A little Duchess Digest for ya!
Submitted by admin on August 24, 2009 - 10:52 am
Bonjour,
Today is Duchess Digest day over at Single Minded Women. Hope you enjoy this week’s article on growth v. change. Just reading it helped remind me that while change is always occurring, it’s up to me whether or not I want to grow. . .
http://singlemindedwomen.com/2009/08/duchess-digest-growth-vs-change/
Enjoy!
The Labyrinth at the Getty Center, Los Angeles.
It’ll Cost You
Submitted by admin on August 12, 2009 - 6:48 am
Bonjour!
Several years ago me mom bought my a workbook for Christmas called “Your Road Map for Success” by John Maxwell. When I was putting my things in Los Angeles in storage back in May, I happened to bump into this little gem on the bookshelf and kept it out with me for the move. It’s a ten-week journey of daily activities, readings and directions to try to help you strategize, plan and get clear about what you value, where you’re going and to give you the steam to get there. In essence, it’s a little life coach.
I don’t think I realized it at the time she bought it, but this is exactly the kind of simple, daily program I would one day be developing for women through Duchess. I really enjoy these types of books and activities because I think it’s important to keep learning as we get older. I feel like so many of us get out of college and it’s like, “Thank God that’s over!” And we stop actively seeking learning. I don’t know about you, but I’m a total dumb ass with very little figured out about life, so I could use all the learning and knowledge I can get my brain around.
It was interesting to see what my answers were to some of the workbook questions (I had apparently started but not finished the book back in ’02). It was fascinating to me to see the places where I am STILL doing/acting/thinking and struggling today. Where is the growth in that? Seven years on repeat and I still haven’t learned my lessons in those areas. But what was cool was to read the places where I am on a whole new, higher place of learning and discovery. It was kind of nice to feel like in many of the areas, based on my answers then and now, I can honestly say I have picked up some experience and learned lessons and am happier and more “on purpose” now.
So today’s thought is going to be based on one of the sections that Mr. Maxwell calls, “The Cost Involved.” He starts the chapter with a quote from Emerson; “For everything you gain, you lose something.”
His basic point of the chapter is that for every thing we gain, there is a cost or price to be paid in exchange. In other words, trade-offs. He then lists out three of what he considers to be the major trade-off’s for reaching and living a life of meaning and success and I have to say I agree with him. They are Achievement over affirmation, Excellence over Acceptability and Personal Growth over Immediate Pleasure. I’ll give you a little breakdown of each.
Achievement over Affirmation
His point is basically this; not everyone is going to like you and be happy for you. If you play small in exchange for the affirmation from others that you’re a great person, you did a good job or that you’re worth something, you’re going to be living a small life. Remember my fav quote from Napoleon: “Success has many parents; failure is an orphan.” There are very few visionaries in the world. You have to believe in yourself and your ability and your dream enough to really go for it; with or without the validation or praise from others (esp in the beginning). Everyone wants in on an idea once it’s hit, but it’s the dreamers who do that make the trends, change the world and influence history.
Excellence over Acceptability
This one I will sum up with a quote Mr. Maxwell included that I think says it all. It’s from Chuck Swindoll: “Competitive excellence requires 100 percent al of the time. If you doubt that, try maintaining excellence by setting your standards at 92 percent. People figure they’re doing fine so long as they get somewhere near it. Excellence gets reduced to acceptable, and before long, acceptable doesn’t seem worth the sweat if you can get by with adequate. After that, mediocrity is only a breath away.”
Personal Growth over Immediate Pleasure
This one kind of goes without saying. Sometimes it’s easier to stay where we are then to experience the growing pains. But as Mr. Maxwell quotes from Beverly Sills, “There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going.”We can not pursue pleasure all the time if we want to grow. More then even pleasure though I really think this means being comfortable. If you want to grow you have to stretch yourself and that takes a little discomfort. New skills, new situations, new efforts and new ways of failing many times as you learn until you get it. We all fell down trying to walk until we figured it out. We didn’t stay down and keep crawling. Then we mastered walking and tried to ride a bike and biffed it on that over and over again. But we kept trying. Then we got the bike thing down and our parents dragged us to swim class and we sunk like a stone to the bottom. But we kept trying and eventually we know how to swim too. Life would be boring and dull if we don’t throw ourselves into new growth opportunities.
My neice practicing what her Auntie preaches: learning how to ski in Colorado.
Neglect will get you nowhere!
Submitted by admin on August 11, 2009 - 5:43 pm
Bonjour!
I’m so sorry I’ve been neglectful and absent this week. I spent a beautiful (but Internet and cell reception free) weekend up the coast of California and returned yesterday to lots of emails, comments and texts to catch up on; so the blog has been a little behind.
I know, I know, excuses are lame.
The good news is that I am loving life back in Los Angeles. The bad news is that I haven’t had a solid job offer yet. The good news is that the week is still young and so am I. The bad news is that I need the job to move back here to the mother land. The good news is that I know well enough that much like relationships, jobs just seem to click and work as they’re meant to. It’s been much easier for me on this go-round of job hunting to let go and just enjoy my life, as is, while the details hash themselves out. They always do and it’s comforting to know that at any given time, even this moment right now, the whole universe is conspiring to make our lives bigger, better happier and full of knowledge if we can focus on that being the truth.
Being away from this city for the summer has instilled in me a new appreciation for my great friends. I had no idea what an amazing network of great men and women I had developed in such a short time last year. What a friggin blessing. Seriously. Who is surrounded by this much love, support and great people. Well, me, apparently, but I feel really grateful. I really like my life here in L.A. and I’m really grateful for the wonderful people in it.
And today while I was brainstorming with my mastermind partner (and future co-host) on our podcast schedule, format, topics and guests for the upcoming 4th quarter – I was thinking about timing. Life is SO all about the timing. With love, with career, with moves, with jobs, with everything. It’s all timing. Sometimes it’s hard to see where current places are taking us; the job we may not love, the patience we’re having to learn, the heartbreak we may encounter or the family stresses we may live through; but it’s always taking us to our highest next step if we can look for the growth and opportunity.
There is something great about every day – no matter what. I actually have been practicing this philosophy for a few months now. As I lay in bed, and am falling asleep, I go over the five absolute best things that happened that day. Sometimes it’s as simple and quiet as the walk in the woods that day with Betty, the really great coffee I had at breakfast or the phone call from a friends. Some days I have to really think for a minute or two. Sometimes it’s obvious and easy. But I’ve noticed it puts me to sleep happier and it makes me pause in the day when I’m experiencing something great and think, “Ahh, this is totally making the list tonite!” Like a great sunset or a delicious meal.
Anyway it’s a little trick I use to try to re-focus every night on what I have in my life; and when I do that I realize I have a lot. So here’s to the present – we don’t know how it’s building our future exactly but we can have faith that it can see the biggest picture and highest realization of what we can become.
“It’s not what you are going to do, but what you are doing now that counts.” – Napoleon Hill
Sunrise over the ocean.
And Friday I’m in love
Submitted by admin on August 7, 2009 - 7:12 am
Bonjour!
Almost forty-eight hours back in Los Angeles and I couldn’t be happier. I spent yesterday with my lovely girl Bella, who funny enough had a little meeting of her own for her new album (M.U.S.I.C. – which you can now purchase at the following link – it’s amazing, you’ll love it: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/AndreeBelle ) at the same time as my job interview. So that worked out great. We stopped off afterwards at Urth Cafe for a coffee and some lunch (okay, maybe linner or dunch, since it was lunch after 5pm) and then grabbed a mani/pedi at a great place on Beverly.
It was pretty much a perfect day.
After we wrapped up the mani/pedi’s we ran over to my twin’s place and the three of us walked a block over to a great happy hour at some really cool hotel bar. I can’t remember the name of the hotel (I need my twin for all things happy hour/hip hotel/club/great new drinks related). It was cool though they had a real retro kind of 60′s mod vibe happening. I felt like I was in a swingers hipster lounge sipping a lychee martini. Not bad at all. It was so fun to see the twin – I can’t believe I’ve been away from L.A. for three months now.
After catching up with the twin, Bella and I jetted over to the NoHo Arts Center to catch a performance by a British band that her boyfriend has been working with. They did a set in this small, cool little theater. They were really good. They had the traditional set-up with guitars, electric bass, drums, etc. But this group also had a cello player – which was awesome and a trumpet player. It was kind of unexpected but really interesting and I really liked their stuff. The music had a cool depth and sound you don’t get out of the standard band set-up.
But the best was yet to come . . . after the show. I was starving and we needed to kill a little time while the band packed up, so Bella, her boyfriend and I went in search of food. Everything was closed except some seedy, weird looking sushi bar. I mean it looked like a strip club on the outside, complete with blacked out windows and a bouncer. We tentatively handed over our ID’s and found three seats open at the sushi bar. And thus started the greatest meal experience of my life to date in L.A. . . .
Inside the place was strung up with Christmas lights, black lighting on a track over the bar, a giant shark head coming out the ceiling, inflatable beer bottles the size of pool floatation loungers, and long elementary school cafeteria style tables packed full of what appeared to be a bunch of bridge & tunnel rats that scurried across the country from Jersey to North Hollywood. The waiters and sushi chefs all wore headsets and would sporadically stop serving and making food to perform choreographed dance routines to such wonderful songs as N’Sync’s “Bye, bye bye” and Journey’s “Don’t stop Believing.” They would chant and yell in unison with the whole bar as they delivered and the Jersey folks consumed Saki Bombs over and over. They even initiated a game of trivia that involved the entire place which we performed quite well at thanks to the sushi chef’s feeding us the answers after we struck up a friendship. If you have never danced in your chair to the musical stylings of “Mo Money, Mo Problems” while sipping your unfiltered Saki, you just haven’t lived.
It was gaudy, it was loud, it was tacky, it was in horrible taste, and it was hilariously fun.
God I love L.A.
“You must accept some fear as the price of progress.” – John Maxwell
I didn't have my camera last night; so you're getting a Jill & Bella pic from a Bushwalla show last fall at the Mint. Enjoy.
Left Coast Living
Submitted by admin on August 6, 2009 - 7:11 am
Bonjour!
The Duchess is in L.A. Yay! Heading out to Century City shortly for an afternoon of interviews (and maybe a brief look into the Century City shops). I already feel back at home.
I found myself on the trip out here in this weird place of being partly scared and partly excited. I guess that’s a pretty good place to be because if I’m feeling just a little stretched it usually is a good sign that I’m growing out of my comfort zone. Get busy living or get busy dying huh. While I was sitting on the long plane ride and willing myself closer to L.A. – I came across a great quote (from an unlikely NFL source). As a speaker once said at a conference I was at, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” This is probably the only time I will be quoting a sports person . . .
“Fear causes people to draw back from situations; it brings on mediocrity; it dulls creativity.” – Fran Tarkenton
Sunrise over Los Angeles.
Going back to Cali
Submitted by admin on August 5, 2009 - 4:38 am
Bonjour!
You know you’re getting low on creative ideas when your quoting L.L. Cool J song lyrics for post titles. What can I say? I really am going back to Cali – in about four hours and I couldn’t be more excited.
Also heard from the baby bro ManBearPig last night and he got his official Air Force orders; he’s going to be stationed in North Carolina. Wahoo. I’m excited for him. Our family has always been West Coast (what? Alaska is in the west, even if it’s very far north west) so he’s excited to see and experience a new part of America. Very cool. I also happen to love his fiancee, she is a doll and we exchange emails all the time. She’s such a fun girl and I’m really enjoying getting to know her.
Well, I have to scram, still need to take care of several things before my flight. More tomorrow, from the other side of the country. Wahoo!!
“Success has a relation to the satisfaction of the soul in the context of the environment in which one lives; it is the result of actions based on the ideals of truth, and includes the happiness and well-being of others as a part of one’s own fulfillment. Apply this law to your material, mental, moral and spiritual life and you will find it a complete comprehensive definition of success.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
Puffy clouds on the horizon.
