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.
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.
My anxiety was palpable when I explained negative cash flow. But when we played Risk Bingo, everything that could go wrong, did.
But after the silence we fear and the silence we want, there’s the silence we need. It's the “noble” silence of peace between our ears.
Existentially speaking, aren’t we all planning around—and planning for—obsolescence. The question, then, is what do we do about it?
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?
I toggled back and forth, between the moment and the meta. Am I living? Or am I already writing a story in my head? But I also felt glorious moments of calm.
The Buddha said that we all are basically good. But we probably won’t believe that until we sit still and make friends with ourselves.
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?
I say I want him gone. But ambivalence keeps me from getting the job done. And my lack of commitment annoys me more than the empty traps.
Why can't we accord everyone in our lives the same presence of mind we give a climbing partner? Don't we all need focused, unconditional support?
"Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.”
For 2018, what if we resolve to re-solve? And in that process, we soften? We may see that we haven't always been right. We may see that we don’t have all the answers. And we never did.
Delivering on the promises we make to ourselves—no matter how small—is important. I've procrastinated enough. I need this now more than ever.
Captive to the need to please and the need to know, I had lost touch with my intuition. Evidently this happens a lot. Especially to women.
