That’s not a condemnation of our consumer society. It’s just a fact.

What is religion? Let me break out my diploma and tell you that there is no good definition of religion. So you must craft something that describes how you engage with religious beliefs – your own or others.

I’m inclined to start with a definition of religion proposed by Dr. John D Caputo, of Syracuse University. Religion is:

…something simple, open-ended, and old-fashioned, namely, the love of God.

In this case, “God” is a word that stands for your higher power. It could be a personal god or it could be an idea, object, or belief that you hold higher than any other.

A definition like this one makes it clear: there is a religion of money.

Money is both an object of faith – you don’t think those bills in your wallet are actually worth something, do you? – and a system for guiding our behavior – we do what we need to do to get the money we “need.”

We put faith in the fact that the number in the corner of a paper bill is what the bill is actually worth. We put faith in the idea that a plastic rectangle means we will pay what we owe. We put faith in the check that we get at the end of each week.

On the flip side, money guides everything we do. It is its own set of commandments. Thou shalt get a job. Thou shalt pay the bills. Thou shalt save for retirement. Thou shalt buy a [car, house, appliances, etc...]. If you break a commandment, society tells you about it.

Understanding money as a religion – even a poor one – has helped me to better understand the nature of pricing, become more comfortable with exchanging money for service in a transaction, and develop a philosophy for commerce that extends past my own business.

So if money is a religion, how does my own faith affect the way I make money?

Perhaps more important to me & my angle on the conversation:

How does my philosophy of religion affect my philosophy of business?

My philosophy of religion stems from the work I did in college. I studied the thread of the Reformation that eventually became Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s idea of “religionless Christianity.”

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor & theologian. He was also a committed pacifist who was involved in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. He was hung for his crime days before his prison camp was liberated. He’s a complex dude.

While he sat in Tegel Prison, Bonhoeffer began to construct a theology of “religionless Christianity.” While the title may be provocative, the premise is simple:

Jesus is there only for others … The church is the church only when it exists for others.

The system of religion that Bonhoeffer saw all around him was one in which the self was the center. I do this, I am absolved, I become closer to God.

He found this counter to the message of Jesus, to the core of Christianity.

While the work was not completed before his death, Bonhoeffer sought to strip the religious “system” of me-centered rites & rituals and turn to a simple code of “live for others.”

See where I’m going? Bonhoeffer was building a you-centered faith.

It’s no wonder that I see the emerging economy as you-centered, other-centered. It’s no wonder that I am convinced that the path to personal success is paved with other-centered business practices.

Bonhoeffer’s gospel was very much a social gospel. But even more, it was a community gospel. It was a simple prescription for creating communities that worked. His work begs the question: how can we be uncared for if it’s everyone’s desire to care for those around them?

Expressing yourself and your love & gratitude for a higher power becomes an intimate, connected experience between people, here & now.

Why should commerce be any different? Why rely on a system of investments, operating budgets, and procedure to dictate the credibility of a particular business?

What if we remove the barriers to commerce – to connection – and engage each other as individuals with immanent value?

Who needs the old system of business, commerce, and consumption when we can strip that all away and create more meaningful transactions (connections) between each other as human beings?

Click to tweet the word!

Just as the truth of your own faith – whatever it might be – is found in your own experience, the truth of your own business is found in its ability to connect people and highlight their own value.

Your position as “business owner” in the You-Centered Economy is inherently other-focused. You are in business for the benefit of others. The rewards you reap are directly related to your ability to shine your light on those you serve.

When viewing business through the eyes of faith, you can put money back in its place. You can remove money from the realm of religion and see it, instead, as a representation of exchange, a currency for action.

Money is a symbol – a representation of meaning – of the connections we are creating. First, create connection. Second, assign appropriate value to that connection. Third, exchange the currency. Money merely stands in place. The meaning stands on its own.

Invest in connection, spend the dividends.

Just as our faith transcends the actions we perform on others behalves, our value transcends the transaction & the currency exchanged. Yet both of these scenarios are dependent on the immanence of human connection.

—–

If you enjoyed this post and are hungry for more, check out my posts Stop Trying to Make Money From Your Passion and Towards You-Centered Economics.

Would love to see your thoughts & reflections on this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #youeconomy!

To make it really work, we might need a new indie economics (of creativity and innovation), plus a new indie set of political policies.
– Bruce Nussbaum, Fast Company Design

I’m nailing my theses to the NYSE door. This is economic Reformation.

What is the New Economy?

What Nussbaum terms “indie economics,” I call “you-centered economics.”

You are not used to being at the center of the economy. You have not been the linchpin of economic growth. You have been a mere cog in the machine. You were a commodity to be traded.

You are becoming the heart & soul of a new engine of economic growth. You are influencing giant corporations through your words & actions. You are forming microbusinesses and taking earning into your own hands. You are less dependent on “the system” and more dependent on your community.

But “you” doesn’t just mean you. You is also “the other.”

When you make business decisions, you not only think of “me,” you consider the “we.” It’s not enough to make a business decision for your own singular benefit, you make business decisions that serve others as well.

You understand that a business is nothing if it doesn’t serve a greater good. All business is social entrepreneurship, to you. All business has an obligation to create a legacy of sustainability, creativity, innovation, and service.

Businesses serve people. People do not serve businesses.

Global is the new local.

Indie economy is local. They are small scale. They are built on relationships, trust, and mutual appreciation. They find power in the individual and growth in the community.

Indie economy is global. Communities are no longer limited to location. Convenience is no longer defined by how quickly you can get there in your car. Accessibility is no longer constricted by long-distance phone calls and postage stamps.

Businesses operating in the You-centered Economy realize that community is connected through values, purpose, and affinity. What we have in common is more important than where we live. The internet is a tool for intimacy and connection not a weapon of anonymity.

Local economies have gone global. Global economies are local.

Are you a member of the Entrepreneurial Generation?

Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms.
– William Deresiewicz, New York Times

This generation – defined again by affinity and not by year of birth – is attracted to small business as our chief medium of expression. Entrepreneurship is a manifestation of the commerce culture we grew up in, heightened by an ever-increasing accessibility to the engines of that commerce.

Entrepreneurs are not just salesmen. We see entrepreneurs as innovators (bringing us one step closer to the realm of science fiction), beacons of hope (business brings change – for good or bad), and a key check in a system that is increasingly without checks.

By becoming entrepreneurs, we’re inserting ourselves in a system that we don’t fully understand – because we crave the connection. We crave the understanding. We crave a different way.

It’s not that we hate consumption – it’s that we hate what consumption looks like now. It’s not that we hate big business – it’s that we hate what big business looks like now.

The Entrepreneurial Generation is one that still has hope – despite college loan debt and a poor economy. We have hope that we are a part of the change.

Entrepreneurs are artists, reformers, saints, and scientists. We are innovators, communicators, leaders, and visionaries. We are attracted to business not because it is business but because of what business allows us to accomplish, how it allows us to express ourselves. Click to tweet it!

It’s the fierce ideals & vision of this kind of entrepreneur – paired with infinite accessibility to communication – that are propelling her & her generation towards affluence.

The bellwethers of a New Economy entrepreneur…

New Economy entrepreneurs are always looking for the triple bottom line: profit, people, planet. They believe individualism can coexist with collectivism. That sustainability can coexist with growth.

New Economy entrepreneurs value themselves and the work that they do. They are so over the romantic notion of the starving artist. They set prices and work in business models that reflect a desire for quality over quantity. They understand just how special their product or service is in the lives of those they serve.

New Economy entrepreneurs seek purpose & meaning in everything they do. Instead of asking themselves “What?” they ask “Why?” Instead of seeking to fill a need, they seek to create an experience.

New Economy entrepreneurs pursue mistakes. Why play it safe when you can challenge yourself? Why default to status quo when you can invent a new standard?

New Economy entrepreneurs are more interested in what they don’t know than what they do. Business is a learning opportunity. Customer service is an education. Sales is scholarship.

New Economy entrepreneurs embrace the quirks of a niche. They’re not in the people-pleasing business. They’re in the right-people-pleasing business. They don’t walk on the eggshells of the mass market. They look for ways to crack all the right eggs. They invite others to crack eggs with them. Mostly from free-range chickens.

New Economy entrepreneurs understand that there are infinite choices. There is no such thing as competition in the New Economy, only opportunities for differentiation.

Towards a Connected Economy

Why now? The sense of disconnection has reached a boiling point.

The average consumer is tired of being thought of as a wallet to be put to use by government policy, big business, and corporate fat cats. It’s a system based on disconnecting us from our humanity.

We crave the connection – with ourselves and with each other. We crave control. But, ultimately, we crave our divine creative power.

As we reconnect with our creative power – as artists, makers, developers, writers, philosophers, designers… – we have discovered the need for critical selling. Critical selling is the process by which we examine our output in the marketplace. It connects our humanity with others. And it does so in the universal language of our times: money.

This is the You-Centered Economy. This is the commerce of connection, meaning, and experience. This is how you & I do business. Click to tweet it!

But what if you had access to investors beyond friends, family, and your Priceline Visa with William Shatner on it?

This exists to an extent in crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. However, in these platforms, the people giving the money are just “givers” not investors. Money is given like gifts with neither a tax deduction nor a stake in the business.

According to Annie Lowry at Slate.com, micro-investing is currently disallowed by SEC regulations. So while Kickstarter’s model is completely legal, creating a crowdinvesting platform would be illegal:

True crowd funding is different, because it would enable investors to become partial owners of the business, not just lenders. Under current law, that is often illegal. A longtime Securities and Exchange Commission rule, designed to protect unsophisticated investors, limits the number of stakeholders certain private companies can have.

If you hit 500, you often have to go public. That means opening your books to additional scrutiny and your business to the whims of the market. And being public is just not a feasible option for a tiny business looking for start-up funding. Thus, an artist can receive thousands of $5 donations on a site like Kickstarter, but an incorporated farmer cannot accept investments from thousands of interested small-timers.

What if this were different?

The now-dead American Jobs Act proposes making a change to this regulation so that businesses could responsibly gather small investments totally up to $1 million.

How would your business be different if you had $1 million available to you?

As a business owner…

• Would you dream bigger if you had access to capital?
• Would you operate your business differently if others were literally invested in your business?

As an investor…

• Would you be more or less inclined to give money if your dollars were an investment and not a donation?
• What kind of risk would you be willing to take on?

Considering changes to regulations like this is New Economy thinking at its best. But we need to thoughtfully consider how we would approach an emerging opportunity like this.

I want to know how this would change the game for you either as an investor or a business owner (or both!). Leave your response below!

Pat yourself on the back if you did some research on competitors, crunched the numbers on the amount of hours you could bill & the amount you needed to earn, and set a rate that reflected both.

I didn’t do that when I started my business. And I hear that many of you didn’t either.

Most of us didn’t set out to become consultants, freelance designers, and New Economy entrepreneurs. Nope, we got our liberal arts degrees – or misguided business management degrees – and tried to enter a job market that didn’t want to have us.

We talked about experience (or lack thereof) instead of value, of skills instead of significance. We polished our resumes and customized cover letters.

And we got jobs ranging from $10-15 per hour.

And we cursed our parents for telling us we could be whatever we wanted to be when we grew up. We cursed society for wanting automatons instead of freethinkers.

Frustrated & desperate, many of us have stepped off on our own. We gather in coworking spaces, corners of the internet, and networking events. We talk about doing business differently and making money with meaning.

But many of us are still holding on to the one thing that threatens our ability to make this happen: the way we price our work.

We’re grounded. We’re grounded by the traditional employment model we’re trying to escape. We’ve been sitting on the tarmac with no hope of taking off into the wild blue yonder or our vast earning potential.

So what gives?

An opposite phenomenon is at work in pricing. “Anchoring” is the practice of using a cost-prohibitive product to make another product seem reasonably priced.

It’s not always a scam – it’s often just smart. For example, I offer individual coaching at one rate and more affordable group coaching at a second rate. You know you’re receiving a comparable service with stellar results but the lower price on group coaching looks much more accessible. Without the individual coaching price (more than double!), you might still balk at the group coaching price.

With wage “grounding,” we are setting rates based on old employment models.

When I first set my consulting rates, I set them at $25 per hour. That was double what I had earned before so I figured that was a great place to start.

But the reality of self-employment is nothing like the reality of traditional employment. Double my old wage still resulted in working for pennies per hour. Sound familiar?

The first step towards beating this grounding effect is to realize that it’s happening and then to declare:

My previous jobs do not define my current or future value in the market.

Okay, I’ve done better with rallying cries. But sometimes straightforward is where it’s at!

Go ahead, say it out loud:

My previous jobs do not define my current or future value in the market.

Most likely, in your previous employment situations, you have had to fit your skill set into a predefined container. That container came with a price tag (the lowest price someone could pay another human being to do that work) and, while you may have had some negotiating power, the price was set.

You are no longer defined by a job “container” – you are instead constantly defining & redefining the skills that are of value to you and your clients. This gives you the opportunity create the optimal circumstances for your earning.

If $50,000 – $80,000 – even $150,000 per year or more has never seemed realistic, you can create circumstances in which they are.

Your earnings are not determined by what you have earned in the past but by the optimal circumstances you create around the valuable skills you have.

Your past wage is rendered obsolete.

You can choose to be grounded by your past wages or you can choose to be anchored by your goals.

You can choose to bemoan your past or celebrate your earning potential.

You can choose to concentrate on the going rate for your skills in the traditional market or you can create your own market based on what makes you unique, highly qualified, and oh-so-perfect for the job.

What’ll it be?

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
- Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

What is the future of work? If the Creative Class is not a lie, if the jobs really aren’t coming back, what does it mean to be “employed” now? 5 years from now? 15 years from now?

That’s what I wanted to talk to Dr. Susan Bernstein about. Susan is both an MBA and a PhD. She studies the way we work in relation to the [dis]connection between our minds & our bodies.

She wants your work to not only tickle your brain but to feel good in your body.

In short, Susan believes that it’s not so much about finding the perfect job nor is it about everyone quitting organizational employment to work for themselves (even I agree with that!). Instead, she wants you to discover the skills that turn you on, mentally & physically, and then to match those skills with problems that need to be solved.

Even the playing field between those who want to work and those who need work done.

I love how she talks about skills. I think it relieves the pressure one feels when “trying to find her passion.” It’s not finding the one thing that is your passion – it’s discovering how work can make you feel passionate. See the difference?

Watch the video and then tell me:

What do YOU think is the future of work?

***
Susan is currently running a HUGE series on discovering & utilizing your own Kick Ass Confidence. Highly recommended.

***

Disclosure: Susan is my client. But she’s awesome and has a fascinating point of view. You don’t mind, do ya?

***

I dedicate this post to Steve Jobs. His work changed my work. And my life.
Thank you, Steve.

They left on what was supposed to be a round-the-world cruise and the ship sank somewhere off the coast off China. Recession is supposed to be a cyclical phenomenon where what is lost comes back to us in spades.

One part innovation, one part government intervention. And sometimes one part war for good measure. Hard times are temporary.

Not this time, it seems. Things just refuse to go back to “normal.”

It seems this led Scott Timberg of Salon.com to announce yesterday that the creative class is a lie. Timberg would like you to believe that this “utopian” society where you can get a job with a master’s-degree-in-just-about-anything is too good to be true. Salon would also like to sponsor your prescription for Zoloft and help you settle your credit card debt.

Okay, I made that last part up.

Timberg paints a dismal picture of what is happening now, economically speaking, without providing any sort of recommendation bringing about a brighter future for the world’s brightest minds.

I’ll grant him one part of the thesis: the transition from old economy to New Economy is not an easy one. And it doesn’t involve the return of the jobs.

The rest of their thesis is myopic. While Timberg was quick to point out that “the Creative Class” was hard hit in the economic downturn, they failed to consider how Richard Florida (the sociologist who made the phrase popular) described the great reset occurring in today’s reality:

The Great Reset … [is] the result of the multitude of tiny resets that individuals are making all over the world.

The root of the problem is not that college grads and highly trained professionals are out of traditional work. It’s that they’re being told to look for “jobs” at all.

We need to forget trying to jump start the economy in all the old ways and start educating individuals on how to make their own tiny resets.

These tiny resets are fueled, not by economic policy, but by the spirit of innovation and a willingness to think beyond the status quo. Why mourn a system that kept so many imprisoned by their own paychecks?

Daniel Pink – curiously missing from the list of visionaries Timberg quotes – describes the greater shift as such:

We are moving from an economy and a society build on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.

This isn’t a top-down shift. This is bottom-up. That’s why the rest of his book, A Whole New Mind, is dedicated to teaching people how to survive in age that was taking shape. This book was written at least 2 years pre-recession. And yet, it describes in detail the skills need to hoist oneself out of the mire of what would come.

Pink never claims these skills are easily acquired. But he does lay out a framework for adding them to the palette of colors one has to paint their own picture of fulfilling work.

Just last week, Seth Godin also described the difficult work that was required of the creative class:

The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done.

Both government and the media get it so very wrong. The focus cannot be on the return of jobs. It must be on the cultivation of skills and the realization of a new mindset for creating work that produces value for others.

We can no longer rely on the old ways of paying bills and putting food on the table.

Creating our own work – and a new landscape for prosperity – is the ultimate task of the Creative Class.

And it’s one we’ve only begun to pursue.

***

Edited to add:

Creating your own work doesn’t necessarily mean self-employment. Creating your own work is more about self-awareness.

What are you truly good at? When do you have the answer that no one else has? What problems are you uniquely gifted to solve?

This is not about creating a go-it-alone economy. It’s about understanding how we work best together.

***

Hat tip to Nicole for putting me to the Salon.com article.

Mostly because I still maybe sorta still feel like a student.

Stepping on a college campus is electrifying for me. The hum of the institution is pleasantly deafening.

I’ll make just about any excuse to go to a college. Note: if you happen to be a professor or administrator at an institution of higher education, let’s talk. I’d love to talk to your students about entrepreneurship, new media, and the value of creativity in the New Economy.

So when I heard that Sarah Von, of the blog Yes and Yes, had created a Post-College Survival Kit I wanted to get me some of that. I wanted to talk to her right away and find out if she loved college students as much as I do. She does.

Her course – which you can still get in on live, live, live – is geared towards recent grads or those in similar situations. But our interview is for everyone. The state of higher education and the preparation of the next generation is everyone’s concern.

Here’s what we talked about:

• What assets do does a recent college grad have that most students don’t think about or leverage?
• What did Sarah do right after graduating? What would she do differently?
• What is the number one thing most college students are missing from their experience of the world?
• What should college students concentrate on attaining for themselves? How should they be measuring their life-after-college experience?
• What’s Sarah’s vision for the world’s youth as they grow up?

Listen below:

Or download here. (right click then save as…)

Lola has wanted almost nothing to do with me lately.

She shouts, “No! No! I want daddy!” When I try to get her out of bed in the morning or when I try to give her a bath.

My husband – being responsible for an almost 3-year-old most hours of the day – is frazzled.

I’m frazzled too. I want to cuddle up to my tiny girl and kiss her soft whispy hair. I almost long for those days she wanted me and nobody else.

As I stood looking over the edge of her crib Saturday morning, trying to coax Lola to let me pick her up – whilst having zero success – Mike sauntered into the room and said, “It wasn’t so long ago the tables were turned.”

Yes, I remember.

My paranoid mind would have me believe this shift happened when I started working full-time. My intellect knows 3-years-olds are fickle and this phase has nothing to do with my choice to work. She’ll be back on my hip before long.

But I still struggle with my role as “mother,” especially in the light of Mother’s Day.

My client, Dr. Andrea Doucet, a sociologist who studies breadwinner moms & caregiving dads, wrote a Mother’s Day piece for PhD in Parenting. She shared the stories of many moms who have different views on mothering versus parenting. And it left her main question, “Are you still the mother?” reverberating in my brain.

I find my role ill-defined but my gut – literally – quite sure of my motherhood.

There is something primal there, but we needn’t define it, and setting limitations on gender-based identity discourages the possibilities within our scope of what it means to be human. Mothering comes in many blessed forms!
– Kristin, comment on Are You Still the Mother?

Many moms dream of parenting full-time and building a business during nap time. Practical circumstances and my own unyielding ambition made that unrealistic for me. While my day to day includes few traditional “mom” activities, I still feel a deep connection to motherhood and all the heart-straining, gut-turning emotions that come with it.

The primal awakening that occurs with the advent of motherhood – either biological or adopted – is the same primal awakening that allowed me to birth my business.

To deny my desire to nurture & grow my business would – for me – also deny my true relationship with my daughter.

Certainly, I do not see my daughter & my business as equal but I see a certain symbiosis in their existence. When another mom speaks of family as always her first priority, I wonder how she can see her business outside of the success of her family. It’s not a judgement call on my part but a yearning for a deeper understanding of the relationships of my own family.

I may be a business owner, leader, and breadwinner, but I am equally mother and woman. Where others see duality, I see connection. Where others see choices, I see inevitability.

My family and my business grow together. And I? I am the mother.

Whatever happened to practice?

Practice makes perfect, they used to say. Then they changed their mind, perfect practice makes perfect.

Ouch. That’s a lot of pressure.

Now instead of putting in your hour a day at the piano, with pen in hand, in the batter’s box, in front of the hoop, you’re supposed to do it right every time?

Again, ouch.

On top of that pressure for perfection during practice, there is the added pressure of being expected to perform because you have practiced.

It’s no wonder we look for the “right” answer before we even try.

It seems practice went out with the early ’90s.

You don’t have to be good at what you’re doing straight away. You don’t have to have the “right” answer. You don’t have to make all the best decisions. You don’t even have to have a plan.

You certainly don’t need a strategy.

You need to try. You need to practice.

I tell [my students] they’ll want to be really good right off, and they may not be, but they might be good someday if they just keep the faith and keep practicing.
– Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Do you hate that I don’t give you straight answers? Do you wish my posts had more bullet points and do-this-then-that instructions? Sorry. I don’t believe in them.

I believe in questions, in trying, in experimenting. I believe in coaxing you not-so-gently to practice your craft (and your business).

I believe in finding ways around your deepest felt assumptions, exploding them from the inside out.

I believe the only way you’ll be better at your “something” 5 years from now is if you start NOW.

What are you practicing? What will you give the ol’ college try? Opportunities for practice (not to mention trial & error) abound. Some ideas for this week:

• new marketing tactic
• completely different kind of blog post
• cold call
• warm call
• coffee with a role model
• coffee with someone who looks up to you
• fresh offer to your list
• rewriting your sales page

- – - – - – -

It’s time for the second session of The Art of Action! If you’re ready to practice with purpose, to engage your goals, to lose the fear & embrace momentum, I will whip you into shape in 6 weeks. Plain & simple. Check it out.

But don’t take my word for it:

Tara, honestly, this class has been life-changing for me. Doing what I love and getting paid for it has always seemed like a pipe dream. For the first time in my life, I’m taking my work and myself seriously.

I feel confident and capable and skilled. I believe that I can earn money doing the things I’m passionate about. And I give you all the credit for instilling that confidence!
– Brandy, Emergency Breakthrough

{ image credit: orangeacid }

Bloated. Lethargic. Out of sorts.

I have also dropped my 4-times-a-week yoga addiction habit that I spent the winter cultivating. First it was some travel, then it was some personal stuff, then it was more travel. Cutting out an hour & a half of my day to drive to the gym, attend class, and drive back got to be just too much.

I’ve even lost my gym card.

But I’ve been doing my best to keep up with a wee bit of asana in the evenings before I go to bed. No matter how gross I feel, I try to spread out the mat, breathe deeply, and chaturanga.

I get back into my body. And my body gets back into me. 10 minutes, tops.

It’s my bare minimum. I don’t always achieve it. Sometimes I avoid even that. But I know intellectually that if I do the bare minimum, I’ll feel better.

I have a bare minimum for other things too: blog posts, answering email, making dinner, etc… I know how far I can cut down before things fall apart.

I get caught up in doing things bigger – better – faster – stronger – more XTREME. Finding a place to cut back when circumstances make it difficult to press ahead is good. Being aware of your bare minimum is even better.

When everything around me screams for more, it’s good to know I can rely on a certain bit of less.

There’s this tendency to view goals with an all-or-nothing approach.

But whether it’s yoga, or something else entirely, you can find power in just one small step.

– Brigitte Lyons

You don’t have to choose between firing on all cylinders and stalling out. There’s a place where you creep along slowly, making progress but not taxing your creative engine.

Knowing what satisfies you is just as important as knowing what thrills you.

My bare minimum isn’t a place I want to hang out long. In fact, keeping up with the bare minimum helps me get back into the flow faster than shutting down. But it’s a place that’s available to me when I need it.

What’s your bare minimum? And how do you know it’s time to ease into your bare minimum?