My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Today’s Prompt:

10 Year Text by Tia Singh

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

(Author: Tia Singh)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/tia-singh

My message: At home in Sicily. Festa tonight. Joe settled in Oxford flat. Next book release in 3 weeks. Pre-sales great! Rosanne speaking at TED this year.

Geez, how many cliches could I cram into one text message!? Still there are some dreams there. I foresee us spending more time in Sicily as the years pass and Joe is on his own. There is a possibility of a Italian/EU passport through Rosanne’s family connections, so that would allow us to stay in country much longer than as tourists. Joe has travelled to the UK twice, so a season at Oxford or Cambridge isn’t completely out of the blue. My goal has always been to show him as many possibilities as possible. Then again, he might be happier at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to pursue his pastry making dreams. Rosanne’s career is growing everyday and I truly expect that one day she is a well-known leader in history, writing and a number of other fields.

As with most of these prompts, I feel we are already pursuing many of these possibilities and will continue to pursue then as the years go by.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Overcoming Uncertainty by Sean Ogle

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down a major life goal you have yet to achieve or even begin to take action on. For each goal, write down three uncertainties (read: fears) you have relating to each goal. Break it down further, and write down three reasons for each uncertainty. When you have three reasons for your fear, you’ll be able to start processing the change because you know where the fear stems from. Now you’ll be able to make a smaller changes that push you towards your larger goal. So begins the process of “trusting yourself.”

(Author: Sean Ogle)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/sean-ogle

My major goal is a bit wide, but fear is an ever-present companion. I simply want to have an effect and there are lots of areas and ways I can have that effect. My biggest fear is leaving the planet before I can accomplish it. As I grow older the fears about being accepted, being liked and being right, slip away. I become more honest with both myself and others. I become more active — doing as much as thinking and creating.

Fear still rides with me every day, but I try to pay it less attention every day. Sometimes I hear it babbling more than others, but each day it fades a bit more. Maybe that is the way that life is supposed to work.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Alive-est by Sam Davidson

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.

(Author: Sam Davidson)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/sam-davidson

I tend to feel at my most alive when I am talking to and help others. I was recently a panelist at the Writers Guild of America West, and as usual, I had a great time. I love answering questions. I love interacting with people. Most importantly, I love spurring others to action. Helping them gets started always helps me to move forward as well.

In many ways, I am already using this action in my work. It is other people’s enthusiasm that helps me to discover my own. It is other’s action that helps me take action of my own. I hadn’t realized it until I started writing this, but I am already using their energy and the good memories of the past to motivate me to work on the next big thing. Good to know that Davidson recognizes this as an important thing to do.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Personal Recipe by Harley Schreiber

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

(Author: Harley Schreiber)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/harley-schreiber

My biggest fear is to become person who stops learning and stops doing.

I see so many people who “live a life of quiet desperation” as Emerson’s close friend, Thoreau once wrote. I often joke about not wanting to become one of those “Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!” type of people and I actively work against it. One great way to do that is to find reasons to be around younger people. Their fresh thoughts, hopes and dreams can help you to remain young, while also offering a bit of guidance from your own experiences.

I often hear others demeaning the “youth of today” and I wonder who they are using for their examples. The kids I meet these days are intelligent, driven, realistic, but also hopeful. I think they will do just fine. We must remember that our parents often said the same demeaning things about us and most of us have turned out just fine. Instead of complaining, we need to lead, to mentor and to challenge today’s youth to “be all that they can be!”

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Call to Arms by Sasha Dichter

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.

You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!

(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

(Author: Sasha Dichter)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/sasha-dichter

Manifesto:

• Find and connect with great people who are interested in improving not only their own careers and lives, but also in improving the lifes of others.
• Organize these people into groups and help them to work towards whatever goals they find most important.
• Lead these people in great projects where they can learn the tools they need to create their own great projects.
• Find ways to address some of the more persistent problems of modern society including unemployment, proverty and self-actualizaton.
• HAVE A GREAT TIME DOING IT!

Today’s Prompt:

Most Ordinary by Patti Digh

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

(Author: Patti Digh)

I think I error on the opposite side of this equation. I tend to compare myself worst to what I think I am capable of. Other people do things differently, so it is an apple to oranges to comparison. Comparing yourself to your own idea of what you should be accomplishing is much harder to bear.

I have often been described as being harder on my self than anyone else might be. In some ways that is good, but it can also be damaging as we can expect too much of ourselves sometimes. We also might not have a clear vision of who we are really destined to be. Like I wrote yesterday, the danger of wanting to much can lead us down dangerous and damaging paths even when we know better.

That said, I revel in my “ordinary” on most days. Of course, what is ordinary for me is often strange for others. I follow different paths, engage in different things and take the greatest joy in something as simple as a day well lived.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Intuition by Susan Piver

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you?

(Author: Susan Piver)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/susan-piver

Ha, ha, an interesting concept indeed — a personification of your intuition. I think I envision mine as an older, wiser version of myself who finds himself constantly, slowly shaking his head whenever I ignore his advice. It has been proven out over the years that I suffer most when i ignore what my own intuition is telling me. That fact is, there are often clear red flags when things are about to go awry, but we often fall victim to the great sin of “wanting too much.”

We want to believe that the deal is a great as it sounds, even though we know in our gut that it isn’t. We want to believe that the money we will earn far outweighs the annoying behaviors of your boss or client. We want to believe that someone is doing something out of kindness and altruism even when we know there is a quid pro quo attached.

So, Intuition Douglas, I am sorry I have ignore you so much over the years. I’ll try to listen better, really. Oh, don’t give me that look. I  know. I know. I say that every time, don’t I. Oh well, I am only human and we seemed designed to make mistakes not matter what we do.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Courage to Connect by David Spinks

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.

(Author: David Spinks)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/david-spinks

Reaching out to others is probably one of my biggest failings. It seems to trigger the worst of the introverted side of my personality. I don’t want to be judged and found wanting by someone else. This is, of course, what I am most afraid of — that someone will turn me down, ignore me, get angry with me for wanting to connect.

I also resist connecting with more famous people as I look for deeper relationships with others than simply “meeting” them. People here in Los Angeles often talking about “meeting” famous people when what they really are saying is that they briefly bumped up against them at a party or event somewhere. Neither were changed by the meeting, no matter how much the person might want to believe it. Famous people are overburdened with requests for their time and attention and I don’t want to be yet another hanger-on trying to get their attention.

Over the years, too, another thought has been in my mind. Rather than following the already famous, I look to discover the underseen and underheard voices that are birthing “the next big thing.” I can find out what a celebrity is doing from a hundred different sources, but Twitter, Facebook and others have finally made it easier to find those impressive people amid all the noise and gain the benefit of their thought years before anyone else. These are the people I follow and interact with. Perhaps this is why I spend less time trying to connect with more prominent people. Perhaps I subtly realize that their thoughts and actions are already relatively commonplace and I am looking for new ways to learn and grow.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

I preach this message all the time, whether it is part of my career work, new media or life in general. No one cares as much about your career, your life, your art than you do. No one ever can. Still, there are those who will act as if they know better. Some will try to force you to see things their way. Some may withhold love, money, sex to prove it to you. Through it all, you need to remember that you are your own person. You are a unique human being. Sure, there are things we can agree on, but there will always be differences — large and small — between us.

If someone is pressuring you, in any way, look to the real reason behind their pressure. Is it more about you or more about their wants, needs and desires. Too often we are more worried about making others change than changing ourselves.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.

Today’s Prompt:

Speak Less by Laura Kimball

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know I. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?

(Author: Laura Kimball)

Read the post online: http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/laura-kimball

I have been sitting on the idea to do a series of group discussion podcasts based around careers, as well as new media and maybe even gardening. Coordinating multiple people, and the technology involved is always more trouble than doing a show by yourself. This keeps me from moving forward at the moment as I need to carve our at least a small portion of time to get it done.

I think all of these shows would be a great success as I have a great group of people who really care about the topics — even as much as I do. This always leads to great conversation, great questions and, hopefully, great ideas.

I haven’t forgotten about these ideas. They are still there to be accomplished, but I definitely need to move forward on them.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing.