. I always probed - what do you mean by French descent? The response was always the same -- "her mother spoke French, her father was French, they lived in Canada for awhile, dunno."

So I was left wondering whether they were French Canadian or French European, but always thought the latter and later learned that her parents and grandparents were more old school French that I originally imagined and that on my father's side, my great grandmother who I knew personally until my teenage years when she died a ripe old age, had an ancestral past with the French Huguenots. No wonder I was so taken by the French Huguenot history and culture when I roamed through Europe like a bohemian nomad in my early twenties.

Photo credit: Reddit.com

Sometimes I wish that they had blogging tools (and the Internet for that matter) when I was that bohemian nomad, so many of those stories could have been captured online. The truth is that my travel was so bohemian, it may not have worked for a blog -- I crashed with people and camped more often than not and often did swaps of sorts to make my way around the world, doing everything and anything you can imagine for my "keep", from washing dishes, waiting on tables and smashing olives to selling art, milking cows, packing foam in a factory and picking greengages.

Through that entire era, I came across French Huguenot references several times without actually knowing it was part of my heritage.  I've always believed that we're creatures of knowing more than unknowing and that we naturally tap into the source of what makes us purr or light up when we listen to our own body rhythms.

Then, and only then, will we synergistically migrate towards what we crave and inherently know, and life will flow like a well moving river, processing only major obstacles, not absorbing the small ones, the kind that hinder our progress in the world.

They also tend to be the ones that get in the way of what could so easily be our best days otherwise. Being connected to the earth and letting the earth guide us while listening to our body along the way (which includes our breath btw), is as close to the perfect way to live as it gets and connects us to our ancestry in ways we don't even realize in real-time.

That brings me to something I've thought a lot about, which is whether our heritage and ancestral roots are connected to what we naturally crave, whether that be people and places, or food, which I wrote about a few years ago. 

In that article, I refer to my grandfather's typical lunch diet, which consisted of cold meats, pickles and onions. He loved sauerkraut and we made it in one of those old fashioned wooden machines my Uncle Ed had several times over the years.

Pate was also commonplace as were stews, homemade soups, and plenty of cheese. Some of this perfectly ties into my so called French Huguenot past and my suspicion that some of my family came from East Germany or at least somewhere in the former Eastern Bloc.

It turns out that as Jewish as my father's grandmother looked at the time, if French Huguenot was indeed part of her ancestry, even if only 50%, it's no wonder that she was so adamant about keeping Protestant alive in our family, creating more than just a mild disturbance when I was sent off to catholic school for a few years.

Historically, Huguenots were French Protestants inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530's and they were mostly concentrated in the southern and central parts of France. A series of religious conflicts followed, known as the Wars of Religion, which resulted in something referred to as the Edict of Nantes which granted Huguenots substantial religious, political and military autonomy.

The fugitives depicted above are French Huguenots - Photo from FineArtAmerica.com 

So, in all the countries I've explored, which now exceeds 85 if I recall at last count, it's no wonder I feel so comfortable in France, but as all Americans know, we're muts of sorts and rarely is our ancestry from one or even two countries if we travel far enough back in time. So, where else have I felt like I "belonged" in a country you ask?

Truth be told, Ireland, Scotland, Italy and parts of Eastern European culture all resonate with me at a level I can't quite understand at the oddest of times. Having some Irish and English heritage always made sense to me since my grandmother's parents on my father's side hailed from England.

As far as I could tell from the laborious stories over the years, they were "oh so particular," according to my grandfather and he'd always add "oh so English," whatever that meant to a man with likely French Huguenot and Eastern European roots.

Alas, when I ran into the founder of Ancestry.com in Dublin Ireland late last year and we started chatting about the roots of his business (pun definitely intended), I realized I had to find out my ancestral background. What surprised me the most when I got the results was the fact that English roots were extremely far down on the list when for so long, I assumed I was only one generation removed from being all things British and whatever comes with that label. I did, after all, feel pretty comfortable when I lived in England for all those years after college, even though it seemed to take a minimum of a year before I truly understood their wit, banter and subtle candor.

So if English heritage was so far down the food chain so to speak, what was at the top? Nearly 60% fell into France and parts of Germany, something that didn't surprise me. What DID surprise me is that nearly 20% of my make-up is Italian! Bravo I say except that my skin is far more nordic than it is Mediterranean although I tend to crave Italian food often. And, my first encounter with a Brunello stopped me in my tracks.

 Screen grab blown up from Ancestry.com results and shown in miniature here The rest of my genetic make up was scattered, from Northwest Russia and Finland to Greece, England to Ireland.  What about the American Indian who bore children with one of my great uncles I thought?  I'm not quite sure where that would fall, but let's see where Ancestry.com does the breakout across the globe.

Courtesy of Ancestry.com 

How does Ancestry.com determine your ethnicity estimates? They get the percentages and breakdown for your genetic ethnicity by comparing your DNA to the DNA of other people who are native to a region. The AncestryDNA reference panel contains 3,000 DNA samples from people in 26 global regions (above).

They build a reference panel from a larger reference collection of 4,245 DNA samples collected from people whose genealogy suggests they are native to one region. Each panel member’s genealogy is documented to determine whether they are indeed representative of people with a long history (hundreds of years) in that region.

Then, each DNA sample from a given region is tested and compared to all others to construct the AncestryDNA reference panel. In the end, 3,000 of 4,245 individuals are chosen for the Ancestry DNA reference panel and then then compare your DNA to the DNA in the reference panel to see which regions your DNA is most like.

When they calculate your estimate for each ethnicity region, they run 40 separate analyses and your genetic ethnicity estimates and likely ranges for these estimates come from these 40 analyses.

Courtesy of Ancestry.com 

The process shows the average estimate as the given percent for each region and the general spread of the 40 estimates is shown as the probable range. Ancestry.com's analysis suggests that your actual ethnicity for this region lies somewhere in this range.

Courtesy of Ancestry.com 

Going through the process is easy. You simply spit into a tube, send it off and wait for your results which you'll receive by email.

Once they arrive, you have an activation code they match with your DNA and voila, you're given your genetic breakdown via an online account you create at Ancestry.com.

What's more interesting however, is what you can then do with Ancestry.com as it doesn't stop with your sample. You can create a family tree on their site and as soon as you begin a tree, they automatically look through billions of historical records, photos, and other Ancestry trees for information about your family.

When they find something, a green leaf appears on your family tree. Another cool thing about the site is the ability to dig deeper through advanced filters and downloadable research guides. Because their community is growing, you can also get tips from other members and even from fourth and fifth cousins you never knew you had. A few of my matches below....

As more members join, the likelihood of more matches increase over time. If U.S.-based, you can get a US Discovery membership, which allows you to search their 8 billion records, and build, grow and share your family tree online, attaching photos and documents.

You can find distant relatives, connect with the world's largest online family history community, record video and audio stories of your family directly from your family tree and share access to your family history so your own family and friends can join and add to the data.

It's a cool process and definitely worth doing. I still have a boat load to do on the search side, so discovery for me is just beginning. Over time, perhaps I'll do an update with even more exciting insights and finds. More information can be found at www.ancestry.com.  

 

Melding of Minds on the Future of Humanity Over an Arc Fusion Jeffersonian Dinner

Ever heard of a Jeffersonian dinner? I've been invited to one or two over the last few years, one of which was being held in Washington DC, where it was birthed in the 1800's by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Because of those invitations, I had some vague idea of what they were, but never actually participated in one until the Arc Fusion folks hosted one recently in San Francisco.

Photo credit: www.smithsonianmag.com  

Rewind the clock to 1819 and visualize yourself at a long and decadently adorned table with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, his elegant Virginia home. Around the table, you're seated with a group of people steeped deep in culture, philosophy, education, history, politics, art, literature, science and theology.

The idea behind a Jeffersonian Dinner is to bring people together from different disciplines, creating a new cause-centered community around a topic of importance or significance you might want to discuss for whatever reason. This can be done to tap into new resources, raise funds for a non profit or important issue, or simply to expand the group's thinking about a variety of topics.

It's important that it be somewhat intimate so 12-15 people at a table is a good size and I'd argue that while someone's home isn't a requirement, it makes it more personal -- a private dining room could also work.

The purpose of the Jeffersonian Dinner is to build a sense of community and partnership around a shared interest or theme. One of the rules is that everyone participates in a single conversation and are not encouraged to engage in one-on-one dialogues with their partners on either side.     

Photo credit: blog.asana.com. 

How fitting that the San Francisco Arc Dinner be held at the 1880's Payne Mansion on Sutter Street and also how intriguing that the topic at hand was not about the past, but about our fears and concerns for the future, say in 100 years.

David Ewing Duncan kicked off the event. A historian, author, journalist and also CEO of Arc Fusion, which celebrates the conversion of IT, healthcare and biotech, David decided to take us down memory lane before dinner.

 

Photo credit: Arc Fusion Website.

We went back to 1915 and recalled some of the provocative insights, inventions and historical moments of the time. Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis Complete Idiot's Guide to Beating Stress was out at the time (surprising I know), the first EKG was used in 1913 and OMG was first used in 1917 (yes really). 

The industries David and his team at Arc are most interested in exploring are at the intersection of what is happening in health, IT and biotech. It's not hard to see why, with nearly $800 billion being spent on health and wellness and $1.1 trillion on IT services with $50 billion on Health IT alone. 

He asked attendees before they came to the dinner whether they felt they'd be alive 100 years from now. 18% said yes whereas 82% voted no. In case you think that even 18% is insanely overly optimistic, remember that the audience is highly vested in technology and some are actually working on the most important research in the fields on longevity/aging, science, technology and medicine.

The same audience voted on what will be most important to humanity's fate in 100 years -- 40% voted for politics whereas it was no surprise to see technology lead that vote at 60%. As far as the impact on humans in the next 100 years, 36% felt it would be in gene editing and a whopping 70% went for stem cells. Pharma only came in at 11% which tied with health and wellness and bionics took last place at 9%. 

Other things on people's minds included mood manipulation, synthetic biology, longevity tech, next generation deep learning and renewable energy. 

James Canton asked the audience to imagine a future where embedded devices and technology automate the work, resolving issues that need to be addressed in our bodies. The truth is that nano and quantum technologies are expanding so rapidly that we are now in a game changing time for our health. Innovative ecosystems will start to do disease detection for us, hopefully before it turns into disease.

Drew Endy asserted that learning "how to" solve problems is the secret to sustaining life over the long haul. His deepest wishes include a future where biology will have distributed manufacturing and distributed systems and that humans will start to think of a world outside of themselves. Hear hear.

Casey Lynett addressed where we are going with Alzheimer's pointing to some important finds for this disheartening disease that seems to be soaring not reversing. 

Artist and molecular biologist Una Ryan showed us her work, reminding us of the beauty inside our bodies through our cells, our protein and our blood. She refers to the image below as the Tree of Life since it contains everything that makes our bodies operate. 

 

The food they served at the dinner was not surprisingly farm-to-table and organic. It was also very purposely selected based on a fascinating premise -- each ingredient was chosen to serve every vital organ of the body. Dishes ranged from salads and nori rolls to fresh fish and wine for the heart -- two thumbs up for the Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon that showed up on our table.

The most riveting part of the evening, at least for me since it touched on some of the most controversial conversations happening around healthcare today, was the fireside chat between venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Vinod Khosla and renowned doctor Dean Ornish.

Both visionaries took the stage to share their take on the future of healthcare. Vinod formed Khosla Ventures to focus on both for-profit and social impact investments and as a big believer in the importance raw data can have the future of health, he invests in both healthcare and biotechnology.

Says Vinod, "almost nothing that is relevant in medicine today will be relevant in 20-30 years. Even though some of it may still be true, it will be too imprecise to be that useful so no one will use it." He asserts that medicine will be mostly science and data driven over the next 10-15 years.  

He added, "we will have more research opportunities but we won't use them because we won't have the causality which is most important."

He also went on to say that we won't use doctors that much in the future to get a diagnosis and what we may pay more credence to is the doctor or (non-MD) who has the highest EQ not the highest IQ. Hear hear Vinod! I couldn't agree more. Bedside manner, using common sense and logic and listening between the lines to a patient is something that so many traditional doctors so sadly "don't get."

 

Dean takes a slightly different approach although they agreed more than disagreed. While he agrees that data gives us a lot of useful information we may not have had access to twenty years ago, if all we are is a set of algorithms, then humans can simply be replaced by an app. The reality says Dean is that we are so much more.

What I love about Dean's approach and always have ever since I first met him now over a decade ago, is that while he's far from a luddite, he tries to get people (and the industry) to look at the underlying cause of an issue. He believes that lifestyle and diet shifts are fundamental game changers, pivotal to reversing symptoms and in many cases, the disease itself.

He's interested in lifestyle medicine which is very low tech, but the power of low-tech interventions is very very real and something that techies sadly discount all too readily, focusing most of their time on connected devices, data and the Internet of Things.

Personally I lose sleep at night thinking about how so many brilliant scientific and medical minds can be so misguided, overlooking the raw fundamentals of what can keep us healthy and happy, holistically so.

Bottom line, we need to treat the underlying cause and also look at the mind, body and spirit, NOT just the body alone.

This integrated approach is what the techies and scientists keep missing and a sad reason why insurance companies put holistic care like acupuncture and body work, organic food, diet modifications and supplements last on the priority list.

It's the same broken record when it comes to addressing the disgusting impact that processed foods are having on Americans today. (Note: processed food ingestion is increasing globally of course, but the yanks still sadly take the cake when it comes to fast food and boxed processed ingredients as their go-to- diet). I digress but the whole thing sickens me so much that I can't help but vent at times like this.

Truth be told, as Dean took the provocative and controversial low-tech stance amidst so many tech-centered entrepreneurs in the room that night, I wanted to stand on my chair and boldly blurt out - "GO DEAN and oh btw, don't stop here!"

He is a big advocate of lifestyle and diet changes and given recent research findings, they're finding that the same lifestyle interventions that deter heart disease are the same ones that can keep prostrate and breast cancer at bay and even in some cases, Alzheimer's.

You can apparently see a positive and reversing effects to 500 genes over the course of 3 months through lifestyle changes.  For most chronic diseases, which account for 86% of issues, we can reverse their onslaught through shifts in our lifestyle and diet. 

Dean thinks that we'll see a future where the placebo effect will be more important not less. Why? Because, it works.

Vinod doesn't disagree with Dean although he wants to see data behind it, proving that it's real. In his view, the math is the math of networks, but agrees with Dean that diet is important and that symptoms are the wrong way to look at a disease. 

Given that we live in an information age and are drowning in so much data we don't know what to do with it, I agree with Dean that while data may be important and there's no doubt having access to what our bodies are doing and why is useful, its only part of the equation. Plenty of people have data but even if you know that smoking cigarettes can kill you, if you're suffering from deep anxiety and depression, you're not going to quit smoking anytime soon.

Anxiety and depression are very real, particularly in the states. The stats are going up and pharma companies are making millions on drugs, some of which cover up the real issues that lay behind what is making them depressed in the first place.  

Dean asserts that what is even more vital is the mantra I keep beating people over the head with every day: the more so called connected we are, the more disconnected we are....I mean physically and emotionally disconnected, not the fact that we can now communicate with people instantaneously on Facebook or Skype from our cell phones in real time.

What's really missing is the deeper sense of meaning you get from being physically and emotionally connected to others. There's no doubt that people need to rediscover inner peace, joy and purpose in their lives.

Bottom line, it's all about changing the raw materials we give to people and place as a priority. I'll end with this note and thought to reflect on: if we can take this "ground level" low-tech approach seriously by beginning with the things that provide deeper purpose and meaning, then we can really begin to accelerate healing. While data can continue to feed the bigger picture, if we don't get back to the fundamental basics of what feeds the soul, we'll remain a far cry from a truly sustainable solution to holistic health, happiness and well-being. A big high five to Dean Ornish!  

For more information on Arc Fusion, check out their site at http://arcprograms.net/ where you'll also learn about their upcoming Arc Fusion Summit being held in southern California September 1-2, 2015. What David has created is a truly innovative, future thinking and leading-edge organization and he has managed to bring together some of the smartest minds to address what both plagues and interests us most today.