I had an amazing day of learning on Thursday - I started my 300-hour yoga teacher training with Jason Crandell, enjoyed Fort Point Brewery's beer week event where they talked through the history behind the landmarks on six of their cans and was fortunate to be invited to a talk by Windy Chien by a brilliant friend of mine who curates art for public spaces. Windy is a San Francisco native and she grew up here in the 70s (jealous). I immediately felt connected to her through reading about her pre-artist life as a record store owner for 14 years and then as an Apple employee working on iTunes in its early days. While I haven't owned a record store nor have I worked at Apple, I have also worked in music for a very long time and have had my experiences in corporate America with dreams of a flexible and creatively fueled working lifestyle. I resonated with what she had to share and while I won't go on forever about her (I could), what I truly loved about her was that she left her almost decade long career at Apple, to explore creative mediums so she could make something tangible she could sign her name to (where as when you're in corporate America, that just doesn't really happen - you're rarely personally credited, you know?). She found her stride learning a new knot every day for a year and that developed into her current artistic career. She wrote a book, which I look forward to reading, because it goes into all of this in depth - but the wisdom she shared when I asked her about how she made the call to leave Apple and all of the stability that job brought to go rogue and explore her creativity was that she had chosen to focus on her creativity vs. just always supporting other people's - which I resonated with big time. She also said she gave herself permission to prioritize her own creativity above everything else and when speaking about exploring what was next for her by leaving Apple, which was a non-traditional move, she said "no one's ever going to give you permission to do this, so you are going to have to give yourself permission." It all comes down to knowing what you need to do for yourself, checking in often to make sure your life is in line with what your heart and soul truly wants to be doing and taking calculated risks. I loved hearing her speak and I hope you'll check her beautiful work (picture of it and her below from her website) out!
Speaking of calculated risks, this brings me to the amazing book I'm reading currently by Adam Grant. It's about how non-conformists move the world and exploring the minds of people who make big impacts in this world. If you haven't already gathered, I'm a dreamer in many ways and I have a LOT of ideas and I want to live this life to the fullest; paving a road that leads to the life I want to live, not going down the same road others have decided is the way to do things. I first heard of this book through the Design Time podcast I love (and have mentioned before) on Domino and it's truly fantastic. It's great perspective around originality, how and why ideas succeed, creativity and people who go against the grain. I'm really enjoying it. Here's my favorite excerpt so far:
"Ultimately, the people who choose to champion originality are the ones who propel us forward. After spending years studying them and interacting with them, I am struck that their inner experiences are not any different from our own. They feel the same fear, the same doubt, as the rest of us. What sets them apart is that they take action anyway. They know in their hearts that failing would yield less regret than failing to try." -Adam Grant
You may have already heard of this, or you may be like - gua, what? Long story short, this is an ancient technique of relaxing the face and stimulating the lymphatic system through using a stone massage tool on your face and neck. It feels great, and does take time - but it's a beautiful thing to add into your self-care routine. I was fortunate to enjoy a tutorial from my skincare queen Yoli at Vera during a virtual Galentine's Day event - which you could definitely set up for yourself and some friends or book a session with her! If you'd rather try it on your own, this is the most simple article on it I could find - I suggest reading up on it or watching a video and giving it a shot using a natural face oil to help the stone glide. The stone I use (below) is from Often Wander and was $16.
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