This week on Motivation Monday, I want to pass along a wonderful episode from the Team Human Podcast featuring playwright, actor, director, writer and teacher Jessica Blank. You might recognize her as the creator of such powerful plays such as The Exonerated, Aftermath, How to be a Rock Critic, and Liberty City. In this interview, Jessica talks about the power of empathy and storytelling and how exercising these muscles might actually have the ability to change the way we think about the world and each  other.  And who couldn't use more tools to connect with our fellow human beings and affect change? 

I hope your week is off to a great start and that you plan to take your creativity to the polls this week and VOTE. Creativity allows us to imagine a better world and the right to vote gives us a chance to decide to make that imagined world a reality. Every one of us counts. 

 I'm back! I've recently emerged from underneath this pile of clothes, bags, books, thermoses, hangers, and hats to start blogging again, slowly but surely. This mess of mine is starting to resemble the set dressing from the final scene of the Les Mis film. You can almost imaging Anne Hathaway bursting out of my closet and Hugh Jackman swinging down from the ceiling fan, both bursting into song. With Russell Crowe not far behind, believing that if he puts on my pink winter hat, he will be completely unrecognizable. 

Ok, a confession: I haven't actually been living underneath this giant mound that is starting to resemble a modern art installation.  My fall has been one of the most full seasons in recent memory; I've started a new day job, begun teaching a brand new class of students this semester at a local college, filmed part of a short film that I wrote and am acting in, switched to a new therapist, and have been in production for a new in progress play that had a showing at the end of September. The whole experience has been wild and wonderful and though I'm sleepy, I'm happy. Being in so many new situations and simultaneously stepping back from the social media machine, I feel more full of new creative ideas than I've felt in awhile. Do I have the energy to execute said ideas at the moment? That's debatable. But boy, it feels good to feel inspired. I have so much I want to write and make and share, including a big shift I've started to have about the notion of "balance" in a creative life. But I've promised myself the early bedtime I need tonite, so all that will be a post for another day.

A few things I did want to share about some neat events happening soon:

1.) If you are anywhere near Baltimore, why not head to see my documentary play Big Work this weekend? The Baltimore Job Hunters Support Group is producing two readings of the play I co-created with Kate Marple of The Perpetual Visitors Theatre Company tonite and tomorrow at 8:00 PM as a fundraiser for their organization.  You can learn more about the play here and purchase tickets over here.  This is the very first time that the play is being performed by a different organization other than our theatre company, and I'm feeling a little giddy about it. 

2.) If you're in Upstate New York on Saturday, November 3rd, come out and play with me and Kristy Lenuzza of Sow to Speak as we co-teach a workshop, Finding Your Voice Through Creativity! Kristy is such a dear friend and fellow creative and I'm so grateful to be co-teaching a workshop with her that's aimed at women in the workplace and explores how we can harness the power of creativity to find your voice and strengthen your communication and speaking. The session will be held in Utica, NY on November 3rd from 9-11 AM at 4 Elements Studio.  You can read more about the workshop and register for the event here.  I hope you'll join us!

And if you're not anywhere near Baltimore or Upstate New York but are looking for a little something to listen to this weekend, I would suggest hopping over to the Boston Podcast Players website to hear the recent episode that Kate Marple, my  Perpetual Visitors Theatre Company partner and I, were featured in.  Though we wrote our play Big Work more than two years ago, it was such a treat to get to sit down with Greg Lam, the founder and host of the podcast, and chat about the process of making a documentary play about the jobs we have and how they affect our ability to create the rest of our lives. I'm so thrilled to have gotten the chance to share this conversation with Greg and Kate. And? The podcast episode art makes me look like a drawing. So neat!

Take care of yourselves, Friends, and I hope you find a way this weekend to do something you love to do, that makes you feel like YOU. Because who couldn't use more of that? Looking forward to visiting this space again soon. 

Have you listened to Paul McCartney's new album, Egypt Station? I listened when it came out almost two weeks ago now and have to admit that it's been dominating my earbuds ever since. It is SO GOOD!

It's neat to know that this is his first album out in five years, his eighteenth solo album of his career, and his first #1 Billboard album in thirty six years. At 76 years old, he is both still rocking out and harnessing a life lived by weaving his humanness into sweet songs that make for the perfect soundtrack for solo walks around the city or dinner making dance parties in your kitchen. I'm not wishing away time, but have got to tell you that these songs make me feel more hopeful about aging. What if getting older could mean gathering more gold for the things we create?

If you're feeling in need of some motivation to keep making the magic, head on over and give it a listen and let me know what your favorite song on the album is! I keep changing my mind but today, I'd say I'd have to go with Happy With You, which has some of my favorite lyrics I've heard in awhile.

​

And if you haven't yet seen the Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney, do yourself the favor of the year and give it a watch. I laughed and cried, and can honestly say that the world seems a little bit brighter. 

Take care this week, Friends! There's lots of good things to do.

Each day in our lives, we have a choice: to stay in a place that feels familiar, safe, but ultimately unsatisfying, or to take the leap to someone else that makes us feel alive and brings us more satisfaction than we can even imagine. 

What are you dreaming of doing? It's tempting to tell yourself that you need to plan, research,  plan, and research some more before you can make your move. Who doesn't want to feel 100% prepared for something new, right? What if you dared to jump before you were "ready"? Instead of making your move when you were 100% ready, what if you went for it when you were, say, 90% ready?

In my experience, when you leap before you are totally ready, two things happen:

1. You actually do the thing you've been dreaming about. Is it even possible to be 100% ready for something, especially for something you've never tried to do before? Spoiler: it's not. In many ways, "getting ready" is just an excuse for us to put off what it is that we're dreaming of, citing a lack of readiness in order to justify why we won't just do it.

2. When we believe we are 100% prepared for something, we are less forgiving when we make a mistake, fail, or encounter a challenge that we didn't plan for. In this way, it's too easy to berate ourselves, call ourselves fools for even trying, and vow to wait even longer before starting next time. "See?" you might say, "I thought I had thought of EVERYTHING. I was 100% prepared. Then this happened. This proves I didn't plan well enough. I'm not trying this again." Ironically, when we leap when we think we're 90% ready, we are actually jumping while acknowledging the fact that we know there is 10% that we don't feel certain of. When we meet a challenge that falls into this 10%, we can greet it openly. "Ahh, there's something I didn't plan for. This is part of the 10% I didn't know or plan for. What have you got to teach me? I'm ready to learn." When you know you have a blind spot, you don't get nearly as frustrated when something pops up out of the blue.

Jumping the gap is the way that we move from safety to satisfaction. Think of how many of your heroes took a leap before they were ready. How many took a chance on something that could have failed. It's not a coincidence that so many people you know and admire who are doing really interesting things with their time here on earth tend to go for it before they know they can do it. Jumping the gap is the way to do something you've never done before.

See the gap. Mind the gap. And then push off the ground, soar over the gap, and see what awaits you on the other side.