Writer. Speaker. Nice Guy.
It’s the time of year where many of us start reflecting—almost automatically—on the year that has been, and the year ahead. In other words, focusing on endings and beginnings. Many artists through time have commented on the coupled nature of beginnings and endings. It’s impossible to have one without another. Start, stop. Begin, end. Birth, […]
“Anything you love comes around in another form.” – Rumi For weeks, now, I’ve been waking up around 4am. It happened again this morning, and since this is an unusual pattern for me, I started digging. I remembered a long time ago someone mentioned that, in Chinese Medicine, sleep disturbances can be related to energy […]
“Keep moving forward.” It’s week 3 of COVID-19 home-school. Our lives have been both simplified and complicated. Our business feels like it’s in stasis, yet we have rarely felt busier. I have been forced to slow down, yet also feel an inexorable pull to hustle my face off and strive to “beat” the rest of […]
You have permission to do nothing. Pause, for a moment, and consider that. Truly let yourself feel the depth of that statement. You have permission. Permission to simply be, without doing anything. This morning I woke at 5:30am for some yoga. I felt foggy, and I almost returned to bed, except for the conversation I’d had with my […]
Today’s quote is an abridged version of my wife’s favourite mantra: “The Universe delivers, and I am exactly where I need to be.” It came to me this morning, as I was doing yoga before dawn. As the light slowly filtered across the landscape, I noticed an odd shape outside our lounge room window. A […]
As you will probably know by now, if you’ve read a few of these IQs, I have a history of depression. It has touched my life at various points through my youth, studying at University, during my first career in IT, and the most prominently after the birth of my second child, my son Rilien. […]
A dear friend of mine made a suggestion yesterday about rules. A quick snip of his text message: “…Re the IQs, I read something about setting rules. Just drop those and do them when you feel like it.” On reflection, I realised I’ve been doing that anyway, even without declaring it officially. I’ve had the […]
“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.” – Anatole France Inspired by the fact that the sun’s reflection looks like a solid path stretching across the water, today’s IQ is about two things for me: 1) Acceptance that the journey, the process, is the most important thing. We can’t force […]
Boundary conditions. Interesting things happen on the edges. At the threshold between current and future, on the precipice of possibility. The cutting edge; or even nearer to peril, the bleeding edge. As we approach the boundary of what we know, we experience things in a heightened state of awareness – little nuances become seismic events; […]
“Empower Yourself.” I made an important discovery yesterday, with the help of my new psychologist. Yes, I’ve started seeing a psychologist. I figured that since I’ve got a history of depression, and since I’ve recently begun a new unplanned adventure into the dark alleys and corners of anxiety, I should probably have a mental health […]
“Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.” – Wayne Dyer It took me such a long time to create this IQ. The photo wasn’t working, then the font wasn’t working, then I couldn’t get the […]
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” – Saint Francis de Sales In today’s world, I believe there’s often a strong expectation to push ourselves, work hard, go faster, be better, do more, achieve extra, and overcome any and all challenges by pushing hard and being forceful. I know I’ve […]
“Every sunrise is an invitation for us to arise and brighten someone’s day.” – Jhiess Krieg Have you ever gone to bed with a pit of dread in your stomach? That was me last night. Just before I closed my laptop, I discovered an enormous mistake I’d made with some work stuff. It involves customers, and the […]
“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” – Meister Eckhart Something I struggle with regularly is this idea that I’m the sum of everything I have done so far in my life, but I’m also the sum of everything I’ve failed to do as well. The challenge is to recalibrate, so that we are […]
I am pushing the “PAUSE” button on my writing. I want to write this book, but right now I am fighting it (and it is fighting me) every single day. I know why, but I also know that I am not in a position to do battle right now. The why is as follows: I […]
I am simply putting one foot in front of the other right now. I’m not sure if I’m enjoying the ride/writing. I am beginning to wonder if I might be better served by dedicating extended blocks of time to my writing, and setting bigger targets. I’ll sleep on it, and maybe do some writing early tomorrow. With […]
Well, true to form, I crashed and burned for a reasonable chunk of today. We packed the bus and drove, and I was really tired. Writing time came around at 9pm tonight instead of my recent starts of 10:30pm or later, but still it was difficult. I was going to write a whingefest post, but I […]
You may have noticed that this blog reads like a tug of war, or a rollercoaster ride. I’ve noticed that I’m oscillating between two versions of myself: The guy who loves to write and is so excited to have the privilege to do so; and the guy who doesn’t want to sit on the seat, caress […]
I missed my writing yesterday. Actually, I honestly didn’t miss it. I enjoyed not writing. I’m beginning to think that this Every Single Day thing might not be the best idea. (But still, Seth does it, so it must be good…) But I broke that good-old commitment to doing something every single day. Yet, I wonder […]
I really didn’t want to write tonight. But, turtle steps and all that. So I wrote a few hundred words, picked a picture of a storm, and posted a blog. Job done. Back to the book I’m reading, and back to bed. And what about the title: Rain In My Soul…? Just a bit of […]
I learned a new saying a few days ago, and it wasn’t until I sat down to write tonight, that I was struck by how perfect it is. “Turtle steps.” Next week we’re working at an Indigenous school in West Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. The Principal explained to Bel that the whole community works […]
Tonight I felt completely like not writing. But since the practice has become more habit and less conscious choice, I started anyway. I learned tonight – again – that the hardest step is the first one. Typing the first sentence in a new chapter is often, for me, the mental equivalent of bench pressing ones […]
I’m intentionally keeping today’s entry brief: I wrote 500 words towards my book. I am enjoying the process of writing more and more. Progress is being made every day. Of this, I am very proud. Now, I’m gonna bugger off and watch a movie with my wife. With love, Israel. xo
Today has been a cruisy one. We had a delightfully lazy start, despite the fact we were moving on again. We relocated to Darwin, setup the bus, and went for a swim. I’ve just finished a relaxed effort of 500-some words added to my book, and watched the kids and Bel splashing around in the […]
For the longest time, especially during my worst depression, I just couldn’t seem to find any balance in my life. I would oscillate wildly between full-on work, then full-on fitness training, then full-on creative projects that earned no money, then full-on stress about no money, then full-on mad working again to make more money, and […]
It’s true. All I wanted to do tonight, instead of writing, was sleep. We hiked with the kids through Litchfield National Park for most of the day. We swam in waterholes, jumped off rocks, and let waterfalls cascade over our shoulders. It was bliss. And then, tonight, the resistance struck. We ate dinner and all […]
Things that are worthwhile rarely happen instantly. They take time to grow and develop. At least, that’s what is going through my mind as I continue the journey of writing this book. I added another 500 words to the book’s total tonight, and ticked off another chapter as completed. (Pending edits, obvs.) There are still […]
I’ve noticed a shift in how I’m feeling about the act of writing. For starters, I’m getting more excited each day about my writing time. I’m no longer resisting sitting down to write. Instead, I feel increasingly drawn to it, like it’s a special bit of “me” time. I’m even starting to feel like writing […]
It was bound to happen, I just didn’t expect it on the fourth day. I broke my commitment. I didn’t write at all yesterday. Not on the blog, not in my journal, not in my manuscript software. Wanna hear my reasons? It was Mother’s Day, so I got up early-ish to prepare gifts and breakfast-in-bed. We spent […]
My writing feels like a dark tunnel, today. And I need to confess something. I haven’t even written anything for my book yet. My hope is that writing a blog about my day will fire up the muse and get the words flowing out of me. So why no writing yet? I have a bag full of […]
Goethe penned a fantastic quote (stuck on our refrigerator) which goes something like: Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. * (* Turns out this may not have even been written by Goethe, but whatever. The quote rocks.) From personal experience, […]
Occasionally, I get headaches. Or stomach cramps. Or bizarre middle ear infections, but only in my left ear. Lately, I’ve had all three. This is a sign, to me, of something my soul needs to do that is being denied. I find myself thinking about this problem at all hours of the day and night. […]
Last night I realised that I really, really wanted to finish my book. The one I’ve been writing since the start of this year. The one I’ve been talking about for a lot longer than that. The one that just hasn’t managed to get written yet. I work well under time pressures, with deadlines to meet. It […]
I learned something this morning. Well, re-learned, actually. Pamela Slim gave me some great advice at the first MisfitCon in Fargo in 2013: When all else fails, CREATE SOMETHING. This morning, I woke up feeling heavy and depressed. I planned to get up at 6am and write. When my alarm went off, it was obvious […]
Well, what is the point? Of what, you ask? Oh, you know… life, work, anything… For some reason my subconscious threw me this question as I started to write. I figure something in me needs to see this answered and also shared with you. Fortunately for you, dear reader, in the long dark evenings of […]
In any endeavour, there is a point at which one must overcome the inertia of being still and, through sheer might of will and force of effort, drive the whole enterprise forward. A complicated way of saying that sometimes you just gotta hustle. But why complicate a simple concept? Obfuscation? Misdirection? Actually I posit that […]