Barbara Brooks created Flamingo Strategies LLC to help clients stand up and stand out, through telling and sharing their stories of impact and purpose.
Hacking Away at Happiness is her blog.
All in Creativity
Whether we aim to jumpstart our writing—or to make sense of our lives—isn’t everything we need to know located in the glimmers we experience or observe?
With aging—as with cooking or any other creative pursuit—we need to master the basics before we can play around. Hooray for us. At 40 and 50+, we are masters!
If we keep singing or writing about something—and hoping for the truth in our words—then we can make them true. Love is the seventh wave, I say love.
When learning new tricks, remember this: The simpler the task, the bigger the R.O.I. And there are few things more timeless or cool than the ukulele.
Our rush to respond—to be answer-ready at all times—is habitual. And we don’t even know we are doing it.
Whether we make art, or simply notice how light lands on surface, what matters most is where we place our frame.
Every nonprofit should have a sustainable strategy for capturing stories of generosity and impact.
These days ahead are known as the Days of Awe. Because it’s awesome to do the right thing. Maybe even all year long.
I thought I was a solopreneur, but that’s not true. I think I’m a peoplepreneur.
We go about our lives completely unaware of our moment-to-moment absorption of nature's power.
As a professional teller of stories of generosity and impact, my only job is to empathize with the teller's emotions.
The rule I live by—Always Be Opening—is my own. We do not have to fight over a finite number of good leads.
Having left full-time employment to consult and write, I get to bake the time pie. And I get to slice it up.
Like the Greek nymph Echo, who loved the sound of her own voice, a storyteller who merely self promotes is destined to be ignored.
Like the wild dingo dog that snatched an innocent baby in the Australian outback, I wondered if a pink Flamingo beast has somehow made off with my kid.
Typically, contestants prepare and rehearse, but I put my name in the hat anyway. The theme of the night was “Tests,” and I was going in cold.
Downtime—because it's so utterly unfamiliar, can be excruciatingly uncomfortable. It can create stress. But it's also a great gift.
Improv—with its cardinal rule of YES, AND..."—provides the safest-possible stage. Then, if no one is judging, why is it so hard to go boldly into a scene?
We win. We lose. We root for the underdog. And if we're lucky, we might even nail the landing.
We tell ourselves honest lies all the time. Don’t we all—especially we artists and writers—need to believe in the relevance of our work? And don't we ache to be heard?
