What Do You Wonder About?

I ran across a diagram the other day in my moleskin about figuring out what my current struggle is in my life. I like to change the title to What Do You Wonder About because I like to keep my words on the positive end of the spectrum.

The four main topics in this diagram are purpose, community, gift, and concept.

With each topic comes questions to guide you through the process you are in at the moment. I’m wondering about my life, wondering where I currently belong in this diagram, wondering if I’ll always be wondering about one of these topics the rest of my life. I have a theory that change makers, entrepreneurs, and Knowmads (nomads) can go back to this diagram and place themselves in at least one quadrant no matter where they are in life.

When I first started Knowmads, I was working with the topics of gift and purpose. I had a new community at Knowmads so that felt good and I felt like I had concept down as well. I knew who I was and who I wanted to become. That’s why I was at Knowmads, I just needed to figure out how to bring it out (and what) into the world and exactly WHAT that was.

Now that I’m done with Knowmads and am not physically near my Knowmads community, the topic I’m wondering about now is community.

The questions I’m working with now…

• How do I want to contribute in this new community I’m living in?
• How can I create my own sub-community that’s linked to my Knowmadic life?
• In which ways can I collaborate within my city or the surrounding area? (I live in Martinsburg, WV people)
• How do I bring my purpose, gift, and concept into my community where we all can thrive?
• What is the essence of this community? What is its personality?

I’m living in a completely new place where the only people I can really talk to are my parents and that’s an overstatement. The good thing is that bubble is expanding. I’m no longer just sitting behind a computer in the house, I’m working with people who were born in raised in this community. At my job I serve the people who live here. And even though it’s not my dream community, I look at my situation as a social project.

It’s so interesting to see how people live around here. How they live their life in suburbia and let me clarify this is no Astoria Lane. So the question that lingers in my head is how I can create a community here where we all are striving for greatness and want to constantly be tapped into our power? How can I see the possibility that is here and make something happen?

My question to you is what do you wonder about in your life at the moment? Are you even in one of the quadrants?

Is it figuring out what your gift is and how to contribute it to the world?

What your purpose is and why you’re here on Earth?

Are you trying to figure out what type of change you are aiming for?

Of do you just want to know who you want to become? Who are you?

The Inevitable List

Ok, so I was semi-right on my prediction that I made for my January 1st-2nd entries. They’re not meal ideas, instead a few lists; a grocery list (this is why I consider I was semi-right), a to-do list, and a habit list.

Let’s get the grocery talk out the way. I won’t get too much into it and yes, I could very much go into a thousand different topics based off a grocery list that has to do with America, Holland, stores, food, etc but instead I’ll just give the fun facts that come to mind.

• I remember writing this list because it was really hard for me to eat vegan when I first arrived in Amsterdam [Yes, I was vegan but most of the time vegetarian for 3 yrs]. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was obsessed and addicted to bread and nutella my January in Europe, just ask my Swedish roommates at the time Filippa and Rebecca.
• The health foods stores in Holland are about 3x the price found in the States. The sad truth is that I haven’t walked into a Whole Foods since I came to America. <bear tap> “looove you”
• I still haven’t returned to being a vegan. I prefer a more protein based diet now-a-days. And now that I found the french press in my parents place (waiting on that espresso maker sister) I can’t resist putting half and half in my coffee.
• I had no idea how much I missed cantaloupe while living in Amsterdam. It’s been my candy these days.
  

  The orange melon

• I love going to the Aldi’s market here in Martinsburg. It’s currently the strongest connection I have to my days living in Europe. Confession: I even put in an application to work there PT. German companies treat their employees WAY better than American. Aldi is the only store in America where they allow their employees to sit while checking out groceries. I hope Europeans don’t take that right for granted.

The Evolution of My To-Do Lists

I wrote a to-do list in this entry and I am 100% sure I did not complete my list that day which is always my intention every time I write one. I write these lists ALL OF THE TIME. I have a big tasks list and then I look there to see what I want to get done for the day. I always come up with at least 10 things to do and I’m pretty sure I’m at 99.5% rate of never completing a list. Just check out the latest list I wrote.

3 out of 10

Why do I never finish a list? It probably has to do with the amount and the type of thing I want to get done because that ‘thing’ is usually a project and will take me a few hours to complete if I’m focused with no distractions [I’m not ashamed to say I can be a slow worker].

To make me feel good so that I can have the satisfaction of checking off a task, I usually end up putting daily habits that I know I’ll complete anyways like working out or biking [as you’ll see in the entry ‘biking (exercise)’ is actually written just so I could feel the glory of crossing something off my to-do…ummm duh Kristin, of course you’re going to bike in Amsterdam today]. Sometimes I even write tasks that I have to do no matter what because I made a verbal commitment like going to an interview or visit grandparents. And yes, I get excited when I come back to my list after I did it just so I can check it off.

What’s really hitting me is the fact that the tasks that are very important and therefore urgent to me take forever for me to complete because I see them all together. I feel overwhelmed by all the work that I imagine will come with doing everything on that list…and putting the pressure on myself to have the expectation to do it one day. This paralyzes me.

Then when I look at the list at the end of the day I end up with a feeling of defeat. Why couldn’t I be more disciplined to complete more things off the list? But let’s be honest, even if I was able to check off more tasks, big tasks where I’m proud of finishing, I’d still be disappointed because I didn’t complete the entire list. So every night I look at the list on my white board and silently confirm that I lost the game with my to-do list.

This can wear and tear on you.

The new strategy. No more 10+ tasks on my to-do list. For the next 7 days I am committing to putting only 2 tasks from my big task list. A pretty darn small to-do list. That’s 12 hours/task a day and pretty much puts me on the top ten list of Women of Action but my theory is that these small victories every day will provide me with the encouragement and increasing moral especially as I work by myself these days [a big change from my days working at the Knowmads Greenhouse]. I also believe I’ll end up getting more of the things I want to accomplish done faster. Not that I’m really in a race to get things done anymore*, it just feels nice to see progression in my goals.

*This isn’t 100% true all the time but I like to think I’m heading in that direction because really what am I racing against?

The First Note In My Moleskin

I open up the first pages of my moleskin notebook. Many would say it’s a monthly planner but I have used it only twice for that purpose. It was a few weeks after I bought it, just days before 2012. I was getting into monthly planners and the moleskin was the second one I bought. The first didn’t work the way I wanted it to. It was red, had a button, not enough space to write for each day, you know how that is.

There are only two entries where I actually planned something in my moleskin 2012 monthly planner and I believe both entries were written on the same day. The first entry was on page January 10th when I wrote, “leave for the airport. Flight to Amsterdam.” And on February 6th, “First day as a student at Knowmads.” The rest of the pages are filled with ideas, quotes, exercises, things to watch or read, and notes taken from my year (and extra half) at Knowmads.

I got a little nervous turning the first few pages of this notebook because I know that some of the first few pages aren’t so exciting. Since the new intention of kristin goes knowmadic is to write about what I wrote over a year ago during my time at Knowmads and reflect on my learnings from the perspective of starting a new adventure in the States. I believe (but I’m not going to look because I want to be surprised) there are meal ideas on the first couple of pages and I did not want that to be the first topic of my new challenge.

As to my surprise, right before the page of January 1st there are two pages and it just so happened that I wrote something quite important there. A couple of lines about Knowmads after I had graduated in February of this year.

It was an attempt to put what you get when you attend Knowmads in a nutshell. I wrote…

• Soft skills
• Personal leadership
• To trust yourself and your gut so much that you have the confidence to put what you want in the world
• Understanding feminine energy and how to use it to do business differently and how to put emotion back into business [to thrive]

Now I understand that we get so much more than that at Knowmads and everyone has a different experience based on what they want out of the program but I think I did a pretty good job of summing things up for the most part. There aren’t many schools where you can learn how to communicate in an effective manner with anyone (angry, frustrated, powerful, excited), how to ask for what you want, know what you stand for, deal with chaos or whatever comes your way, and how to lead people all by actually not teaching you any of it. Most of the learnings I’ve taken away from my Knowmads experience has come from the culture of the organization.

Realizing that I learned the most because of the culture at Knowmads is ironic because I’ve had lots of talks about how the culture needs to change but then changing the culture would be extremely hard. Looking back there were a lot of frustrating things about the culture that were hard to deal with like people not showing up, cleaning, and commitment level in projects just to name a few. However, learning how to respond to the processes and outcomes of these experiences shape the students of Knowmads so changing the culture to get rid of this could have the side-effect of not actually learning the things I wrote down on the first few pages of my moleskin.

Even though we did have some pretty good workshops, I believe the most important knowledge gained at Knowmads was done in between the workshops and projects. Sometimes the content is not the main event. The good stuff comes out of how you present, support, and perform the content. It’s really the shell, the stuff that fills the gaps of the content that provides the bulk of the experience. This is the culture and the culture is the most important.

I’ve believed for a long time that the culture of an organization is the most crucial part of a business (read Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh). Now that I’m in the process of creating my business here in the States, this reminder about how I deliver my business to others is more important than the content. Because information is so accessible, my selling point has to be how to perform and give the content. This is a nice reminder of how I want to present myself to customers.

Another key take-away from this page is the friendly reminder to trust myself and my gut. I forget this important learning being away from the people and environment of Knowmads. Doubt and fear creep into my brain and it can paralyze me for hours or the day. But reminding myself that I know what I’m doing and my gut is leading me in the right direction brings me the energy that I need. One of my new proclamations:

Doubt kills everything. Tell it to go away when you sense it coming.

Those are just a few of my thoughts on what you get out of Knowmads and how I’m using my education to start a new adventurous journey here in the States. Stay tuned to see what else I’ve learned from my year at Knowmads as I go through my moleskin page by page. What will I find on January 1st?

My Obsession With Obsessions

I’m obsessed.

I’m obsessed with obsessions.

I love them.

To me it shows passion. It reveals a person’s character and personality depending on what obsession they have.

When I see someone acting in an obsessive way I think dedication. They get their hands on something and want to devour it, pull it apart, dissect it, discover everything they can about it, they stick to it. That’s beautiful to me.

The way I see it, the people who are changing things in this world are obsessed. They have to be in order to become an expert and to reach their dreams because dreams take time. You have to stick to something long enough to see any results.

My current obsession is with macchiatos of any form. When I ask myself “What do I want to eat?” I answer latte macchiato…mmmm. And then I want to see and many times taste the difference between the cafe’s cappuccino and latte are so those are ordered in giddy anticipation for how the barista will make it. Have you noticed that latte macchiatos are made differently in every cafe around Amsterdam? I never know what I’m going to get. Apparently there’s no standard macchiato that is taught at barista school.  

Just give me the one with most amount of foam please. Yes, I’ll take that one!

My other latest obsessions have been onions. I’ve been known to buy 5 kilo bags of the stuff and finishing it within a week*. Peanut butter has also been a common obsession. Eating jars of it within a couple of days and then buying more and more and more of it*. I’m so happy the Netherlands are also obsessed with peanut butter. Same thing could be said with nutella and bread which was the cause of my 10 pound weight gain when I moved to Europe (because my brain sees nutella as European-only food which I think is a good thing).

The list goes on with food…

Carrots, pancakes, yogurt and granola, avocado and tomato, beets in everything, eggs and white cheese, discovering the best ice cream in Amsterdam, lentils, curried everything, chocolate croissants, boiled eggs. And these are just my obsessions in Europe.

I seem to get hooked on a food and eat it for 2 out of 3 meals a day for at least 2 wks. That seems to be the pattern. Ask anyone who I lived or worked with.

Other obsessions include Crossfit, anything that has to do with energies, Belgium beer preferably La Chouffe, discovering my own power and helping others stand in theirs, laughing, reading any fiction book, and listening to Abraham Hicks on youtube (my roommate thinks I’m crazy always listening to some woman speak about whatever it is she’s talking about).

I do have to admit there are some obsessions where I’m pretty sure they’re not serving me..

-Coming up with a business idea (I’ve got at least 20 of them that would be fun to experience)

-My body (gawsh this is an annoying one but over the last few weeks the obsession has turned into more of a healthier one since I’m now seeing my body as beautiful which is an extremely radical thought for me)

-Food in general. What will I eat? Should I have ate that? What’s the best way to combine food? I shouldn’t have ate that. Tomorrow I’ll eat better. And the food obsession thoughts go on. However like the body obsession, I’ve changed my pattern over the last few weeks and my brain has cut those food thoughts in half. Another very radical thing if you ever had the chance to be in my brain or be around me when there’s food. “What are you eating?” is a very common sentence out of my mouth.

If it’s an unhealthy obsession it consumes you to a fault and controls your life which isn’t serving you. My food and body issues are very easy to see as unhealthy obsessions. I’m finding the business idea obsession not to be very healthy because the obsession paralyzes me. I can’t seem to choose one and therefore I do nothing and go nowhere.

Letting go of my obsession of coming up with the perfect business idea is an idea I’ve been toying with lately. By letting go I will allow the right business idea for where I’m at in my journey come to me. Now that’s a radical thought.

*No exaggeration here

And other unhealthy obsessions where I’ve lowered the obsession level and celebrations are in order:

-What people think of me…that brings me relief

-Goals (I’m now starting to enjoy the process…did I just say that?)

-Achievement

-Comparison

F*%k Normal

 

 

I’m afraid of normal.

The normal life.

The normal body.

The normal education.

The normal job.

The normal business.

The normal way to talk.

Dressing normal.

Eating normal.

Normal conversation.

Normal travel.

Normal strategies.

Acting normal.

Sounding normal.

Thinking normal.

The normal amount of money.

The normal speech.

The normal way to work (out).

The normal way to look.

The normal music.

I get bored with normal after a while.

It’s my normal.

Your normal is different.

I’m bored with my normal.

It’s time to mix things up.

Where am I being and acting normal in my life?

I’m afraid that when I go back to the States my life will go into normal mode. I also feel my life going into normal mode here in Amsterdam. Normal is comfortable and I haven’t been living in comfort for almost a year. Now that I have a place of my own, work that’s keeping me occupied, and a routine of working out that’s become an almost daily habit, I feel everything’s back to normal.

Boring.

I feel there’s something missing.

Living on friends couches wasn’t normal. Couchsurfing always creted something different in my life. Exhausting, yes. Adventurous, oh yeah.

So maybe my life needs more adventure. It’s my #2 value after having fun and if my values aren’t being fulfilled I can feel off-balance. Lost.

Now the question is how to incorporate adventure back into my life?

How do I make my life the opposite of normal again?

BRAINSTORM!

A Change Up

What’s my story?

I’m changing it.

I’ve decided to take a different path in my blog. Over the past year it was mostly about how I experienced the Dutch culture which I seemed to do an entertaining job at  expressing my experiences through writing. The funny thing was that my first intention of this blog was to share my thoughts and experiences of my life going through a year at Knowmads. That turned out to be tougher than I thought and I found writing about Dutch culture much easier.

Technically writing about bikes, dutch accents, and bunny shaped cheese is all part of the Knowmadic experience. I wouldn’t have been able to talk about it if I hadn’t decided to become a Knowmad. So to be fair, I didn’t veer off my intention that much.

Now that my Knowmads year is over I finally want to get down and vulnerable. To really share my story.

For now on I’m challenging myself to tell my real story. To tell the honest truth of what is happening in my life. My fear is that you will find it boring. That when I start talking about life and deeper things, my entertainment factor drops considerably. You’ll think, “she can’t write. goodbye.” My jackal will start saying, “this stuff doesn’t make any sense. Backspace, backspace, backspace.” And who actually gives a hoot and haney about my life?

What I think I’m most afraid of is the shame. The vulnerability I’m challenging myself to express and share. That the people who read this blog actually know me! I’ll see them and I’ll have to look them in the eye. Ahhhhh! That’s scary.

But I shall go forth and share my story. I will be courageous and share because there’s a part of me that knows that what’s happening with me resonates in others and that brings me comfort. Criticism and judgement will always be there but I can’t control that. As the book of Brene Brown declares, I will Dare Greatly.

*I have no idea what direction this blog will head. My only intention is to be start being honest. We’ll see what comes of it.

Preparing for 2013 part 1

 

I’ve decided to go back to creating habits for myself. Knowing that habits will make or break me, last night I wrote down the habits I want to create in my life. Turns out all of them have to do with health and fitness.

Is this a sign?

Oh, wait. There was one habit I did write down that had nothing to do with that category and that was writing! To write a minimum 2 crappy pages a day. Setting the bar low so I can feel good about myself. Stepping stones. Stepping stones.

I planned out my next 6 months of habits. Only one habit a month. Trying to do too many habits at once will make me end up with zero habits in the end. Again, another learning by failing.

I was thinking what habits do I want to have when I’m back home to the states in March. Biking in Amsterdam is already a healthy habit I picked up rather quickly when I moved here so how could I translate that when I head home? From my inspiration on the Nature Quest, I decided that I could take a walk every day no matter where I end up living. Some places back home are more dangerous than others but there’s usually always a side of the road to walk on.

So my first habit I will cultivate is walking for a 1/2 hour everyday. This I will do every day in December and we’ll see what happens from there. The intention is for me to keep this habit going through all the other months so that I continually bring on habits into my every day life. Again, we’ll see how this turns out. Practice, practice, practice.

As for the rest of the months, here they are. These could change and I may even start to do some of them every once in a while to get in the groove but once their month comes around I’m committed.

January: 20 push ups a day

February: Write a minimum 2 crappy pages a day

March: Meditate for 5 mins morning and night

April: 1 hour of me time a day (not sure how this one will go because it’s so vague)

May: Run 1 mile everyday

June: Turn off the internet at 9pm every night

These could all very well change but it’s always good to start with a plan and then change course along the way.

The Land of Bicycles and Chocolate Sprinkles

I have to confess that I didn’t know much about the Netherlands before I came here in January. I had been to Holland once before and that was while I was living in Germany and my host family took me to a zoo in the middle of a city. I can’t tell you the name of that city but I do remember seeing tulips, a windmill, and eating fries.

When the opportunity came for me to live in Amsterdam to go to Knowmads I knew pretty much nothing about the country, the culture, or the people. I only knew 1 Dutch person before I moved here and she was on my basketball team at George Mason University for 1 year so I didn’t get to pick her brain much about what her home country was like. What I’ve come to realize is that she is very typical Dutch. Tall, thin, light hair, and I remember her speaking funny when she spoke in her mother tongue. She also had a really weird last name that was pronounced nothing like it looked (Kooij). She told us to pronounce it like ‘koi.’

I didn’t know much about Amsterdam coming here. When I told my friends and people I worked with where I was going I heard 2 things: canals and bike paths everywhere. The other thing that stuck was that I was warned to stay off the bike paths unless I wanted to get hit by a bike.

So after 8 months of being here (wow I cannot believe I’ve been away from home this long), I’m finally starting to get the hang of this whole Dutch thing. I’ve become an absolute pro at making left hand turns on my bike. I’ve ate more french fries in these 8 months then I have in the last few years (I rarely ate fries). And I’m turning into a hagelslag lover.

What’s hagelslag?

Chocolate sprinkles. And the Dutch know their sprinkles. They have a bigger selection of sprinkles then we Americans have of peanut butters. And sprinkles aren’t for ice cream here as one would think. Nope, the sprinkles are for their bread…in the morning. Take some bread, put on a layer of butter, and then pour…keep pouring, now pour a bit more of the hagelslag on your bread until you end up with a very thick layer of sprinkles.

When I first encountered this strange procedure, I thought it was the weirdest thing. How could sprinkles on bread ever taste good? I thought about how in America we eat donuts with sprinkles but they’re never really my cup of tea (I love the boston cremes). However, my motto is “When in Rome…” so a couple of months ago I finally had my first hagelslag bread. The verdict: quite delicious.

So much in fact that the hagelslag was the main factor of me never going completely paleo when I first started the paleo lifestyle. Now it seems if there’s bread around and sprinkles it immediately has to go in my belly. I try to keep reminding myself, “moderation, moderation, moderation.” I’ve seemed to be eating more sprinkles than normal because I ended up opening the 2 packages of sprinkles I was going to send home to the family. Sorry fam, Kristin got to it first (but that’s to be expected). Here’s what you could’ve experienced it.

Variety pack

Fun surprise that they came in little boxes!

So adorable! They’re like raisin boxes.

 

 

 

Another thing I want to share with you is cold water sinks. Not sure the intention behind only having cold water available in the bathrooms. I’m assuming that whatever the intention it’s probably shared with the non-central heating here in Europe as well. Probably something to do with the environment, maybe? I don’t know. My brain doesn’t really care, it just thinks it’s silly.

Bathroom sink at Knowmads. Notice also how tiny the sink is too. Things are much bigger in America.

Living here for quite a few months has also gotten me to spot the ‘typical Dutch’ things, like the bakfiets, 3 kids and a parent on 1 bike, and the look of the people. I had no idea coming here that the Dutch were known for their good looks. Apparently it’s a land full of tall beautiful people. It took me some time but I have discovered there are 2 types of typical dutch guys. I feel that I’ve gotten quite good at spotting the Dutch in someone. If you asked me to pick the Dutch guy from a line-up I’d feel pretty confident I’d get the right guy.

It’s usually 1 of 2 things that make me say “oh ya, they’re Dutch.” The most popular or one could say dominant in the Dutch gene pool is the skinny face. I can’t really describe what it is but I think it has something to do with the middle of their face. Here’s an example of a typical Dutch guy. This is Tom (pronounced very quickly like ringing a bell). He’s in my tribe and I didn’t ask permission to use his picture on my blog so I hope he doesn’t mind being featured.

Tom is very Dutch. It was also 8am when this picture was taken

The other very Dutch style looks nothing like Tom but I’ve been noticing the look a lot lately. If you don’t know, the Dutch have a lot of redheads. I think it’s borderline normal to be a redhead around here unlike it is back in the states and pretty much every except Ireland. So that is why the following look is also ‘typical dutch.’ This is Jord who is on the council at Knowmads. Again, I didn’t ask permission so I hope he doesn’t mind 😉

Jord: very Dutch

The Dutch girls are a little bit harder to pick from a crowd. Their genes seemed to be a little more mixed than the men’s. But if they’re tall and skinny, you pretty much have a 95% chance that they’re Dutch.

The last thing I want to discuss is the canals and architecture which never seem to get old to me around here. I always find them beautiful and it always reminds me where I am. Never taking for granted that I get to live abroad and experience a different culture filled with weird noises, tons of bikes, and different types of sprinkles.

View from the De Ijsbreaker cafe in Amsterdam East. This is the Amstel river.

 

What Are Your Plans?

Here’s my recent post over at the Knowmads Business School blog. Thought it would help me get back in the groove of writing on my own blog. There’s so much I’ve done while I’ve been away which means lots and lots to write about 🙂

Look for more blog posts coming soon!

 

What are you going to do after Knowmads? 

The infamous question I get asked at least once a week and it started 3 months into the program (watch out Tribe 6). It’s not like I haven’t been thinking about it. I’m a very goal oriented person so knowing where I want to head is really important to me.

I actually was already trying to figure out where and what I wanted to be doing after Knowmads the first few weeks I arrived at Knowmads. That’s how much I try to map my life out and set goals.  I spent the last 6 months trying to figure out what my true passion is and how I can turn it into a business.

Turns out that trying to figure out your passion can be extremely exhausting and something quite hard to ‘figure out.’ All those reading this who just knew what their passion was from an early age consider yourself lucky and blessed. It seems like a really nice thing to just know you are going to do something in your life because that’s where your heart takes you. Do you understand how lucky you are?

So while everyone at Knowmads was out traveling throughout Europe during the 3 week holidays, I had the pleasure of spending my time here in Amsterdam because of my work. I had some homework from Tsila (our white witch) to write out 100 things I want to be, 100 things I want to do, and 100 things I want to have. I completed it and learned that what I really enjoy is adventure and sports. If you know me, that doesn’t actually come as a surprise. I’ve played sports all my life, playing basketball in college and Europe and now I’m currently obsessed with Crossfit and Bikram yoga.

The big question is how do I turn what I love to do into an innovative business that makes a contribution to the world?

Then on top of that, how do I make it happen so that I’m doing it by the time my Knowmads year ends?

Well…I had a revelation during the holidays. I had a meeting with some people who run Lev Kaupas(a shared workspace) and they asked what I was up to at the moment during the holidays. I told them I’m working on creating a paleo diet challenge app. I went into detail about how it was going to work and how there’s a need a for more gamification in creating healthy lives.

Then they asked me that infamous question; what are your plans after Knowmads?

Sigh…

I went into whole thing of, “well, that’s my problem. I’ve been trying to figure this out for the past few months blah blah blah.”

Then Ivana from Lev Kaupas enlightened me. In a nutshell she said that I seemed pretty darn passionate about my paleo challenge app so just go with that. Follow what you’re passionate about right now. It may not look like it aligns with the ideas and goals you have in your future but most likely if you follow your heart now, doors that you never saw will open and vwa-lah, you’re doing what you love.

Maybe your passion is just a glorified version of  what you love to do right now. 

Shifting my mindset that I don’t need to know what I’m doing later but just follow what I’m really interested in now will lead me to where I need to go later. It’s the art of letting go. Having faith that everything will work out*.

*As long as you’re taking steps and going after what you love now

So no more deep thinking about what I will be doing after Knowmads. Who really knows that question with doors always opening right and left  with amazing opportunities all because I belong to the Knowmads organization. For now I will just work on what I love and feel is necessary and things will just figure themselves out.

I have faith that come February I will be traveling in some direction which I know I will love.

Do you know your passion? Are you enjoying your passion everyday? Have you always known that’s what you were going to do with your life? Do you have an exercise for figuring out your passion? Would love to hear it in the comments.

Jason Silva

Have you heard of this guy, Jason Silva?

Check out his website and the video on radical openness.

I found him via a TED tweet and think the dude is awesome.

The guy is filled with energy and he makes me want to go out and do cool things. He’s so inspiring to me that I sent him an email yesterday to come and speak at a WTF lecture at Knowmads if he’s ever in Europe.

Cool news in my inbox this morning from him! He’s going to be in Europe in September and wants to see if we can coordinate something.

Get’s my wheels thinking about who else is up to cool stuff that I should invite to Knowmads to learn something from. I’m realizing this Knowmads thing gives me some great bait to reel in awesome people to hang out with us 🙂

Who has other suggestions? I’m up for the challenge.