My Latest: Cure for Celiac?

I’ve just explored the challenges, and opportunities, of living with celiac disease. Do we have a cure? Maybe we do — look at it this way.

Check out the full article at Gluten Free and More Magazine online here.

My Latest at Freelancers Union: 5 New Food Attitudes to Fuel Your Freelancing

“Think of your brain as an endurance athlete — but a performer of feats of invention rather than physical prowess. It needs fuel. And you probably need practice approaching food with a new attitude.  “

Check out my latest at The Freelancer’s Union!  You can nix the attitudes to nourishment that hold you back with these 5 new food attitudes.

4 Ways to Swap Burnout for Nourishment in Social Media

When Media Drain, How To Turn It Back Around

Do you notice you have the most scintillating copy and content to write for your clients on twitter and Facebook?

Do you notice, after a day braining the blazes out of it, you feel drained and dull? Personally, there are days I can’t remember what I wrote or the strategies I used to connect and engage my audience.

Social Media drain.  The constant buzz. The need to have something to say, and voracious need to beat the buzz with something better — if you write for a living or if you freelance with any form of content that has to fly out into the twitter-sphere, you’re set for one equation: all out, none in. The only answer to that math is a sum of empty.

Do these three things, and use the same tools you use for work to nourish your creativity,; you’ll flourish, and ultimately, your productivity will too.  But remember, it’s not about the product, it’s about the process.

1. “Our best and brightest need to stop viewing social media as a quick avenue to fame and fortune“(1)

View it as an avenue into conversation, an avenue for connection, an avenue and outlet for creativity.  But fame and fortune will drain you every time. You’re the best and brightest; you’re not a cog or a battery.

2. Take the quips, wisdoms, wise-cracks, and little gems of insight, and give them to yourself.

What?  Yes.  Carry a little notepad. Make it solid and physical.  When you think up a spark, write it to yourself first. Promote yourself first. Give yourself your own quotes, in your voice.

Your voice, which leads us to…

3. Allocate time to listen to your own values, your voice, your head.

Turn off everything. Take a 30 minute or hour walk if you can. Do something pointless, but enjoyably creative. Don’t be driven by brand-ese. Marketing is its own foghorn.  But your voice needs to be louder, and stronger, or you’ll lose the lungs to use that foghorn in work.

4.  Look at the ratio of time spent speaking in client “brand” or “voice” to the time spent just writing or speaking with your own voice.

If it’s 80/20 in favor of the brand, or the ad, turn it around.  I tried slam-poetry for a while; when I couldn’t go slam some poetry, I took walks and sang. Weird?  Irrelevant.  It made room for me in my life and authenticity and gave me back some perspective on my work as well.

You need meaning in your life to engage and create meaning.  But the bottom-line is: You need a life.  When media buzz become omnipresent, we lose all sense of connection.  By using the 4 strategies above, I turned my worst drain around, and funneled my resource back in to where the drain became an opportunity to re-fuel.

1. “The New American Brain Drain”