Stumble Upon A Visual Stimulant

"If there was ever a time to dare, to make a difference, to embark on something worth doing, It is now. Not for any grand cause, necessarily... but for something that tugs at your heart, something that's your inspiration, something that's your dream." Author Unknown

Thursday I wrote about startin the day off right with the help of your Ipod, today is going to be about visual inspiration or expression. Like many of you I have a Stumble blog, in the beginning I didn't know what to do with this social site-I joined because it is "the thing" to do. I have found lately though that Stumble is a great place to get inspired, offload, meet people, and really get as creative/off the wall as you want to be.

My world is in a bit of an uproar here, I am being pulled in so many directions that sometimes just getting out of bed seems like too much work, because I know that my day will be hectic and overwhelming. I have been in the lending/financial industry for more than 6 years now and though I still have an aptitude for it I am losing the passion. I love the numbers, I love my clients, I love helping people but the turmoil in this industry makes it hard to accomplish those goals. So to tap into that passion again I started a new company Get Smart Women Consulting, which teaches business owners how to brand/build their business on the Internet with the new Web 2.0, social, and Internet marketing trends.

The new company is everything that I want it to be and more, but in this transition I feel like I am working 6 full time jobs. I am still a lender (can't walk away from this just yet, need the money and I can't let go), I am web developer (The website had to be designed, loaded with information 200 pages of videos & articles, updated, maintained, and so much more), I am an owner, marketer, researcher, networker, trainer, IT girl......need I go on. I am excited, inspired, empowered, and totally OVERWHELMED!

This picture fits me perfectly right now:

So what to do; well it is one day at a time for me. I take it as it comes and I try to keep in mind that I am actually pretty lucky to have so many choices, as well people that support me. I use anything that I can get my hands on to get inspiration and Stumble Upon has been such a wonderful place to do that. When I feel like Alice there (The picture is an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland-one of my fav stories, click on it to see other Mad pictures) I go on Stumble, Flickr, or just Google and I start looking for that thing that will give me the pick me up I need.

This picture from the works of Jamey Stillings (Click on picture to get to the website) with this quote "The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them" -Charles De Lint, for instance made me smile and get back to work.

There is so much to find on Stumble (pictures, poetry, stories, videos, website reviews) that I am just enthralled. Like finding this picture below, that again just put life into perspective for me. The other great thing is that on Stumble you can grab an image and post it, no words or explanations needed-unlike this ridiculously long blog post here. Just kidding we all know I like talking.

So if you are not on Stumble you might want to check it out as a social medium, or as a visual blog source, or just to get inspired. You can take some of those images and post them on your real world inspiration/motivation boards, like the one below.

Not my board, I got it on Flickr from ArtjunkGirl

Startin the Day off Right....It's an Ipod Thang!

So life is tuff right? Yeah I know...duh! So how do you deal with it, do you let it build until one day your doctor says no more spicy food or caffeine (oh the horror!) because you have an ulcer the size of a grapefruit or are you the proactive sort that faces life head on?

My life is filled with stress as I am sure is true for most of you. Between work, family and friend obligations, and those unexpected curve balls that come out of nowhere I feel like I am on a never ending roller coaster. Honestly though....I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't remember who said it but I heard it asked once that if you had a choice between an uneventful, even keeled, somewhat bland existence and a life of incredible highs accompanied by some pretty hard lows which would you choose? For me I didn't really have to think about it I would choose door number two Bob!

Don't get me wrong, I am not a glutton for punishment and I haven't lived a totally charmed life making me unaware of what a series low can be. From very early on I have been a part of and seen some pretty horrible things but I have also had some amazing experiences in my life. So looking at the big picture, some of those amazing experiences are tied to the horrible ones and I couldn't-wouldn't trade any of it in. It took me a long time to get to this state of mind and a constant and consistent effort to stay here.

So with all of that being said, how do you keep yourself from wallowing in the pits? Well for me it is a daily, sometimes hourly struggle. I find that I need to start my day off right, I do this a couple of ways, first it starts with the playlist and then moves to the quote or saying. I get the quotes and sayings from all over, books, songs, websites. If you are looking for some quotes John over at Ezgreatlife had some really good ones this week in his Get Motivated post.Later in the day I may need to throw in a couple of short meditations/deep breath routines and a few more playlists depending on how bad or good the day is.

I have a docking station for my Ipod all over the house in the bathroom so when that shower starts to get the body ready to begin a new day I can also get the mind in a state to do the same. I usually begin with a short meditation, Deepak Chopra has a great Heart Meditation, Wayne Dyer has an Om meditation that is helpful, Shakti Gawain also has a great Creative Visualization exercise. After the meditation I start the music and the playlist varies depending on my mood.

Mood 1 - My life has thrown me challenges lately, recognize those challenges, learn from them, now move on:

• Matchbox Twenty
• Matt Kearney
• Marvin Gay
• Gnarles Barkley
• Fergie
• U2
• Sinatra
• James Morison
• Ray Charles
• John Lee Hooker
• James Brown

Mood 2 - Come on Girl you know your hot, find your mojo, it's all good: (This list could go on and on)

• Van Morrison
• Al Green
• Marvin Gaye
• Mat Kearney
• Maroon 5
• Joss Stone
• Duffy
• Amy Winehouse
• James blunt
• Dave Mathews
• Sean Kingston
• Paulo Nutini
• Fergie
• Massive Attack
• Akon
• Damion Marley

Mood 3 - Let loose, sing as loud as you like, no one can see you (and hopefully hear you) let it out:

• The Police
• Beastie Boys
• James Brown
• Nickleback
• Papa Roach
• Daughtry
• Sublime
• Timbaland
• The Killers
• Lilly Allen
• The Chalets

Ok I have plenty of other moods (like the let's get it on....better left for another time), but this gives you the general gist of how I use my Ipod and the playlist feature-I am not sure how we survived before the Ipod, I can't even remember life before it!! Records, tapes, walkmans, cd's, radio stations....we've come a long way baby. Props to that man Steve Jobs...holla back now!!

Your outlook on life isn't going to be good all of the time, sometimes you need a little help to regain your perspective. So what's in your playlist, do you have one, if you don't-get on it!!

Here are a few of the songs I groove out to, depending on the mood.

George Carlin

George Carlin for nearly three decades (1977 to 2005) has been provoking, challenging, and questioning just about everything. One of the funniest and most incredibly intelligent man out there....he'll be missed.

I picked a few pieces from his website that made me laugh, http://www.georgecarlin.com/.

I wish I could say more, but I think he says it best himself so check out his website and any of the cable specials when you can-you won't be dissapointed

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WHEN WILL JESUS BRING THE PORKCHOPS?

George Carlin spends a lot of time pondering the universe. For example, he worries about the gloves that deli sandwich makers now use. Where have they been and who wants latex on his sandwich? He wonders, too, about the PC police who refer to ugly people as "people with severe appearance deficits." And why do they lock the public bathrooms at gas stations? Are they afraid that someone will clean them? In When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, Carlin probes life's deeper mysteries and emerges with many answers and very dirty hands.

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NAPALM & SILLY PUTTY

In the expression "topsy-turvy," what exactly is meant by "turvy"? George Carlin asks many more nonsensical questions like that one in the 256 pages of this new hardcover collection of mockery. If you've read his first book, Braindroppings (and if you haven't, buy it immediately) you're going to devour this new collection of Carlin-isms.

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LIFE IS WORTH LOSING

This is the audio version of the recent HBO show.

1. A Modern Man
2. Pussy Fart, Dingleberry, Cornhole
3. The Suicide Guy
4. Extreme Human Behavior
5. The All-Suicide TV Channel
6. Dumb Americans
7. Pyramid Of The Hopeless
8. Autoerotic Asphyxia
9. The Save-A-Pussy Foundation
10. Yeast Infection
11. Coast-To-Coast Emergency

You've Got Mail

I don't know about you but I have tons of email accounts, six business and three personal. Now I know that I probably have more accounts than most of you out there but even if you have two or three accounts keeping up on them can be pretty hard.

So what can you do to cut down the time, effort, and frustration of trying to keep up with all of these accounts?

First you should get the accounts to come into your desktop email program. I have Outlook 2007 and Vista as my operating system (wooh is me...Vista is the bane my existence) so you are going to see a lot about Outlook in here but most of these links will address multiple programs and methods of accomplishing this same goal.

I am including links to other websites and blogs, and I know that this may look a bit complicated...perhaps even scary, but it's really not. There are too many Outlook versions and operating systems for me to do it any other way, trust me you will be fine, the links will link you directly into the method that best suits your individual computer setup.

I am not outlining business email accounts as those are easy to pull into Outlook, if you do not know how to do it talk to your company tech support or web administrator they can walk you through POP, IMAP, or Microsoft exchange servers. If your work email comes in as an IMAP or from a Microsoft exchange server it will automatically separate the files out, but POP accounts need to be manually separated so scroll down to the last link.

Now onto the freebie email accounts.....

Gmail is easy to get into Outlook:

1. Tools

2. Account Settings

3. Add Email

4. Name, email address, password, remember password

Vwala...it's that easy!

Hotmail/MSN email accounts couldn't be done previously on the free accounts, now there are a couple of ways to do it. My favorite and the easiest is downloading Outlook Connector 2007 (which is free) and it will do the work for you. You can also use Windows Live this is the program we talked about in last week's post A Blogger's BFF. Finally if you are still old school and have older versions of Outlook the Other Methods section is for you.

Getting Hotmail and MSN free accounts into Outlook:

Outlook Connector:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en

Other Methods:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/11/02/set-up-and-add-hotmail-account-in-microsoft-outlook-2007/

Now Yahoo, to get Yahoo into Outlook there are a couple of ways to do it. If you have Vista expect problems-well if you have vista you already know that, and I cannot promise that if and when you do get it to work that it will continue to work. Outlook 2007 needs a special download which is the Ypop link below and it too is in testing/beta phase so check out their discussion group for updates and fixes.

Getting Yahoo free accounts into Outlook:

http://email.about.com/od/yahoomailtips/Yahoo_Mail_Tips_Tricks_and_Secrets.htm

Ypop download for Outlook 2007:

http://ypopsemail.com/download

For those Firefox users you can actually get to your email accounts through your web browser, check out this link below for more information.

http://mashable.com/2007/08/27/firefox-email/

Segregation is a Good Thing!!

Now that you have all of the email accounts coming into good old Outlook, you should separate them so they do not come in as a mass jumble to your in-box. The Outlook Connector will automatically create a separate file for hotmail, but for the remainder you will have to do it yourself. The link below will walk you through each version of Outlook and how you can accomplish email segregation. It took me some finagling with the first one, as a new task often does, but from there it is like clockwork!

Separating all those email accounts:

Separate mail coming from multiple POP3 accounts HowTo-Outlook

I highly recommend taking the time to do this, systematizing and organizing doesn't sound exciting, but it will save you time and money in the end. Who couldn't use more time and less headaches!!

I'm a Superstar.....Vanity

Week Seven of the Seven Deadly Sin Series, this is a momentous occasion to be sure!! I am behind, today is Wednesday not Terrible Tuesday, but in all honesty this was the best post to be late on because it shows how self absorbed I am. I am a workaholic and proud of it, so if other things need to be put on the back shelf while I superstar shine at work well then so be it.

From my new favorite website: deadlysins.com

What it is: Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Why you do it: Well-meaning elementary school teachers told you to "believe in yourself."

Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be broken on the wheel.

The Travelers' Guide to Hell says that Pride is "the mother of all sins... the thin line between righteousness and self-righteousness."

Vanity/Pride, this really is the attribute I most need to work on. I have to be the best at whatever I do, I can't even tell you where that comes from, but if I am not the best then I will nearly kill myself until I am. I never take all of the credit for my achievements I know that it takes a team, but even in that there is that pride factor. My Team! I feel a little sorry for my future children, I don't take well to halfass anything, give it your all and I will be happy. I have five younger brothers and I know that I have driven a few of them crazy with my "passionate" personality.

I call it Passion; determination = passion, bossy = passion, overbearing = passion, meticulous = passion, the best = passion. Do you see a pattern here? I do not take on a task, a goal, a job, or a project unless it taps into my "passion". I don't always start out the best at what I do, but if I am stepping up to the plate I will go head first and all in so I can become the best. I can't begin to tell you how much stress this creates in my life, I think part of it is the addiction to adrenaline. If I look at non-work areas of my life I am an adventure/adrenaline junkie, skydiving, rock climbing, flying lessons, traveling solo, temples/pyramids, deep jungle treks, active volcano climbs, shark/deep/wreck/drift dives, and on and on. If it scares me I want to do it. I have this insatiable need to conquer my fears, to meet challenges head on, internally I think it proves I am bad ass. Little gal syndrome much?

If I went a little Jung here it is probably some deep seeded childhood, collective unconscious, past life thing rearing its head in this incarnation. The one area in my life that I do not have that all consuming jump right in mentality is in the relationship zone. I am the exact opposite, cautious, critical, and standoffish. I jumped in when I was younger and then decided it got in the way so shelved it. It is driving my mother crazy-she's starting to get that I'll never have grandchildren fever thing. In many of my sin posts I have talked about balance and moderation this is a perfect example of needing both. Intellectually I know that being the best at anything really has no intrinsic value it is a compulsion, not the worst one out there, but still a trait that should be tempered a bit. I also understand that the relationships in your life, family, friends, and loved ones hold the most value in the greater scheme of things. I will always believe that anything worth doing should be done passionately, now I just need to spread that passion throughout my life and I should be just fine.

So that's it, you have seen my posts on all seven sins. This has been the hardest undertaking to date on my blog journey, but well worth the occasional discomfort. I want to thank Caffeine Court for getting this going, Lunanik and Huckdoll for throwing it out there to the rest of us. It's been fun ladies....but I feel like I just got my sin hall pass for the rest of the year!!

To feed into my vanity even further Tim Fox over there at Sogeshirts has posted a review of my blog. He didn't call me a superstar in so many words but its there you can tell he wanted to(ha,ha)....Stars are really aligned for this post today!!

Don’t forget to check out the other Sin Sisters: (They probably did their post yesterday)

Ssgreylord

Huckdoll

Caffeine Court

Secrets of a Black Heart

CableGirl

April

Inspiration Monday - Amy Tan on Creativity

Ted does it for me again...if you are not checking out Ted.com you should be. Truly amazing!

Why you should listen to her:

Born in the US to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan rejected her mother's expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She chose to write fiction instead. Her much-loved, best-selling novels have been translated into 35 languages. She's writing a new novel and creating the libretto for The Bonesetter's Daughter, which will have its world premiere in September 2008 with the San Francisco Opera.

Tan was the creative consultant for Sagwa, the Emmy-nominated PBS series for children, and she has appeared as herself on The Simpsons. She's the lead rhythm dominatrix, backup singer and second tambourine with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a literary garage band that has raised more than a million dollars for literacy programs.

"[She] has a wonderful eye for what is telling, a fine ear for dialogue, a deep empathy for her subject matter and a guilelessly straightforward way of writing."

Orville Schell, New York Times

TED | Talks | Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide? (video)

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 22:52.)

Sogeshirt.com.....I Love You Man!

Today I have decided to do my first blog & website review, I have held off thus far because though I feel I know everything about everything, I am still in research mode when it comes to the blogsphere. I also just enjoy blogging and the interaction within the blog community and I don't want to lose that with my tactless reviews. Yes it's self preservation that motivates me-I am not afraid to admit it!

Lucky for me I am picking a blog & website that I like, so this will be a good review. Drum roll please....who is the lucky duck getting the Smart Gals today? Anticipation, are you ready for it, you'll never guess....ok it's Tim Fox over there at Sogeshirts.

Tim has a t-shirt company and a hysterical blog to accompany his t-shirt website. From a business standpoint, Tim is bit luckier than most because his shirts and his blog work well together. What I mean by that is, if your business has more of a corporate platform your blog in most cases must mimic or target that profile, which equates to an informational rather than a super personal-say what ever you want blog.

Let's start with Tim's blog (by the way if a word is underlined it is linked to a website in most cases) it's hysterical! I absolutely know that when I check it out it's going to make me laugh. Now that is a bit of a double edged sword, to be funny all of the time is not easy. In most cases you will find that the humor comes and goes or must be supplemented by someone or something external. Tim is unique in that his humor is all inside, he takes external stimuli and pulls it into what I would call Soge's world. (If you use that Tim, I want some kind of royalty payout!)

There are blogs out there that share funny pictures, videos, stories, jokes, etc. add in a bit of their own commentary and it's some great stuff. I am one of those people that can spot something funny add a "witty" little comment and share-that is perfectly acceptable. But then there are those people that take something that maybe didn't start off funny and make it hysterical-that's Tim.

Here are a few posts I really like, in no particular order and I could fill this blog post up with a lot more:

M. Night Shyamalan effect

Founding fathers: a present day conversation

Dr. Phil on Sesame Street

The Second most interesting man in the world

Mr. Potatohead vs. Plastic Surgery

Now let's discuss the t-shirt website Sogeshirts.com (This is where Tim may regret letting me do this review) first I am going to say he doesn't promote it enough. Now I know for the hardcore bloggers your blog is about being real, sharing your opinions and/or life experiences, and keeping annoying advertising out if possible-but for Tim I think the shirts and the blog posts would compliment each other.

It took me a month to check out his shirts and really they are as funny as his blog posts. The ones I like, again in no particular order, and there are more:

• Still Interested
• Phone sex
• Spelling Bee
• He sells beer to kids
• Karmic Bliss

Second and my last recommendation-thank heavens right, is you may want to think about splitting Sogeshirts.com into two websites, the funny, obnoxious, over the top site and the kid, cutesy, teacher, artwork site. The demographics are really different and you will find that the second target market (wholesome funny) will never get past the the first (not easily offended funny). That's just my opinion though.

The tag line for the t-shirt company is "Soge Shirts You'll Get Noticed!", that is a great tag line and absolutely true, their shirts are as funny as their blog. So go check out Tim's blog and don't be afraid to delve into the archive, there is some good stuff in there! Then go buy a t-shirt because if you are honest with yourself you couldn't think up this stuff on your own, and you know that being noticed is at the top of your list!!

Now the rating...5 out 5 Smart Gals: