Make Room For Play

Make Room For Play

God didn’t create 7 days in a week for you to wish five of them away. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10)

From as young an age as I can remember, I always knew that I’d have to find meaningful work that I enjoyed. “Find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him” (Ecclesiastes 5:18)

Perhaps L.P. Jacks sums it up best: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both”

Express Yourself

Express Yourself

When it comes to expressing yourself, I have two simple rules.

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No. 1 “Go with what you know”.

No. 2 “Don’t be vanilla”.

 

Do you know who rode that philosophy to success way before I did?

 

O’Shea Jackson.

 

Well, you may know him better as Ice Cube. When he burst on the scene with N.W.A. in 1986 with a type of rap that was anything but mainstream, the world took notice.

 

Yea, people freaked out a bit with talk of street gangs, police brutality and drugs but that was reality for Ice Cube growing up, that’s what he knew best, so that’s what he spoke about with the most conviction and passion.

 

Unconventional yes. But you know what it wasn’t? BORING!!

 

When the song “Express Yourself” was released in 1989 let’s just say it was one of N.W.A.’s tamer songs, as it’s devoid of profanity. Still it was so from the heart and so straight forward that it reached across the country and permeated “the burbs”. I had the cassette tape and knew every single lyric by heart. Still do.

 

Aren’t we all just tying to express ourselves? My point is not for you all to pick up and start dropping F-bombs and rapping but rather to illustrate that when you “express yourself with your full capabilities” it works best because you know it best.

 

Ask yourself, what are you most passionate and know best. Then ask yourself, “how can I capitalize on that and capture my audiences imagination in the short-attention-span world of social media?

You see, there have been many times in my career when I strayed from those two simple rules. I either stepped outside my sphere of knowledge or I became too scripted and tried to imitate somebody else and it became boring.

 

The beautiful thing about the social media world we live in today is that it welcomes all types, there’s a space and a platform for everybody. That is as long as you are authentic and don’t bore your audience.

 

Engage in learning the skills to get where you want to go and trust in the process, that whatever you’re doing right now, whatever you’re training at, will lead to bigger things that you never imagine.

 

2016 NFL DRAFT: WOMEN’S EDITION

2016 NFL DRAFT: WOMEN’S EDITION

Sometimes it’s all about being creative and there is no greater test of creativity then finding 32 women who would be a perfect fit for each NFL team.

So here you have it, the 2016 NFL DRAFT: WOMEN’S EDITION

(Alphabetical Order)

Bears:

Initial reports out of the Windy City had ownership looking to match the persona of QB Jay Cutler, somebody with talent but who was a bit more “high-maintenance”. That fueled speculation of the Bears going with Mariah Carey. When she flaked and didn’t show up for a try out, reports then leaned toward the singing of Oprah Winfrey. But Chicago went in an entirely different direction, settling for a safe pick, a legacy pick that went back generations as the Bears took the one and only Maribel Froman, the grand daughter of the late Sausage King of Chicago, Abe Froman. (more…)