Inspiration

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here.

My friend Kate told me about Paul Jarvis this week and I was instantly obsessed. All his websites and programs are so clean and beautiful and look so helpful! I can’t wait to learn more about the Creative Class. The day after, Sarah Von Bargen posted this article by him about consumption spirals that I loved. Apparently I was meant to encounter Paul this week.

How to love your partner the way they actually want to be loved instead of leading with “Toddler Brain”.

Jonathan Van Ness teaches us how to have a self-care moment: “What can you do to start to get there without having to do so much? How can you get to a destination without spending everything to get there? It’s a moment—just getting that flavor without necessarily having to go so hard.”

Reminder: What you resist persists.

My search for the ultimate CRM for my small business continues! But I am pretty sure I’m going to go with Dubsado: it has such great reviews, all the features I want, and is said to have some of the best customer service around. I’m excited to dig into more of its capability.

This is such a beautiful piece: How Do We Write Now?

Yes to this! “The most effective way to shake things up is to move across the world. Pick a place that’s most unlike what you know, and go. Eventually you’ll realize that your beliefs were not correct — they were just the quaint local culture of where you grew up. You are a product of your environment.”

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It’s been another week that’s completely flown by with meetings and emails and work. That said, it’s had lots of lovely elements too: splitting a yummy pizza, pulling tarot cards on a sunny morning, talking about business with a group of cool people, brainstorming on big pieces of paper taped to the wall, visiting my friend Kathryn’s gorgeous studio (pictured above) and having soul chats. I love this life I’m living and feel lucky for it every single day. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too! xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here.

I’m here in Almonte, Ontario for the week staying with my friend Moni, and I’ve been so inspired by her home. She calls it the Happinest, and every detail is beautiful and thoughtfully done. You can see so many fun pictures of it here, or if you happen to be down this way, rent it on Airbnb! I’m leaving feeling so inspired to decorate my own home more intentionally.

Speaking of Almonte, while I’ve been here I also got to see the super fun store Cheerfully Made in person and re-meet the owner Emily who I’d briefly met at the Etsy Team Captain’s Summit back in March. We all went for coffee and ended up having a really wonderful discussion about business and life. She’s up to so many cool things!

Like everyone, I was so happy to watch Drake’s new music video for Nice for What featuring many of the women celebrities involved in the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements.

Nurture‘s last Harvest Table Dinner was in partnership with Kirsten and JP of Papirmass, the most beautiful and innovative art subscription service. They are such lovely, creative people and it was so much fun to work with them and go home with one of their issues! How lovely then to be gifted a yearly subscription by my friend Sonja – I can’t wait to open the first one.

This week Sonja also gave me the gift of trying a replica of the collard green melt sandwich from Turkey and the Wolf, a place in New Orleans which won Best New Restaurant from Bon Appetit last year. And omg. I need this sandwich at least once weekly forevermore. Luckily there’s a recipe for us!

Last weekend I hosted my first ever Artery showcase with some amazing performers: Sonja Seiler, Stirling Myles, Eric Sorenson, Angie Hilts and Gabe Kong. They’re all so talented and it was so wonderful to hear them perform live in Provocateur Images‘ beautiful space. I would highly recommend checking out Artery and setting up your own showcase! So much fun.

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Fewer links this week because I’ve been deep in retreat mode brainstorming and shifting and making new ideas happen. It feels intense, but it also feels good. Things are moving and I feel a huge sense of possibility and hope for the future. Can’t wait to share more as they are ironed out! For now, I am enjoying having space to dream and plan and become clear on my upcoming goals. It’s very exciting stuff! I am heading back to the city today and hoping to preserve this feeling a little longer. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too! xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

“It’s easy to come to the conclusion that someone’s generous or inspired and so they do the work. But it’s more likely that doing the work makes you generous or inspired.” Thank you, Seth, for this important reminder.

It was really fun to spend part of my week helping to build With/out Pretend’s monthly newsletter, especially since we added a cool recommendations section this month.

So fun to see people starting to post about their 100 Day Projects! I really am digging Elise’s craft adventures, Elle Luna’s daily animations, and Caroline’s tiny truths.

In case you missed it, I posted earlier this week about my decision *not* to do the 100 Day Project and why sometimes I need to think smaller, not bigger.

I added this delicious curried tofu recipe to my arsenal of easy recipes this week!

As I start to get my own podcast ready for launch, I was super inspired (and sort of intimidated!) by this beautiful new show, Dear Seekers. Gorgeous photos & features of interesting women.

I really liked the first episode of Change Agent, a new NYTimes podcast from the author of The Power of Habit. It explores how we can solve problems using seemingly unrelated strategies.

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This week has felt hectic to say the least! In addition to a pretty packed work schedule, I also recorded the first episode of my new podcast (!!) which took forever, but was so satisfying. I’m looking forward to a relaxing and love-filled weekend. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too! xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s first film, Miss Representation, but haven’t yet watched The Mask You Live In (but want to, badly). Her new documentary, The Great American Lie, is about how gender norms negatively impact society as a whole, and it looks amazing.

In a recent 60 Minutes segment, Oprah explored a story she called “life-changing” about childhood trauma. The science and rationale they discuss in the video is very aligned with the work of one of my major clients, whose work I also find life-changing.

I spent the first two days of the week helping out at Etsy’s Team Captain Summit, which was pretty inspiring as a whole. But my favourite part was getting to work closely with and learn from Misha Glouberman, who facilitated a workshop and an unconference for the group. He is so cool! For a glimpse of how cool he is, I highly recommend his book.

I am recently re-enamoured of Todoist, so I will include a small plug here if anyone is looking for an amazing to-do list app. I am also a big fan of scrappy analog lists and recently bought myself some yellow scratch notepads from the dollar store (similar here) to make throwaway lists sometimes too.

Any true crime fans here? Last night I started watching the first episode of The Jinx and I am definitely hooked already. So good. Other shows I’ve liked in this genre: the documentary series on JonBenet Ramsay, and Manhunt: Unabomber.

Love love love the look of Everlane’s brand new underwear collection! These look like the kind of underwear I’ve been looking for forever: simple, good quality, comfortable, cute.

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It’s been a hectic week! Being at the Summit was a ton of fun but really tiring too, so the rest of the week has been spent playing catch-up in both the sleep and the work department. But it was so great to do something a bit outside my typical routine and flex different kinds of creative and problem-solving muscles than I normally get to in my daily work life. I’ll definitely be thinking about how to build event support into my work a bit more. This weekend though I’m hoping to relax relax relax without email, read some good books, get away from my phone and have some quality time. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too! xo.