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12 Days of Creativity for 2022
Creativity is such a buzz word now, it's practically lost its meaning. In the past few decades it has evolved from artistic genius to craft making, from a talent you do or don't have to a skill you must develop to succeed in business. Every one of these ideas misses the mark, or touches only one part of it.Creativity is the force of Life itself. We see it all around us it in Nature... from the stars to our cells. It flows around and through us all the time whether we see it or not. Through all the cycles of life – from birth to death – it...
read moreThe Gratitude Antidote… Appreciation is the Cure
Growing up in Texas, I knew that every Thanksgiving my mother, the clear and present matriarch of the family, would end our meal with a single command. “Okay, now let’s go around the table and everyone say what you’re grateful for.” Eyes would roll. And the moans were audible. But out of deference to her (and because we didn’t really have a choice) we conceded. I was in my mid-30s before I began to appreciate this ritual. My father died the next year. And my mother was gone four years later. But it’s never too late to learn her lesson. Here...
read moreDisappointment and the Creative Path
Disappointment is the first stone on the creative path. But it’s the second stone that counts. Creativity –what I lived for – no longernourishes my soul. A few weeks ago, I made a promise to a friend. I started writing one haiku every day. It was all I could commit to. This friend calls me “The Poet.” In his eyes, what I say, how I see things, my relationship with the world is all poetry. I feel slightly embarrassed by his reflection, but I humbly agree.He takes me back to a time in my life when I knew this to be true. I had just arrived in...
read moreThe Five Elements of the Creative Life
Today is World Creativity and Innovation Day. On April 21st, 2018 the United Nations inaugurated one day a year around the world “to raise awareness around the importance of creativity and innovation in problem solving....” More than 80 nations participated, acknowledging that creativity will be essential to achieving the UN’s global goals for sustainable development, and that the creative economy is “the true wealth of nations in the 21st century.”Six months later I stood on a stage in Los Angeles and opened my...
read moreLearning to Be Brave. Conversations that Heal.
Like you, I imagine, I’ve been having conversations. Asking questions. Trying to understand. I’ve been saying that we need safe spaces where these conversations can be held, so the truth can emerge through our deeply socialized defenses. “Safe spaces for deep conversations are hard to come by.” So the other day, I was speaking with an amazingly smart and creative friend who told me that she doesn’t believe in safe spaces. Rather she said she believes in brave spaces. This got me to thinking… … about the difference between a safe space...
read moreBlack Men Speak: A Conversation for Humanity
When George Floyd was killed, people began hitting the streets in protest. And I started to stir from a long slumber – the sleepy comfort of not knowing what I did not know. Perhaps like you, I started making phone calls, asking questions, having deep and sometimes difficult conversations with black friends around the world. Some of them challenged my good intentions: “The time for listening is over, Katherine. What are you going to do?” I started to study and learn. And I started to listen… to that deep knowing we...
read moreCreate a (r)evolution. Start with your own life.
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – MLK There is a great deal of adrenalized action in the world today. It was inevitable. We will never have peace in our societies until all our voices can be heard, no matter how uncomfortable those voices make us. There is going to be anger. There is going to be error. There is going to be misunderstanding… because we have not been listening. There is growing evidence that the only way we will heal from an intolerable shared history is to sit down at the table and tell our stories and have them...
read more“Go to your room.” What Mother Nature Needs You to Think About Now.
“That’s enough, children! Go to your rooms. And before you come out, I want you to think about what you’ve done to get here. Reflect on the consequences of your actions, and think about what you need to change to get along with each other. Is this really how you want to be?” This Sunday is Mother’s Day in the USA. And recently as I’ve reflected on our current circumstances, it’s all started to feel like it did when I was a child and things got a bit wild and I just wasn’t listening to my Mother. I’ve been having the sense...
read moreGrieving Normal: 5 Strategies for Life in the Time of Coronavirus
EDITOR’S NOTE: The same day I published this post, the Harvard Business Review also posted an article on grief. Gather strategies wherever you can, but come back here for your final read. 😇 Remember New Year’s Eve? We celebrated the start of a new year and a new decade with energy, optimism, vision and plans. There was so much we were going to do this year. I had launched a virtual mastermind program in October, and by January 1st, the 12 women in it were celebrating a head start on the year, happy with what they’d already...
read moreThe Life In Your Years: Making Meaning in Every Decade
I’m just about to get on a plane after a week in Houston, Texas for my cousin’s 80th birthday. It’s the place where I was born, so I’m thinking a lot about my life to date. I’ve lived six decades so far, and I am moving deeper into my seventh. I hope I have many more, but nothing is certain.Each decade of life brings a developmental task we need to complete in order to move forward in our lives in strength. If any of these tasks are not achieved, we move forward in life socially, psychologically or emotionally crippled, with parts of...
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