Don’t just think it—ink it.

If your ideas are worth having, they are worth recording.

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Every day hundreds of hunches, intuitions, inklings, premonitions and fleeting ideas fly thru your consciousness. Some hold the seeds of pure brilliance. Write them down. Use a pencil, or a sharpie, or a white board or a laptop, or the back of your business card, but don’t let them get away—write them down.

If you do, you’ll be in great company. Einstein, Agatha Christie, Lewis Carol, John Lennon, Leonardo Da Vinci, Steve Jobs—so many gifted thinkers, inventors, artists and product developers have all been avid note-takers, doodlers or journalers.

Note-taking and doodling are both forms of visual thinking. The simple act of drawing spontaneous, free-flowing shapes, squiggles and words jump-starts the right side of your brain, sparking creativity and unlocking the door to new possibilities. Continue reading

Joy to all our Doctors, Nurses and Hospice Workers

If you wonder if angels are real, just walk the corridors of any hospital or hospice facility at Christmas, and you’ll become a believer.

smiling child with cancerI am on my way today to spend some time at Seattle Children’s Hospital, a place where beautiful baldheaded children sing Christmas carols, and random miracles seem to happen almost every day. I am bringing gifts for the angels: the Doctors, nurses and caregivers who care for these brave little kids, and who fill the hospital corridors with spirit, hope and courage all year long.

No one goes through life without being touched by the angels. We all have caregiver memories and stories:

Someone soothed your father’s fears in Intensive Care, or held your daughter’s hand when she chipped her tooth.

Someone brought your baby into the world, or massaged your back,or saved your life.

Someone wheeled your mom outside the hospital for some sun, or fixed her broken stitch, or mended her broken heart.

Someone sat with your family, broke the news, and led a prayer. Or made you laugh when you thought you would cry; or gave you hope when you thought you would die.

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What I Learned from the Way Oprah Starts Her Day

Love-Life-by-Dan-Zadra-and-Kristel-Wills-P787-03One of Oprah’s “Behind the Scenes” videos shows her rising at her customary time of 5:55 a.m. The morning sun is just peeking over the horizon.

Still in her pajamas, Oprah walks downstairs to the kitchen and scoops out a nice little snack for her dog. From there, she heads for a quiet alcove in her living room. This cozy little place is where she goes to start each day.

The camera pans the alcove. There are three candles on a wooden table, along with a few of Oprah’s favorite books of inspiration. Suddenly the camera zooms in on one. It’s an old familiar friend of mine—a bright yellow quote book called Love Life that I compiled several years ago.

What a fun and welcome surprise for me—to think of Oprah curled up on the couch in her PJ’s, starting the day with one of my books.

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Zen and the Art of Thanksgiving

We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? A Zen story tells of a prosperous man who awoke on his birthday with a mission in mind. With tears in his eyes and love in his heart he informed his wife: “I must travel back down the road of life to thank those who have helped me along the way.”

“Don’t go,” his wife said softly.

“But why?” he asked.

“There are so many,” she replied. “You will never return.” Continue reading

The Only Person Who Likes Change is a Wet Baby

Change ImageI didn’t write that headline, Mark Twain did. Twain knew a lot about human nature; and he pulled no punches when he wrote about the stubborn way most people cling to old ideas and the comfort of the status-quo.

What was true in Mark Twain’s day is still true today, only more so. You and I are living and working in a time of unprecedented and accelerating change. Overnight, a new idea, product or technology can eclipse what your company makes, or how you make and deliver it. Rapid change brings unprecedented opportunities to companies that are adaptable and creative, but it can bring disaster to those who aren’t. There are thousands of examples; here’s one: Continue reading

If you love someone, hurry up and show it.

Life-changing advice from a six-year-old girl.

Twenty three years ago I was sitting at my kitchen table, hard at work. I was compiling a book of quotations from some of the world’s most inspiring women. Rosie, my six-year-old daughter, was sitting quietly on the other side of the table, scribbling with crayons.

“What are you up to?” I asked her.

“I’m writing quotes for your book,” she answered. “Here’s one.” And she handed me a scrap of notebook paper. On it, she had carefully printed in green block letters this thought: If you love someone, hurry up and show it.

I didn’t say anything for a moment, I was letting her quote sink in. I liked it. It was just nine little words from the heart of a child, but I remember thinking, “Geez—what a world this would be if all of us actually lived by those words.”

Six months later the quote book rolled off the presses. We decided to call it Brilliance, and there on page 93, nestled among the great quotations from Emily Dickinson, Margaret Mead, Maya Angelou and others was that beautiful reminder from Rose Zadra, age 6: If you love someone, hurry up and show it.

Over the next 20 years, the Brilliance book was reprinted nine times, and Rosie’s quote took on a life of its own. The Nordstrom Company included her quote in a line of inspiring bookmarks by famous women. The Salvation Army used her quote as the core message in one of their most successful fundraising campaigns ever. Today, 23 years later, I still see that quote circulated on blogs, Facebook and Pintrest.

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30,000 Mornings

This is your life; don’t miss a day of it.

30,000 mornings, give or take, is all we’re given. If you’re 26, you still have 20,000 left. If you’re 54, you still have 10,000. An accident or illness could change all that, of course. But let’s count on you to remain safe and healthy all your allotted life—in which case you still have plenty of time. Sort of.

“We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well,” wrote composer and author Paul Bowles, who lived to the ripe old age of 32,442 mornings. “Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.

“How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” Continue reading

Some of the best speeches are also the shortest.

What I learned from addressing 300 hardcore convicts.

One day I was sitting in the Warden’s office at Marion Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Columbus, Ohio. I was there to advise the warden on a publishing project.

At 4:40 PM the warden suddenly turned to me and said, “There will be 300 inmates in the prison chapel at 5 o’clock, and I know they could use some inspiration. Can I count on you to give a little speech?”

“Yes, of course,” I answered—and then I gulped. What could I possibly say to raise the spirits of 300 sad, angry and discouraged men? Fortunately, most speakers have learned to keep a few treasured stories tucked away in a quiet part of the mind. Here is the one I finally retrieved to use as my speech that day. Short as it is, it got a standing ovation: Continue reading

Let me tell you a story.

How to be a better writer, leader or speaker in one step.

It’s a wise but apocryphal tale: A Psychology student wanted to explore how humans think, so she scripted a question for the University’s most powerful computer: “Do you calculate that you will ever communicate like a person?” she asked it. The computer then set to work to analyze its own computational language. Finally, the machine delivered its answer in just six words: THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY.

It’s true. Since the days of the first cave art we humans have lived, worked and communicated in stories and legends. Jesus of Nazareth taught and led his followers through stories and parables, as did virtually every significant historical leader. Today and every day we burnish the stories of ourselves in an ongoing narrative that gives our lives meaning, keeps us sane, and connects us to one another.

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Never Turn Your Back on Your Own Ideas

When people start calling you crazy, you might be on the right track.

Guglielmo Marconi was a foolish dreamer. Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy in 1848. At school he read about Leonardo Da Vinci’s soaring imagination. Inspired, young Marconi did some imagineering of his own.

When he was just 20, he created a clunky wireless device in his Dad’s basement that could actually transmit radio signals. His Dad thought he was lying, but when young Marconi convinced him there were no wires, his Dad emptied his wallet right on the spot for more supplies.

Next, Marconi wrote to the Italian Ministry, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding. When the Minister threatened to toss Marconi in the Lungara Asylum in Rome. Marconi thought about quitting. Instead, he built a bigger, crazier machine, dragged it outside the basement, and proved he could transmit a military signal over a hill 1.5 miles away. No one laughed this time.

Soon, Marconi was known as the Father of Modern Radio. He won the Nobel Prize and became a hero on a scale that Italy hadn’t seen since Da Vinci. When the Titanic sank in 1912, the world credited Marconi with saving 764 lives. Why? Because the Titanic’s modern Marconi wireless was able to call in rescue ships at night. Continue reading