Category Archives: Motivation

Badass, or Balance?- What Matters More?

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Let’s say you want to reach for the stars, attain that audacious goal, drive a BMW.

There are lots of books and workshops that teach you how to visualize those positive outcomes, face your fears, walk over those hot coals, get yourself behind the wheel of that fancy car.

Wahoo! But – wait.

Two problems here:

  • One: what if you know all that you are “supposed” to do to manifest your dreams, but you just can’t find the energy to do it because you’re mired in self-doubt, loneliness, or anxiety?
  • Two: What if you get to your goal, and you are still not satisfied? What happens the morning after the success? The week after the seminar ends? How long does the high last?

As the dying Steve Jobs might have said (there is doubt about the source, but the sentiment is immensely popular) ,  “Whether the house we live in is 300 or 3000 sq ft – loneliness is the same.”

Yet – What sells more? Change, or Contentment? Fame/Success, or Happier? 

Truth is: We need one (Happier) to get to, and balance the other (Success).

Does my book Happier Made Simple: Choose Your Words. Change Your Life., make a flashy enough promise? Does happier hold a candle to promises of wealth and fame? 

We’ll see.  

What Is YOUR Balance?

Self-Development Book Clubs are full of recommendations for Goal-Setting and Personal Success in reaching higher for wealth, success, fame. Tony Robbins, Jen Sincero – I salute you. You have inspired many.

But – is that all there is? And – if you don’t strike a life balance, if you don’t have room for the little pleasures of life on the way to “success”, what is the point?

With that in mind, I rewrote my answer in the Author Q and A from my media kit:
 Why did you write Happier Made Simple ?
You know, “happier” isn’t as flashy as, say “wildly successful”, or “wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.” We live in a goal-oriented world, full of promises if we just “quit that boring job”, take a risk, make a vision board with the car we want to drive, the celebrities we want to meet, the lifestyle we covet.

What sells more? Change, or Contentment? Fame/Success, or Happier? 

Truth is: We need one (Happier) to get to, and balance the other (Success).

And/or – we want to live a life of purpose – helping others, sharing our gifts, feeling good about our contributions. But – if we’re lost in an inner world of self-pity, self-doubt and fear, we’re left with no energy to live that purpose. There’s little of ourselves left to give. With steps to happier, we free ourselves to explore our potential, reach those goals, live a life of greater balance, and live our purpose.
So – when we strive to be happier, we have more moments of contentment, confidence, and love for others. Without happier moments, the rest is unattainable. But does being happier have to be so complicated?

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Happier Made Simple is an Audiobook Too!

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If you’ve been hoping to hear Happier Made Simple “read by the author”, you’ve got your wish! Soon it will be on Audible, but in the meantime you can get it through Kobo/Walmart
or Chirp!

here is a sample:

and – another one!

Enjoy!

Randye

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Embracing the Muse: What Are We Afraid of?

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When I left Morning Radio, I swore I would never wake up before the sunrise again.

I’d earned it. 3:15 AM for eight years, seriously?

Yet here I am, coffee in hand, watching the sun rise through the trees outside my kitchen window.

For the second day in a row.

My brain wakes me up – to…what? write?

To write?

Am I, like, a writer now?

My meek self answers: Um, I guess so?

Sure, I’ve written a book or two. My first one was published ten years ago. It still sells, albeit modestly (there goes that meek voice again, oops). My latest book launches in 11 days, officially, and in this waiting period (truth be told, there is a lot to do, so not technically waiting) I have way too much time to second-guess myself.

As you can see, I write blog posts too. Not sure who reads them, but I write them.

Does that make me a “writer”?

I write to get my spinning brain to spit it out, organize the thoughts, refine the message, and share it.

It’s the sharing part that sometimes eludes me. Yes, good enough for me – but other people?

Here comes the too-familiar words that lock the door: Who am I to think that I have something of value to offer to the world? I’m not really a writer. Not really.

And, yet, I’m sitting here – well, writing.

Because, for some reason, I have to. So there, doubting inner voice.

So, for today, the message has changed, from Why me? To Why not me? To Of course, me!

I have to write today. The knock on the door was too loud to ignore this morning.

I want to learn to hear it more often, and open the door to embrace the muse, collaborate, and share the light.

Why do we hold ourselves back?

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Invincible: On Audacity, Big Magic and Being a Happily Flawed Badass

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I think Elizabeth Gilbert and Jen Sincero are changing my (literal) dreams.

Take last night. I had the best dream.

(Ugh, yeah, I know Not a fan of dream stories either. #sorrynotsorry.)

Why so great, you ask? (of course you do. I’m making up both sides of this conversation)

What was great was that this dream was the opposite of the Actor’s Nightmare. We’ve all had these – could take different forms depending on what you do for a living – but the doubt is the same: you feel inadequate, unprepared, and  expected to deliver.

For actors, it takes place onstage:, when (a) no one told you you had the part til now (b) you don’t know your lines because it isn’t your fault no one gave you a script!!! or (c) you’re naked.

In this dream, though. I felt invincible. What a nice change. I did not want to wake up.

In this dream, I was not perfect, not at all. Just me. And I felt like I belonged, no matter what. And I wanted to keep that feeling, to stay this confident and invincible, during my waking hours.

(Liz Gilbert, in her book, Big Magic, refers to this as a poet’s term: “the arrogance of belonging.”)

The plot was sort of like this: I’d thought I was meant to be at a tryout for a track team. Me, with 4 hip surgeries behind me and one leg weaker than the other (from nerve damage during one surgery). I cannot run. Literally. But I went anyway. To the track team tryout.

Because, why not?

Just to see what was up.

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April’s Word: Complete. How Did it Go?

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Well…is anything ever really complete? (*sighs* started with a disclaimer…no-judgment zone)

As you may be aware, this year I opted out of New Year’s Resolutions (okay, opted out again) and chose instead a try-and-see approach simply by choosing a word for each month, no pressure, and seeing what might happen.

April’s Word

April’s word: complete. Well, it was going to be finish, but that sounded too much like a command and I hate being told what to do (even by me). Complete, on the other hand, is a gentler verb (as in “you complete me.” Corniness aside, it’s still kinda sweet). Complete can also be an adjective, with all sorts of warm fuzzies attached. (as in, my life is complete, a self-talk phrase I used a lot during my 16 single-parenting years.. Better than, um,  my life is finished. You get the point. Word choice matters.)

Bottom line results for April: I did complete a few things (yay), but more often I just made some progress. And, as one of the Covid-era  online webinars I took reminded me: Progress is a form of success. (Shout-out to Brandon Eastman’s Be Better Industries).

Everything I did complete felt SO. DAMN. GOOD. Completion leaves open space.

Done: (work projects with deadlines don’t really count, as we’re usually motivated for those)

  • Completed (or skimmed and donated, truth be told) some books still left piled in

    Love my Sis – Color Adds to Doodles

    my reading spot from January’s word: Open.

  • Completed three of the masterclasses I’d started (Steve Martin on Comedy, Ron Finley on Gardening; Nancy Cartwright on Voice Acting)
  • Fixed the stuff in the mending pile
  • 2nd vaccine shot received!

Progress: (projects that had been getting pushed aside more each day):

  • Voice education started in January (warm-ups and reading)
  • 2 doodling classes (March’s word: Visual Art)
  • The happiness class I’d started (online) – hey, made it to end of week 2 (am I the only one here who starts a class and lets it slide?…show of hands, please)

So – if I were to grade the power of this word for me I’d give it a B+ – allowing for just being human.  Might try that word again. Everything I did complete felt SO. DAMN. GOOD. Completion leaves open space.

Note: I noticed that I never completed blogging about my words for February or March. So there’s that.

Briefly:

February’s word was: Write.

Results:

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Legacy: The too-short life of Amy Oestreicher

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Ten years ago, I auditioned to play a role I’d performed twice before: Nancy in Oliver. I didn’t get cast (it had been a long shot, age-wise, but hey). The role went to my friend Amy – who was, to be fair, much more suited to it. Not only was Amy 30 years younger than I am, but she actually looked the part of the underfed, abused waif that Dickens’ Nancy probably was. 

Why did Amy look so thin?  

She hadn’t eaten anything for over three years. She was kept alive thanks to a daily IV solution, administered because she no longer had a stomach. Said stomach had literally exploded a few years prior, due to a major blood clot, right before Amy was supposed to graduate high school and go on to the prestigious college musical theatre program she’d been accepted to.

Instead of prom, Amy had spent months in a coma, at death’s door. She survived, after over 10 surgeries in the first week alone(!).  And she went on to a long “detour” of a life changed by medical crisis.   

Last week, though, death’s “door” finally opened to Amy. She passed awy, a few days shy of her 34th birthday and just days after her second book was published, with her loving family by her side. I think her body, after countless surgeries and challenges, had finally given up.  

In the 16 years between Amy’s near-death and her actual passing last week,  she left a legacy that will give gifts to the world forever. We all leave a legacy of some sort, really– the love we give, the work we do – it all adds to the world, and stays behind when our bodies go.  

Amy’s One-Woman show – highlights are on youtube

Amy Oestreicher, though, went far beyond the usual legacy – she left us with concrete examples of  courage, resilience, humor, art and inspiration that will touch people forever. What she did – what she chose to do – with those 16 years is a gift and inspiration to us all. And it’s a gift that keeps on giving.  

Bank to Oliver. I saw that show, and Amy absolutely rocked that part. Even though, during intermissions, she had to hook up to the IV to get nutrients.  After many surgeries, she also was – finally – able to drink something. Well, sort of drink.  

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What’s in a Word? Turns Out, a Whole Lot.

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Screw New Year’s Resolutions. Especially this year, unless the resolution is to just, well, stay alive. (Stupid Covid.) I can’t remember the last time I made a resolution, anyway, since my higher self knows they only make it until mid-January at best. Then it’s another whole 11½ months of Oreos buttered popcorn, and guilt until we “resolve” again.

I tried New Year’s “Goals” too – you know, changing the word to be more, um, productive. Even broke the goals down into monthly ones. Helped a bit. But nah. Ultimately, I ended up accomplishing only part of the list (the things I wanted to do the most), but also – and this is important for all of us to realize – many things that hadn’t been on the list of goals to begin with. Hmm.

Sometimes, life shows us the way, instead of the other way around.

But I still do believe that our thoughts, and the words we choose to express them, are the seeds of everything that follows.

Sometimes, life shows us the way, instead of the other way around.

So, this year, I choose words. One word. Not for the year (evidently I’m not so great with commitment), but one for each month. Easier, right?

One little change…

Choose a word, repeat it to yourself frequently, and observe what happens: what you do, and also what happens to you (or what you “attract”, for you New-Age thinkers)

The possibilities, as they say, are endless. You can choose an action, an attitude a focus, a theme. Experiment and see what works. Much easier than a resolution. You can’t really fail at an experiment – just get some results that inform you. Emotionally safe!

Words are shortcuts, too.

My word this month was: OPEN. Just that. Nothing attached, except what came to mind in the moment.

And here’s what happened:

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