Category Archives: Uncategorized

April 18, 2013 · 10:26 am

Remember when we became the Honey Boo Boo children of time management?

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We’re all convinced we are super, uber bad at time management.

I don’t know the myth or mystery behind it but I’ve yet to meet the person who is like, “ME?! HECK YA, I DOMINATE TIME MANAGEMENT… I ROCK THAT THINGS LIMBS OFF! I AM AN ABSOLUTE ANIMAL WHEN IT COMES TO MANAGING MY TIME.”Yea, if that person does exist then I want to meet them… and maybe date them… and then marry them and follow them around drooling while I watch them tackle their day with a productive vengeance.
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Time management seems like one of those weak spots. One of those things we have not quite mastered yet but we really hope to (dot dot dot) someday. But you know what? No more, friends. NO. MORE. Today I am coming at ya’ strong and saying: We are done with being the Debby Downers of Day Planning. You hear me?!?!  If you are too weak for the contents of this post then please exit my blog now. Otherwise, guzzle a 5-hour energy shot and repeat this credo after me:
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“I, ____Insert name here or nickname you’ve always wished people would call you by____, do hereby swear to stop whining and walking around weeping in the organization section of Target. I am going to stop thinking that Etsy shops are my cure-all and that one more set of funky, oval to-do list sheets is going to make my time management skills any bit better. No one needs oval to-do list sheets… not even me.  I am vowing, today and for the rest of my life, to rock the face off time management like Honey Boo Boo child. I am going to be a beast with appointments. I am going to be a tank when it comes to tasks. And I am going to STOP telling people that I am awful at time management and instead tell them that I am the girl/boy on fire before diving into a rendition of notes that Alicia Keys will always hit better than me. And that’s alright… because my talent isn’t singing anymore, it’s time management.”
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No frills, no ruffles- you need a system.

“Buying a new planner, and new dividers, and funky post-it notes, and sweet little stickers and these oddly shaped clip thingers that are an absolute anomaly to me but cute nonetheless are going to make me an organized person! Suddenly I am going to show up to meetings early with a coffee in hand feeling like a million-and-two dollas.”

Yea, you know we’ve all eaten that idea up like cake. Like fluffy, white birthday cake. But can I debunk the lie? And tell you it’s simply not true? No amount of cute accessories will make us better managers of our time. A day planner = tool. A rack of highlighters = tool. Babycakes, step. off. the. tools. and. get. yourself. a. system.
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You have to know the inner workings of your productivity and workflow if you ever want tools to help you down this yellow brick road of time management. I may as well sacrifice this entire blog post to the gods of bad Wizard of Oz References by saying that Dorothy’s shoes, as bangin’ they looked, held no power until she knew how to click those rubies together. I don’t care how pretty we can make our organizers look, we need to get into the habit of creating a system that we go back to day after day after day. Without the system, the frills fail us.
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You need to come into the ring already knowing yes, this works for me or no, that has never worked for me. And girl, it if it has never worked for you then, chances are, it’s not going to work this time around either so please spare yourself the trip to Target for a new planner and just step off for a second.

Lock + key your week before it begins.

I schedule everything into my planner on Sundays so that I can walk into my week knowing what is ahead. I sit down, with tea in hand, on a Sunday night and I map out: what are the projects I need to finish this week? Who are the people I need to see? What emails need to be sent? Do not pent this kind of info up in your head and walk into the week overwhelmed. Write it all down and go from there.
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I walk into the week knowing the tasks I want to accomplish and, more importantly, where they are actually fitting into my day-to-day schedule. After Sunday, that calendar is lock + key. I don’t push my limits, I don’t cancel things, I stick to the tasks I know I need to get done.
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Don’t let “Where” dictate your “What.”

Let’s just be clear: most day planners revolve around where you need to be. Martha Stewart will even go so far as to tell you what day to go to the grocery store and cheer on your son at soccer practice (Martha, I don’t have a son… please hop off my swag with your assertive planner tendencies). I know that if my week revolves around the places that I need to be then I will get way less done. To have a productive week, I must accomplish tasks and push projects forward, regardless of where my meetings lie. Therefore, I use a daily planning sheet to make sure I stay focused.

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Get my daily template here.

Printing out these sheets and stacking them in a big ol’ binder has been the key for me, especially with a crazy travel schedule. I know where I need to be (but it does not dominate my whole day), who I need to follow up with, the big tasks and nitty gritty. Gratitude is also a very important chunk of my day so I make sure I keep a running list of thank you’s so I can spread them out after the day winds down.

Know thy peaks + valleys.

Hours vary for everyone. Some of us work a 9-5 day while others are up at all hours of the night cracking away at the workload. Instead of beating your head against a wall when you lose an hour of productivity, key into when you are the most focused in a day, when you get the most things done, when you tend to slump in your chair and hate your life a little. Schedule the daily workflow into those peaks + valleys.

Be realistic. & plan accordingly.

I am a retired member of the “I used to want to do 27 things in one day until I realized it was physically impossible and my limbs were weeping” club. Time management and day planning means nada if you are constantly setting unrealistic expectations. Know your limits. Know how long a task normally would take you and schedule out from there.

I try to enter into each day with at least 4-5 smaller tasks to get done of 1-3 bigger tasks. Some days I will dedicate an entire day to 1 project while other days I am in serious need of having a bunch of mini projects done. Go at your own pace and know it isn’t the end of the world if a task is not completed. You’d rather the work be on par than frazzled but finished at the 5pm hour.

This is just the first of several posts that will trot your way on time management as I learn the crooks and curves of it myself. I would love to hear from you and gather some tips on what works and what doesn’t work in your own time management habits. Let’s chat in the comments below, boo.

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April 9, 2013 · 12:13 pm

Three ways to be.

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My mother learned how to salsa dance in between a table of sheer glittered tank tops and a rack of leather jackets.

That’s the kind of woman my mother is & always will be, the kind to wear red flip flops in mid-October and a platinum gold satchel on her hip while stepping on the toes of a 20-something Colombian named Carlos who was innocently folding men’s dress shirts in the middle of the clothing store before my mother pulled a thread within him. Unraveling his whole life story. The Seams of Carlos All Tangled Up in My Mother’s Humanity and Salsa Dancing.

Carlos was in America for the year on a futbol scholarship and had just then began to feel the waves of homesickness push in as the holidays began sneaking under doorways and into the store fronts of Sears and Macy’s.

So my mother invited Carlos to Thanksgiving dinner, but only if he taught her a dance. Hence the salsa dancing. Hence the 20-something Colombian learning to knife a turkey at my kitchen table.

My mother reeks of good human being. It pours out of her.

And even though we are often fighting over a) dishes b) bags left on the kitchen table c) student loan checks d) frying pans (all which sum up to the fact that I need a t-shirt that reads “Creativity ruins my Domesticity”), I still want to shake her by the shoulders while screaming loudly, “I wannttttttt tooooo beeeeeee jusssssttttt liiiikkkkkeee yooouuuuu.”

The key word is Be. I want to Be. Just like mother. She gets it. The Being part. She Be’s all day, every day.

She Be a blessing. She Be a lantern. She Be there. No questions asked, She Be there.

And if I can just sort it out, just unravel it the way my mother unraveled Carlos and his homesickness and his need, as if he were a pool of yellow yarn laying on the ground at her feet, then maybe I’ll Be too.

These are the notes I’ve taken thus far.

Be a blessing.

Lean in closer so that I can tell you a secret: People get all weak in the elbows when you spend time on them.

Suddenly we shrink back into the days where our teachers complimented how nicely we folded our hands in our laps and then named us Line Leader for the day. It’s that kind of weakness. A sweet, sticky glow that comes out from the cheeks. All because we stop… and think… and then act intentionally for one another in the form of care packages to cool down the homesickness like a hose, love letters to ward off the loneliness, baked goods to plump up and soften the heart, playlists to make the rains come like clouds breaking open and clearing the drought from our eye sockets.

If you are sitting here, scratching your head and thinking: I want to be someone unlike anyone else in this world then start here. Start by being a blessing. & learning the exhaustion that comes from it but the joy that pours out of it. Be sacrificial. Go out of your way. Don’t take credit. Forget yourself for the sake of someone else. And the let the awesomeness rollllllll in, darling.

People will look at you strangely at first. They will wonder what makes you different but they’re going to seriously start unraveling the parts inside of themselves that don’t look that way if they stare at you and your humility long enough. They’re gonna whisper to the lovely beside them, “What’s that light inside of that one?”

Be a light.

Or a lamp. Or a stoplight. Or a lantern. Or a flashlight. Or the flicker of a candle. Just be a light. If you’ve got light, then be light.

People are looking for it. And they will tell you they are looking for a purpose, a higher calling, a lost shoe, their car keys, a deeper meaning, a better story. And it’s really all just light. We all really just want something larger than us to pour through the cracks and light up the darkness we feel, even when the sun is out.

I think we all just want to dance somewhere in the light, shimmy and shake and hand jive and waltz somewhere in the middle of this quotation: “If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”

Somedays I truly think there will be no better feeling than when there’s Old in my bones and a rocking chair beneath me but I’ll have wrinkles & stories to prove that I was a source of light to others. That I lifted them when they felt weak. That sometimes we just sat, side by side, and said nothing at all and yet the best conversations & revelations were founded that way when we let silence dance with presence. When we just stopped telling the world how very busy we were and we just decided to be there for one another.

Be there.

You know, I don’t know anything about how it will be to die.

I’ve not a clue how the thoughts will spiral through my head when I realize that these toes are going, these hairs are going, these legs will be no more, this mouth of mine will hush, but I bet I’ll think about people like Carlos. People in my life who got all wrapped up in me. And I got wrapped in them. All Tangled. And it never even mattered that blue bled into yellow because somehow we knew that together we’d make green, something we could never do apart. Something really miraculous but something we could never accomplish on our own.

I want to say poetic things when I’m lying in that bed and the doctors are whispering that the time will be short now. And I want someone to hear me when the last breath goes, someone who will have been all the life & jazz I needed for many the years before this. I want to tell him it was wonderful. That the dancing was good. That the laughter was thick. And we’ve got no reason to look back with dismay.

That I think we done good. That I would have never wanted to go this thing alone.

“I needed you to make my green,” I might tell him in the quiet of the room. “I will always be your yellow and you are forever my blue.”

Something really beautiful like that. Something that will belong to only us and the things that only we know.

I want the angels to come when I am tracing faces with my eyes closed.  I want to spend my last air thinking on the times I needed you and you were there. When I took you by the hand and dragged your tired feet. The time when we both stared hopelessly at one another, with skinned knees but polished souls, saying into the April air, “I won’t regret a single second of this. Stay, please stay, and be the keeper of them all.”

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April 4, 2013 · 12:14 pm

25 things every woman needs to know.

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1) Life is a steep, uphill battle but it’s fierce & it’s beautiful & you’ll be sad to see it go if you live it right.

2) New people won’t stop coming into your life and opportunities won’t stop knocking on the door but you need to have the space for them. In all you currently have– be them relationships or obligations– step back and ask yourself “why.” If you can find the answer, hold tighter. If the answer escapes you, it’s time to let something go.

3) You should resolve to be awesome for the rest of your life. Right now. Do it.

4) Leggings, no matter how much we wish, will never one day magically transform into pants. Wearing them with tops that don’t cover your bum is not cute. Please, please, please stock up on pants.

5) Goals are not a January 1st kind of thing. Set them weekly. Set them monthly. Set them so that you are moving forward and always trying to progress. Life can grow stagnant without them… beware.

6) Tuna and barbeque sauce are as unlikely a couple as Sandy and Danny from Grease. However, they go together. They go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. Don’t gag at the computer, I promise I am not fooling you. Mix the two together with some brown rice and you’ve got a bomb.com lunch.

7) Confidence is a sexy thing. Guys dig it. Girls dig it. We all dig it.

8) I agree with Bruno Mars and, if I were a good singer, I’d serenade you alongside him in singing how I hope he buys you flowers… and holds your hands… and takes you to parties if you like to dance. You deserve that. Always. Don’t think you should have less than that. You are worthy beyond words, gal.

9) And maybe Bruno Mars should be president because he’s also right to say that you are amazing. Just the way you are. No frill. No big introductions. You’re unlike anyone else and you should lean into that every morning. Every evening. Every hour.

9.5) Knowing your states & geography is a really precious thing. As a recovering “I didn’t pay attention in Geography class and forgot my states one by one so that boys would think I was ditzy & cute, and it was ditzy & cute until the day I asked everyone in Missouri how they liked living down south,” I can say firsthand that it’s really wonderful to know that Russia isn’t on top of the US and that Delaware is, in fact, a state. The moral of this bloated story: guys have never wanted us to be stupid. They actually like brain cells. It’s a wonder & a mystery but they really kind of, sort of, definitely like girls with a noggin. ALL HAIL THE LADIES WHO LIKE HTML CODING & MARXIAN THEORY!! HOLLAAAA!!! WE WINNNN AFTER ALL THESE YEARSSSS!!

10) Your spirit will never benefit from shallow people. You gotz to cut the toxic out of your life, boo.

11) And if you make mean comments, and you talk about people behind their back without ever trying to love them or see where they are coming from, you MIGHT be the toxic one. Oof. I’m not trying to burn you, just trying to say that relationships are too valuable to muddy them up with what you perceive to be the shortcomings of someone else. Big girls do bigger things than that.

12) So yea, I’ll drive the point home: gossip is shallow and stupid. Hobbies are better. Social good is best ;)

13) Nude pumps. They’re good for the soul. They are a must-have in any serious closet. Buy a pair one day and I can promise your whole entire style statement will benefit from them.

14) Here’s the truth: you are going to waste a lot of hours focusing on who you are not, or who you want to secretly be. But you won’t ever wake up and actually be that person. You’ve got to embrace what you bring to the table. If you don’t like what that is, have the courage to change it.

15) The world does not revolve around us. Turns out that we are just little points of punctuation in a much bigger story glittered with periods & commas & dashes. How are you helping that story to be better? How are you being the best dang point of punctuation that you can be?

16) If you ever find yourself frying Oreos on the stove top (and being an absolute BOSS at it), do not, I REPEAT, do not take the simmering pot of grease straight from the stove and pour it directly into the sink. The thing will straight up explode… And grease will fly everywhere… And you will risk burning your pretty little face off… And then everyone will probably call you “Vat of Grease Face” or “Grease Lightning” (what is with all the Grease references, Hannah?!) for the rest of your life… And, if they do, you can refer them to this blog post and tell them to read point #11. But still, dump the grease outside and keep your face intact.

17) If you want to run a serious business, if you want people to take you seriously, then start your engine and sign out some library books. Business books are proof that God loves us. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg will make you a better leader. Seth Godin is the dude you wanted to take the prom all these years and never knew it until you cracked open his book “Tribes.”

18) No matter how tech savvy we get, there is a need to say things to a person’s face. Please, for the love of lovelier things, have the courage to call someone up and verbalize your thoughts or meet for a coffee. Breaking a heart is hard stuff, stopping a relationship is never fun, but there will never be anything as loud as this statement: You are worth my words. You are worth my presence. You are worth, and will always be worth, more than just letters on a screen and a broken heart jammed in the crooks of an overflowing inbox. Face to face connections are fading faster, please don’t let them get away…

19) First impressions are important. Really. That truth never changes. So refer to point #4. Really meditate on it.

20) No matter what kind of interview you are gearing up for, there are certain standards you should always hold yourself to: wearing something other than jeans, not talking out your phone during the interview, sending a handwritten note afterwards. An interview means you want something but it doesn’t mean they have to give it to you.

21) Regret is a real thing. It’s going to happen. It’s going to come clomp-clomp-clomping into your life at some point. Don’t hold onto things forever but learn from them and let the past go. The past will be a dictator if you let her. 

22) You never want to be the COTS (chick on the side). Girls, GIRLS!!!! IF A GUY HAS A GIRLFRIEND AND HE IS STILL TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU IN A “YOU ARE THE ONE THAT I WANT” WAY, DO NOT FALL FOR IT. HE SHOULD MAN UP AND ACTUALLY LET THE OTHER GIRL GO. IF HE DOES NOT THEN WALK AWAY. WALK AWAY. WALK AWAY. You are worth so much more than second string in relationships. And being a COTS is not an endearing title. Be the better lady and hop off his swag; you are breaking the heart of girl you don’t even know without ever really meaning to. (And truthfully: real men aren’t interested in finding another gal, they’re too wrapped up in loving the face off the one they already have.)

23) The women’s  section of Old Navy and Target has failed us. If you ever really want to fully embrace to “oversize” look then just frolic over the men’s section. All those flannels you’ve been tugging at, wishing they would actually be “oversize,” are hanging out in the men’s section waiting to kiss your elbows with their flannelish lips. Roll up the sleeves and get going. And then wear them leggings having no shame at all!

24) Facebook is a tricky thing. This is an invitation to step back and ask yourself, should I really post that? In the days of diaries, we never had to worry about this. Now all that we say is a microphone so be very, very careful. Here’s a link to all the best quotes from Maya Angelou. The next time you feel like posting something really ugly that you are going to regret, take a stab at one of these instead: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3503.Maya_Angelou

25) Darling, darling–the victim song is never going to fit you. It will never be good enough for your lungs. It will never be good enough for your time. You are stronger than you know and more graceful than you know. Don’t let the parts of you that want to be a victim live on any longer. You’ve got a voice… you’ve got a story… Do us all a favor and use it. Without any apologies. Without any stepping back. If ever you need a listener, come find me…

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April 1, 2013 · 7:09 am

Leaps & Boundaries, or why Jude Law ain’t the answer.

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Can we hash out secret fears together?

Like huddle close to one another and make our voices get real low and tell each other things we’ve never admitted? Sounds o.k.? O.k. then.

You know the movie The Holiday? The one with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz? The one that has made nearly every female who has ever watched it wish there was a man for them with a mean Mr. Napkin head impression? So here’s the truth on that one: I am secretly petrified that I’ll end up like Cameron Diaz’s character in that movie, unable to pull herself from too long of work hours and riding off in the backseat of a car on the way to a secluded cottage in England to spend my holidays alone. Yes, it sounds dramatic but you’ve feared it too, maybe.

As much as I love that movie, I cannot actually believe  Jude Law’s character– a hunky Brit who stumbles in blaring drunk & charming one evening– is the answer to this gal’s problems. I don’t necessarily think that love stepping in is the very thing that can pull someone away from an unruly work schedule or bad habits.  It’s apparent every time I watch that movie: Girl. Needed. Boundaries. B-O-U-N-daries. Bow-chicka-wow-woundaries.

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There’s this strange sort of paralyzing feeling that rushes over when you wake up and realize that you’ve got just two hands. And two feet. And only one mouth. And two little eyes. And that there is only 15 or so waking hours. And yikes, just 7 days in a week?

It’s not that we are running out of time, it’s that we are realizing we are just one person. That our hearts were not actually designed to be pulled in too many directions. That flesh, spread too thin, hurts more souls than it helps. That we must learn to preserve our lives, and make intentional breathing room, if we ever want to avoid brokenness and burnout to the Nth degree.

Boundaries.

I never used to put much weight on that term. I used to confine boundaries to relationships and relationships to romance. I thought boundaries were the sort of thing to break… to push your own limits. I never thought I might need to set some up, that I might need to know my own limits if I want to be happy & whole & charging forward in my professional and personal life.

So I’ve set some boundaries. Some stringent boundaries that I want to stick to more than anything: No emails after 6pm or before 8:30 am. No social media after 8pm on week days. No email on the weekends. No checking of Facebook messages, EVER.

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They’re simple. They’re not frilly. But they give my otherwise unstructured & unpredictable life a chance to shut off. They tell people, “I leave the office too,” “I shut off and get away from here too.” Because it’s healthy. Because it’s necessary. And I want to be better to you, and more attentive to you, and more intentional with you because of it.

1) Boundaries plant your feet down in an ever-marching world.

I’m realizing that there is this exhaustion that sets in if I go to sleep scrolling through a screen and I wake up to stretch my limbs and check my email. I walk out into the day tired, already influenced by the social fingerprints of 8,000 people. Already knowing who needs me for the day. And it becomes harder, so. much. harder, to just say, “Enough, I’ve had enough.”

We’ve taken a tool like social media and on-the-go emails from our iPhones that were supposed to make our lives easier and we let them mindlessly rule us. And control us. And swap real moments with a presence that is half-hearted and two-dimensional.

Boundaries make room for creativity. They make room for real conversations. They give you a space to breathe that is not always influenced by other people. They allow you to shut off, regroup, and come back stronger for the next day.

1) Boundaries set expectation & professionalism.

We gotz mah gurlllll Sara Brink to thank for this next one. Sara Brink set me straight one evening as I was sending emails at 11:30pm. She kind of looked at me with her Tay Swifty-we-are-never-ever-ever-getting-back-together-face and said, “Do you really want people to think you are spending your Friday night sending emails?”

BAM. GUTTED IN THE STOMACH. The time stamp makes me look disorganized. It makes me look like I don’t have time management in my own life so I just choose to never shut off. It makes me scream to people (unknowingly), “YO, I gotzzz nooo boundaries so email me at any time of the night and I will be at your doorstep with a bone in my mouth.” Um, hi. No thank you…

So try out this application (courtesy of Ms. Brink). Download it into your Gmail. And watch your life change for the better. Boomerang will allow you to hold an email in your inbox and send it at a specific time later on. Working through emails on a Saturday? Delay them to be sent on Monday morning. Burning the midnight oil? Hold those suckers for 10am the following morning.

Set your own levels of expectation for other people, put your “office hours” in your email signature. Let people know that you do shut off, that you do take breaks, that you do feed your soul occasionally with Les Miserable anthems and hiking.

3) Boundaries keep you out the tissue-paper heart zone.

I get anywhere from 50-100 emails daily from people wanting to share stories, and tell me their problems, and receive love letters, and I used to make false promises to myself that I would be there for every single one of them.

I can’t be. I want to be. But I cannot be.  It’s a hard lesson to learn but I am just one person. I have just one inbox. And I will never, ever be trained in fixing the brokenness of every soul that comes into my path.

You have to know when to step back. You have to know when to fuel up. When your heart actually needs pour into the faces you know and the hands you can actually hold instead of just strangers on Twitter. Don’t misread me, I’ve made plenty of best friends on Twitter but I’ve made the relationships because we benefit from one another, we pour into one another, we hold one another accountable off the screen. And that’s the essence of a relationship that works.

Without boundaries, we go crazy thinking that we need to hold the world together with our own superglue. Now I stick with the mantra, “Do for one what you wish you could do for all.” I respond when I can. I set specific hours to just plug through. I try my best to get to as many as possible. But I’ve stopped putting the world on my shoulders over what comes into my inbox. It’ll burn you out. It will break you quickly.

4) Boundaries help you seize a life back.

I used to call myself a “workaholic” until I realized that there a lot of negative connotations stuck in the pores of that word.

I am a gal who adores her work but I can assure y’all that it’s not all the prettiness you think it might be. My closest friends would tell you that they have to drag me out of the zone. They have to remind me that I am 24 and alive and breathing and capable of dancing. They have to get me to shut off, otherwise I’d spend all my nights lighting candles and hardcore dating every ounce of my professional life. Yes, I love it. No, I don’t want to look back in 10 years and realize it’s all I built up, that I missed out on the essence of relationships for Powerpoints & PDFs.

When I talked to a friend about these new boundaries the other day, specifically my decision to not check Facebook messages anymore and including that note in my cover photo, I said it was not just setting limits for myself, it was seizing a life back. It was setting up healthier habits. It was creating a lifestyle that does not let me be dictated by the glow of the screen…

The emails won’t stop coming. The tweets will keep come on rolling in. So what do we do in the meantime? What do we do in the meantime?

I’m on some massive boundaries kick these days so I would love to hear how you set them up in your own life. Any tips? Any breakthrough moments from setting them yourself?

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March 20, 2013 · 10:40 am

Captured.

The World Needs More Love Letters from Justin Marantz on Vimeo.

I had every intention in the world to publish a different blog post today.

It was typed. It was edited. It was going to be another one of the kind that socks you in the ribs and makes you search the skies for spare oxygen. Because that’s just the kind of poetry that sits in my bones most days.

But I have to be honest & truthful that I’ve been in a funk lately.

I’ve been a little sad. I’ve been questioning a lot of things. And I’ve just wanted to come onto this page and say, “It’s so dang hard to move forwards sometimes when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do next.” That’s the truth in following God’s Dream. You might never know where the next step is but He promises to make it worth it. & it always, always is.

Justin + Mary Marantz, two new friends of mine, contacted me two weeks ago, right before I headed off to St. Louis for a speaking engagement and asked if they could capture my story to share with their audience at WPPI in Las Vegas. I obliged.

I am a fan of their work. I am willing to share in an Always sort of way.

But truthfully, there is always this worry when someone else handles your story. When they take the inner workings of your heart into their own hands and they attempt to capture you. They have the potential to portray you right or wrong to the whole wide world. I was praying for right this time.

The video came out today. I held my breath and clicked “Play.” And slowly, slowly, the tears began streaming down my face. In the middle of a Starbucks, with a mug stained with red lips between my hands, I let the tears from the last few weeks, piled thick upon me, come and drizzle down my skin.

There are words living on my inside. I know there are. They are the words that will push me to write this memoir. They are the words that were there to start this story and they will be there to finish it out. I have to stop doubting them. I have to stop belittling my story… It is one for telling. This video has made me certain, so certain of that.

A good, good artist will capture you just as you are. They will get you in a way that makes you realize that you never truly knew how you wanted people to know your story until you became their muse. That’s how this video feels to me. Like I am speechless. Like I am overcome with gratitude. Like I wish people wouldn’t dig through Google to find and read my story… but that they would simply watch this.

Thank you Justin + Mary. You captured me. You really did.

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February 28, 2013 · 6:16 pm

The “Brews” are back in town.

I have a gift.

Just a few months ago I would have believed it was boastful, or prideful, or arrogant to say that sort of thing out loud, but I’ve learned best most recently that we’re called to be confident & bold when it comes to the things we thrive at. So, I have a gift.

I was made to be a frizzy-haired, freckled, little creature who absolutely oozed with creativity. I have far too much creativity for my own good. I come up with solutions on the spot. I can make any brand, or load of copy, or organization stand out among the rest. I have an eye for things unseen and I am not afraid to get down & dirty to make something I love even better at the core and the fringes.

For this reason, among many more, I started Brew Sessions this past summer. Brew Sessions were the remedy for the ache in my heart to connect with individuals from across the world who wanted to do good work and just needed the encouragement to step outside the box. Brew Sessions were my way to switch gears in my own brain and offer my advice & expertise & creative eye to folks who just needed some action steps, a solid cheerleader, & a bluntly honest friend.

The last year of my life has blown my mind… I’ve started a global company, I’ve quit my own steady 9-5 job to make a mark in the freelance world, I’ve bobbed & weaved through corporate partnerships and became a spokesperson for the Postal Service. I’ve gained international press and have began speaking around the country (including TED). I signed with a literary agency and I began helping companies– small and large– find their voice, their “why” in this big ol’ world through creative consulting. But all this experience just stacks up a desire within me to pass the know-how onto others. My heart still somersaults for the ones with big dreams. For the ones who want a fresh start. For the ones who want to break from the desk job or follow a passion, wherever it will lead. These are the people I want to connect with. Meet with. Dream with. Brainstorm with. If that’s you, come find me.

Come with your ideas. With your hopes. With your plans. And together, we’ll brew something beautiful.

–hb

For the next month, the following Brew Sessions will be offered as “Pay What You Can.” You propose the brewing price and we make it happen. Grab them up quick because they are very limited. The sessions will become set rate by mid-March.

So what’s a Brew Session?

Brew Sessions are one-hour long specialized creative brainstorming sessions. We meet together over Skype or phone and we lay ideas, goals, and hopes square in the center of the table. The 60 minutes is spent sifting & sorting & plotting action steps for the road ahead. We solve problems. We unblock the barriers. We get you thinking too creatively for your own good. We set goals. We create the “what’s next.” We get down to the nit & grit of something you’ve always wanted.

Brew Sessions are a time to focus on your dreams & what you really want out of life. They are a creative space. They are judgement-free. And they are incredibly invaluable to the ones who seek to reinvent themselves on new levels.

All Brew Sessions come with a PDF Brew Booklet & notes from the Session delivered within 24 hours of the Brew.

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Schedule your “Classic Brew” session today.

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Book your “Bold Brew” session today.

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Schedule your “Brink Brew” session today.

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Book your “Blogger Brew” session today.

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February 26, 2013 · 7:49 am

So give me something that gushes like a waterfall.

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If a weekend was delivered to my doorstep this past Friday then I didn’t seem to notice it.

Either I confused it for a never-ending Monday or decided that Friday and Saturday would just look a lot like thick, thick work instead of the play days they were designed to be. Regardless, I spent the last 48 hours amidst a pile of mail crates stacked high in my hallway. 

It’s been that kind of endless weekend. Of sorting mail. Of ripping open endless amounts of envelopes. Of gaining a headache quickly over the sadness some people pour into their letters. Of counting & recounting & resorting & straightening over 1,000 pieces of mail. And staying grateful the whole way through.

So yesterday at letter 700, just as my fingers were about to divorce the rest of my body, I decided to watch a movie that’s been tethered to my to-do list for some time now– The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I found out this past summer that More Love Letters is actually printed in the back of every new printed edition and eBook version of this classic novel so I naturally wanted to see what all the fluster was about.

So I watched.

And clutched my head. And cried a bit (when do I ever not cry?). And I got stuck– really, really stuck– on one of the quotes, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” 

Dang, if that quote is not a shovel made to dig up every past relationship we’ve ever had then I don’t know what is. Stephen Chbosky– you are an absolute BOSS for coming up with that pretty little ditty and leading an entire generation of readers to scavenge through their beings for worthiness & love. 

Without any real prompting, I started searching the curves of my heart for every incident, every relationship gone wrong & weary, every kiss stolen, every heart given back in shambles, to understand the truth in this quote.

We accept the love we think we deserve. We accept the love we think we deserve.

It must explain why so many of us are in broken relationships. Why we cannot walk away. Why we settle for less and just learn to be thankful that it is anything at all. Why we shirk away from compliments. Why we cling to others as if them, & their imperfect flesh, can actually fix us and concoct the sunshine in test tubes on days when nothing in the world can seem to go right.

This. Must. Be. Why. Because we think we are deserving of less. That we, ourselves, could never handle someone who thought us to be lovely & original & delicate all in one breath. And so we settle… and we chalk it up to what we think we deserve. It’s our fault, Baby, it all becomes our fault. 

This is the kind of quote that could make you dust off your hands from the chalkboard of your yesterdays and say, “That’s that… that is what I deserve and so that is what I should have.”

But no, I actually have to revolt against this quote. I actually have to believe that there exists an expiration date when it comes to accepting the love we think we deserve.

Either we keep ourselves stagnant in never moving, always draining relationships or we learn the truth: we deserve so much more than the little we give ourselves on a daily basis. And that there is a love that exists in this world that would adore marching right up to us and saying, “You know what? Screw your stupid limitations. I am bigger than you. I am stronger than you. And I have known you and what you deserve long before you ever started passing your heart out like the ice cream man– you are more precious than you will ever credit yourself for.  So. Let. Me. Lavish. Upon. You. Instead.” 

Love is so much bigger than we ever boxed it up to be.

Yet we strap our definitions and our limitations upon it after the very first day we realize that hearts break & grow rusty when we let another in. But still, still, it gushes like a waterfall on the day you decide you are worth more than the mediocre dripping faucet. Than the broken plates. Than the empty bed. Than the half-said apologies. Than the bruise left after the beating.

We will always, always, always be the ones who cut ourselves off at the knees. That will never change.

We will always, always, always be the ones who cut ourselves off at the knees unless we are start accepting a love we don’t think we deserve… And hey, maybe it is a love that we will never actually deserve but it comes to us regardless and we’ve got the chance to get all wrapped up & tangled lovely in it.

We’ve got the chance to paint the world with it.

We’ve got the opportunity to tangle other people up in it and make them think, now what is this mystery and why do they love me so?

I’m not saying you will ever believe you actually deserve it. But do you accept a gift that’s given? I am not claiming I will ever believe it either. But regardless, I’ll accept it because it is so much better than any stingy kind of love I could make with my own two hands and a broken, broken heart.

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January 31, 2013 · 10:58 am

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.

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I catapulted into the passenger seat of the car wearing the most convincing grin I could find before leaving the house.

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t wanted her to accuse me. I didn’t want the argument. I wanted to ramble about the things I was sure of: the weather. My shoe size. My craving for the evening entree: Mexican. Definitely Mexican. 

“So, how…” she started to speak.

“We had a really great day,” I cut her off quickly. “We spent it hiking. And we didn’t fight at all. It was like we were starting all over again. It was great.”

We sat in silence for a tiny eternity before she pressed her hand to the gear and pushed it into reverse. “Hannah,” she whispered.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“One day does not change the last year of your life.” 

 

Hi, my name is Hannah Brencher and I am a retired member of the “I Tried to Fix You” Club. I’ve resigned from my position as secretary of the “Please, Just Change” Club. I’ve stopped knocking my gavel at the “Tomorrow Things Will Be Different” Club.

I’ve been there, floating on the dang door in the icy ocean, holding tight to someone who is dying right in front of me. I’ve been the one to say, “I’ll never let go.” And I’ve learned the pain that comes in loosening the grip simply because we don’t always stumble into the people who ask us to hold on. Some people have never wanted that of us.

Sometimes we stumble, crash, collide, and even fall in love with people that walk away. It happens. That’s life. Cue Frank Sinatra.

But that story of mine goes back to a bad year. A year full of fighting. A year full of tumult & tears. A year spent wondering what it would cost to walk away. How would things turn? How would they tumble? And could we stand on our own anymore? And where, oh, where was the guidebook– the handbook, the dictionary, the Wikipedia site– for all of us who got so tangled in Another Soul that we forgot who we were apart from another pair of hands. Another pair of arms. Two eyes that always saw us through?

 

I used to put my whole body into relationships.

I used to turn to a speck, a glitter, beside someone else.

I’d be sucked dry of self esteem and left hanging on the every word of boys who should have never needed to validate me like a Taylor Swift ballad. I cried at night after parties, my tiny body on the floor wondering how vodka brought so much honesty & heartbreak through my bloodstream, imagining the day in which I would take the concrete shoes off. The day I would walk away finally. The day I would finally face the mirror and ask, “And who are you, girl?” Who. Are. You?

I never wanted my fingerprints on that question. I never wanted to dance with the Ugly I found inside of me. I’d rather pour my energy into fixing someone. And healing someone else. And be a big ol’ bandage to anyone who ever came to me with their heart in their hands. And staying in relationships as flimsy as scotch tape houses if it meant I could focus on holding up anything other than me.

 

It was nearing 2am.

Her words kept rubbing against me as I crossed and uncrossed my legs on the floor.

“One day does not change the last year of your life.” 

“One day does not change the last year of your life.” 

I was alone now.

And I’d stayed up to plow through India and learn to love in Bali.

I was reaching the edge of “Eat, Pray, Love.” In a quiet house that held the snores of my parents somewhere within it, I was reaching the point in the journey where Elizabeth Gilbert would dot her last sentence. Leave me there. To start my own path towards fixing whatever was broken. Replacing whatever was lost.

I was alone now. The texts weren’t coming any longer. There were no goodnight kisses or someone to battle with over who loved who more. And I felt aloneness for the first time. It was the first sense of knowing that I was on my own. It would stay that way.

And it was strange but lovely to feel like, for the first time, it was time for my own repairs. The fog was clearing and it was just fine to learn the art of putting myself back together again. Without all the king’s horsemen. Or all the king’s men. 

I felt more worth it in that moment than ever before.

I sucked the last line in deep. I closed the book and folded my legs up around me. I whispered to the spaces that always hold God at night, “I don’t know what I was made for.”

I didn’t know what God was scratching his chin about on the day He decided that there’d be a little girl with freckled limbs & wild red hair. I didn’t know if He sang. If He danced. If He wrote a poem and sat in a cloud of a canopy for the rest of the afternoon.

But He had gone through the trouble & the tumble to make me. And I was a being who cried separately, who dreamed apart, who could walk away. It might take a few steps, a few falls, a few mistakes, but I could walk away. And stand alone. And learn to fix the wings so stitched for flight.

And, in that moment, knowing just that was enough.

It was enough to start over. It was enough to stay walking on the path towards Away.

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January 22, 2013 · 7:56 am

Learning to be the cool, vulnerable chick in the corner.

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I want to remember everything about this time.

The details. The silver linings. The gooey middles. The intricacies that hold in these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. And how these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities seem to be happening pretty consistently in my day-to-day. And I want to remember that they should always, always humble me to my knees.

Last week I boarded a flight for Hollywood. I was there for a solid 24-hours. I stayed on the Boulevard. I brought wardrobe choices. I walked on a TV set. I had a dressing room with my name in the middle of the star. I sat down with a host I’d known for years by the glow of the screen. I wondered when I would wake up.

Life feels a bit surreal these days. It feels like it probably belongs to someone else. Or that it’s been lent to me by someone who’s coming back tomorrow, planning to ask me, “Was my little life good to you?”

And let’s be honest– I had no real intention of ever blogging about this. I planned to trot back from Holl-ay-wood and post my usual “Inspiring Post that Makes Others Think It Could Be About Them But Really It Is About Me… Maybe…” kind of post and stay off from all y’all. But someone sent me an email as I was boarding the plane, a single sentence email that read: “Please tell us about Hollywood.”

OOF. Wind rush. Me? Talk about my life? On my blog? Jeepers, now that is something I don’t like doing. I am going to be plain & honest & true with you… I have never felt comfortable talking about my life on this blog unless I muddy up the details with imagery & metaphors and leave your head spinning and wondering if the details of that last post ever even happened to me at all. And no one knows a thing about me besides the movement I started and the color of my hair. It might be a defense mechanism. I’ve done it for three years now. But something is pushing me out my comfort zone and I am ready to share more. And be honest more. And give you more of a glimpse of my everyday ordinary. (I am so swallowing hard right now, sweating profusely, wondering if I can actually do this.)

So my life… yea… and what I think it is these days.

I think it simmers down to this: Great faith. & great expectation. The two, braided together like horse hair, took me straight into a life I never planned for myself. A life I never thought my little hands would deserve.

When I quit my fulltime job back in July, God was calling. Trust me, it takes much bravery & courage on my part to admit that to strangers who only know me by the slang in my syllables. But the quitting my job was God’s plan, not my own.

My plan has always been big & illustrious. If I were an Indian child, they’d have named me Lover of Big Names & Fancy Resume Buzz Words. I wanted to work for huge nonprofits. I wanted connections with names that would hitch up my LinkedIn profile and make it shine brighter than the Hollywood Boulevard at night. I craved security. Enough money. I wanted the things that would symbolize a job well done. A kid making well for herself in a struggling economy. But the plan was never to quit the job.

Then More Love Letters came alone. And it was a squander between a role God gave me that hummed to the riffs of His very own soundtrack and a job God had given me to deliver me out of the Year of my Unraveling. The Year Depression Wore Rainboots & Tromped Out My Spirits. I wanted to honor both roles. I burnt out. I worked too many hours. I forgot friends. I kept praying.

In the middle of April, God whispered July. The month would be July. I knew something would heave. Turn. Shift. And, sure enough, a job was offered for July that would cut me down to a fourth of the money I’d been making. I left a salary, benefits, insurance. My pockets were heavy from student loans. I found a limb… and I walked out on it. I was fearful. But I had a feeling it would fan out into something beautiful.

I could suddenly work from anywhere, for someone who gave me one requirement: The time not spent working for me gets devoted to your dream.

I agreed. I stepped out. And I clung to God for security. For abundance. For a direction.

My life takes on a new kind of ordinary these days.

A new kind of normal that I am learning to embrace with both hands. I’m not used to TV studios. Nor am I used to heavy email inboxes. Or public speaking. Or book deals.

But it is all rolling forward and I am being stretched in the limbs to show up every morning and be the girl that God mapped out for me. If I didn’t want so much– if I didn’t already have the sweetest taste in my mouth for what God can do for those who trust Him fully– I’d be the girl I thought I always should be: quiet. Pent up inside a box. Insecure. Sorry for her own existence.

And I don’t want to stand here, with hands in pockets while looking down & kicking at the dust, trying to tell you that you can transform your life into something magical. Truthfully, I don’t think I could pull off a shred of magical on my own. But I looked up to the heavens and said, pretty honestly, “I don’t always trust you, I don’t always know what you want from me, but I am tired of this sadness. I want my life to be whimsical. I’ve got big dreams. I have so much I want to do. I want to write books. I want to speak to many. I want to do Your work, God, if only I knew what that work was…” And yea… God met me with a pretty outlandish but whimsical life. (Twas’ never my own doing and I don’t ever plan to take that credit.)

And so, no, I don’t want to be that other girl anymore. The tired one. The one who is not confident in her abilities & giftings.  & I must refuse to bring her along in this journey because the girl already mapped out for me is another thing altogether.

She is pretty wonderful. She is pretty cool. She gets to do amazing things. She gets to meet amazing people. She feels blessed almost always. She is learning the art of gratitude better every morning. That girl is learning, above everything else, that she needs to embrace what is coming her way like golden tidal waves, whether she ever felt she deserved it or not.

That is the girl I want all of you to meet. She is not perfect. She is not trying to be perfect anymore. She is just joyful. Content. Ready to share. Ready to find her own voice on this blog.

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January 7, 2013 · 7:39 am

How to Date Amazement: A dating guide that Cosmo mag definitely missed.

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The Break Up

It begins with a break up.

Not the kind of break up that lends itself to tissues and chocolate peanut butter pie; although I am often tempted to date, just to break up, just to fall head first into a justified peanut butter pie coma. But no, no; this is the kind of break up that stems from a chance encounter. This is the break up we have seen played out in nearly every movie that Kate Hudson has graced the screen in. Like every classic, often predictable, chick flick: the protagonist who seemingly “has it all” settles into a relationship that cheapens her worth. The guy is never around. Married to his work. Flirts with other girls. But said protagonist does not give a second thought to leaving. Or finding better.

Until…. That epic chance encounter with a rugged costar who awkwardly bumps into her in the lobby of a hotel or while dog walking (notice how they are always walking their dogs in those movies?)

The girl suddenly finds herself knee-deep in a ruffled mess of clichés. Falling Head Over Heels. Strange Insects Flapping Their Wings Within Her Stomach. Tossing and Turning in Satin Sheets at Night.

So naturally, a break up ensues. The kind where things needed to first Break in order to Look Up.

She is tired of the old. She knows that better exists out there, she’s now seen it with her own two eyes. She decides that enough is enough, a little heartbreak won’t kill her if the weight falls off her shoulders.

I had a break up with my own body.

A Kate Hudson kind of break up with my own self. You want to say it is not possible. I want to say it is quite possible.

We were in a long distance relationship for far too long, as if I were sitting upon a cloud watching a girl live in New York City, swipe her metro card through a turnstile, and bolt off to work without ever stepping foot into her body. She and I; we were forgetting to talk at night. We were barely ever communicating. I stopped listening to what she wanted. She stopped wanting anything at all. This, my friends, is where you need to either take the peanut butter pie to your face and cry on top of a kitchen table or, decide to make a split. Change Something. Change Anything at All.

“I want to learn to date Amazement,” I told my friend at a coffee shop one morning. My eyes were tired. My feet were probably swollen from some ridiculous pair of heels. “There is no reason, at all, that I should not be amazed by every little thing around me. I want to be more grateful for all it.”

Hold Up… I realize right now how very transcendent I sounded in that statement. I can assure all, I was not trying to date my inner being or make out with trees and butterflies while contemplating my past life as a brick in a castle… (no offense to anyone who has a past life as a brick in a castle, I am sure it was a beautiful one), I was merely trying to fess up to the fact that I wanted life to court me. I wanted the little things to make my attention more often. I wanted to stand– barefoot and broken open– before a world that surely was broken herself but still had so much Amazement tied in the locks of her spiral-curled hair.

And while Cosmopolitan can shovel ten thousand tips into our digestive tracts about how to date and date “right,” I can sum my quest to date Amazement into three steps. Three Simple Steps. Beat that Cosmo, come over here and I’ll show ya how we get things done in this yard.

Step One: Look Up.

Girly girl, if you are spending your days watching your feet prance on concrete then, rightfully so, you should be a little depressed. We are human beings. Translation: We got Tough Times. Rough Patches. Unfavorable Situations. Wrong Turns. Messy Conversations. Selfish Motives.

Basically, we have these messy, messy lives and it is kind of a beautiful thing. A wondrous art if you choose to see it that way.

My favorite line ever, even beating the top-notch phrases of Toni Morrison & Maya Angelou, are words written by Chaska Lela Potter before she let Jason Mraz slip em’ into his sweet lungs: “Hey, what a beautiful mess this is/It’s like picking up trash in dresses.”

Oh My Goodness. Evoke Imagery Right Now. Lace & Silk White Dresses. Brass Buttons. Sheer Veils. Knees Sunk in the Dirt. Dump Yard. Unearthing Treasures in a Trash Field. Call me a garbage man’s daughter, but this is the most beautiful illustration of life that I can find. How amazing it is that we have the chance to pick the treasures from the mess of the world and hold them high up to the light.

There’s no chance we could possibly go another day missing that, needing that, forgetting to look up and realize we have so much of that already.

Step Two. Look Around.

When we finally look up it becomes easier to tilt our heads this way and that way and Look Around. Look Left. Look Right. Look Both Ways and Cross Streets.

Suddenly we are swept into a wild courtship with a Messy World that always brings Amazement along on her arm; fitting nicely into the crook of her elbow.

Perhaps this is a kindergarten lesson but we have Fingers. Knees. Freckles. Legs to Walk. Lips to Kiss. Arms to Embrace. Lungs to Inhale Life’s Sultry Symphonies. We can dance. Now. Laugh. Now. Break Up, Make Up, Show Up. Right Now. And in five minutes. And two hours. And tomorrow. Again and Again and Again.

Amazement in a fine, fine suitor. The debonair skips right over the chocolates and flowers and ties the whole wide world and all its brilliant possibilities up in a silky white bow.

“Here you go,” Amazement says at the door. “And by the way, you have a very pretty face.”

Step Three. Look Inside.

Ah, the place often never want to look for fear of the mess we might encounter if we pick around too long. Car Crashes of the Soul. Bitter Feelings. A Whole Collection of Pandora Boxes Full of Sadness, Loneliness, and Unhappiness.

But we must go there– with flashlights, sleeping bags & tents– if we ever pray to be o.k. with ourselves inside & out and to embrace the Amazing Potential that is praying for release.

Dating Amazement starts when we Let Go of the Mediocre Bindings. The Little Problems that seem Oh So Big. The Feelings that we feel will never end. And we open ourselves up to the truth: We are worth more. There is more than this. We don’t run the show. There is Something or Someone much larger than us that Pumps Amazement into the Place where we Stamp our Feet and Cry out Loud.

Amazement slips in when we admit to being Messes of Skin but admit to wanting something more. Something far beyond average or ordinary.

Be still. Be quiet. Perk your ears up… Can you hear it? Amazement just propped open a window. It is time to crawl through.

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