Charles Gupton

I first encountered Nilofer Merchant’s work through her 2013 TED talk, “Sitting is the Smoking of Our Generation.”

I then had the opportunity to meet her last year after her keynote presentation at the 3% Conference in New York where she laid out her passion for “The Power of Onlyness,” which happens to be the title of her most recent book. The sub-title of the book, “Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World,” is what we talk about in the most recent episode of my podcast, “The Creator’s Journey.”

Nilofer is personally responsible for launching more than 100 products, netting $18 billion in sales. She has held executive positions at Fortune 500 companies including Apple and Autodesk as well as with startups in the early days of the web. She continues to serve as a consultant and advisor to numerous companies including Logitech, Symantec, HP, and Yahoo.
She is also an avid hiker and wilderness backpacker as well as a lover of all-things-bacon and of dark-chocolate-covered-orange-peels, especially when they’re eaten in France!

Nilofer begins her book with her own story of being disowned by her family when she refused to go along with an arranged marriage but instead pursued the educational path that has taken her to where she is today.
“Out of that experience, I learned that until you claim what matters to you, you can never live out your life’s purpose.”

Onlyness is honoring each person for occupying that spot in the world where only they stand. “Your onlyness is a function of your history and experience, but also your vision and hopes.”

Most of the time when we seek change, we’re actually seeking capitulation. “It’s a model of power and control where I have my foot on your throat. Real change only happens when you seek the same thing I seek, without any coercion.”
“As long as we’re fitting in, we’re giving up our onlyness. We need to be able to walk away and build a new thing. Each of our “onlys” is beautifully normal in and of itself. You have to go seek out the other people with whom you share a common purpose.”

You can hear my conversation with Nilofer here.

I first met Becky Buller at a bluegrass festival a few months ago where her band was playing.

Several people had told me not to miss her performance and I’m glad I didn’t! We had just finished filming interviews with some other bluegrass musicians at the festival when we slid into our seats in the nick of time for her show.

In 2017, Becky became the first person ever to win in both the instrumental and vocal categories at the International Bluegrass Music Association awards, winning both the Fiddler of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. In 2015, she was named the Songwriter of the Year. She’s written for some of bluegrass music’s best known performers.

Becky admits winning those accolades was difficult for her to take in at first. “My first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh! I’ve got to get better so I can be worthy of this!’ ”

Becky started out competing in fiddle competitions when she was in high school, remembering the time she was so fearful that she went and laid down in the grass in a nearby football field near the stage, sure she’d throw up when she had to go on stage.

Amid all the challenges of managing a band and an ever-growing presence as a musician, Becky finds the routines of family and church keep her grounded.

A recent video by classical violinist Itzhac Perlman has affected the way Becky approaches practicing her musical craft, inspiring her to slow down and being more deliberate in her own practice time. “He said he would rather students spend two hours practicing with their heads rather than eight hours playing really fast and repeating mistakes.”

“I want my listeners to feel refreshed when they walk away from one of our performances. I want to leave people with hope and light and life, and I hope they see that reflected in my music and everything I do.”

You can hear my conversation with Becky here.

Over the last few months I’ve had several posts here with quotes from Rachael O’Meara’s recent book “Pause: Harnessing The Life Changing Power of Giving Yourself A Break”.

It took me a long time to finish reading “Pause” because I wanted to take my time and apply the principles as I was absorbing them. It’s been thoughtful and challenging, but a fruitful process to apply to my life. Because I feel like most of my life I’ve been a human ‘doing’ more than a human ‘being’, the process of pausing is especially relevant. I’m finding out that nearly, if not every, person I know needs a better understanding of how to take breaks, both large and small, in order to bring a fresh perspective and balance to their lives.

In addition to writing “Pause”, Rachael is a sales executive at Google San Francisco for the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and trains colleagues on emotional. She is also a regular contributor to Huffington Post, has a podcast on the practice of pausing, and speaks and leads workshops on the topic as well.

In 2011, Rachael O’Meara was working at Google in a managerial role with a customer support team. Her manager was offering feedback that she needed to work on being a better communicator and needed to learn how to give criticism in a more constructive way. No matter how hard she tried, Rachael couldn’t figure out how to make the improvements that were being suggested.

“I was in a mental tailspin.”

That’s when she discovered through talking with a friend that Google offered a sabbatical program for employees. She researched the program over the weekend and went into her manager on Monday morning to make her case for why she should be permitted to take a three-month unpaid leave of absence.

That was the beginning of Rachael’s journey into discovering the value of taking a pause. And it led to her write her book.

Rachael’s definition of a pause is simple: “A pause is any intentional shift in behavior.”

A pause can be as brief as the few seconds it takes to inhale deeply and release a slow breath – or as long as several months to a year, depending on what you need and how much of a pause you can find a way to make room for in your life.

“You’re in the driver’s seat of your own life. You have to decide what you want to do with your life and what’s going to make you happy.”

Someone who makes the decision to take a pause can be viewed as lazy or a slacker, but that’s far from true. In fact, that person is doing just the opposite by very intentionally deciding to take time to evaluate what changes need to be made in his or her life.

Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax, to pause. It’s a skill to relax. It’s not necessarily intuitive that rest is helpful. But there’s a real power to that relaxed mental state.

By learning to acknowledge the need to take a pause in an anxiety-fueled situation, you become conscious of the space between stimulus and response, you can create a moment of pause that allows you to consciously choose how to react.

You can hear more of my conversation with Racheal on The Creator’s Journey here.

It has occurred to me that, at some point on the road of creative growth, there is a joining in with or a merging with our path of spiritual awareness and growth.

I say that because both require a deeper self-awareness and deeper faith or trust in a higher calling upon the work we’re producing. Maturity in both the creative and spiritual realms requires that we acknowledge that we are “enough.”

And by “enough,” I don’t mean just being adequate for the task. Nor do I mean that we are a fait accompli, polished to a shine and ready for anything the world has to throw at us. By “enough,” I mean that as we mature, we become willing to show up to the task before us, available to pour ourselves out to be re-formed even as we are in the process of forming.

What is your take?