Perspective Is Everything.

Joshua Tree, CA

A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to the region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying,

SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES

The other writes back triumphantly,

GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES

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Each scout perceives the situation in Africa through a different lens; each returns with a story that matches that perspective.

When you talk about your last job, your major relationships, the things that happened to you in 2013, what is your top story?

Do you lead with, “I injured my foot and couldn’t run for six months” or is it, “ I obsessively met and networked with a variety of creative entrepreneurs, set up a business model, and started playing around with watercolors and acrylics.”

Because both are true.

Our perspective informs our narrative, and our narrative shapes our future.

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything.

How's the Water?

Lettuce be aware of our default, subconscious thought patterns.

“There are two young fish swimming along who happen to meet an older fish. The older fish nods at them and says:
‘Morning boys, how’s the water?’
The two young fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and asks:
‘What the hell is water?’”

— David Foster Wallace

Our natural tendencies, attitudes and beliefs of the world are often the hardest to see and recognize. We interpret our experience through our own lens of self and rarely question our hardwired default settings.

Our ‘water’ is largely influenced by invisible subconscious patterning and social conditioning. Once we zoom out and closely examine the water we’re swimming in, we have a choice. We can choose to stay in that automatic default setting, or we can consciously decide to change our thinking. The so-called ‘real world’ encourages us to blindly swim in the murky water, exhausted in an effort to succeed in an environment whose default settings of money, power, fame determine our self-worth and value.

Question everything. And most importantly, know the water you’re swimming in.

Watch David Foster Wallace’s full commencement speech:

A Father's Day Promise.

Three Redwood trees growing from a single Redwood stump. Captured on my run today at Purisma Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.

For all the fathers and father figures who are rooted in truth and integrity. Who weather the storms and fires and droughts and remain grounded and faithful. Who stay. Even when it’s uncomfortable and difficult. Who help us feel safe and build trust on a secure foundation. Who share knowledge and sacrifice resources so we can thrive and grow taller. Who are as life-giving and good to us as trees are to the world. It’s upon your shoulders that we stand. You make our lives better. So we promise to make our world better.

Vegan Miso Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a yonsei (fourth generation Japanese-American), I’ve always loved miso. It was normally in the form of soup and as a vegetable glaze. But never in cookies. The umami flavor adds a unique twist that hands-down makes this the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. Miso also contains probiotics, making this a win-win for your taste buds and your microbiome.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar

• 1 stick (8 Tbsp) Miyoko’s unsalted vegan butter

• 1 chia egg (mix 1 Tbsp chia seeds with 3 Tbsp water and let it sit for 5 minutes)

• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

• 1/3 cup white miso paste

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand is dairy-free)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and Miyoko’s butter until creamy.

2. Add the chia egg, vanilla extract and miso paste in and beat until well mixed.

3. Add the flour and baking soda and mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour (this is important to ensure chewiness and to hold form).

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Drop by 1-2 Tbsp balls onto a baking sheet.

6. Bake for 13-14 minutes and rotate halfway through.

7. ENJOY!

Unlearning and Rebuilding.

I made this clay model earlier this year, and now it’s more relevant than ever.

As children, everything is new. Our cultural perspectives are formed in our community and home, and we learn a vocabulary for the things we see around us. School. Home. Car. Dinner. Greetings. Nonverbal cues, expectations and customs.

When we remove ourselves from the familiar by moving to a new city or country, we unlearn each of these things and reshape it into new model. The context has changed. Home looks different. Dinner looks different. Nonverbal cues are different. Our brain expands and begins to include more elements into our definitions.

I’ve been playing with this idea of ‘unlearning.’ It’s liberating. It’s shifting from an “expert” mentality (we are the authority in that field), to a “beginner’s” attitude (a curiosity and acceptance that there is so much more to learn). For most of us, a subtle transformation begins when we set aside our expertise. We become humbled and curious, malleable, observant and open.

We begin to deconstruct and reshape our beliefs and attitudes because we recognize our prior definitions were cages, limited by our experience and perspective. It’s this shift that enables us to see how larger systemic values and concepts- healthcare, poverty, wealth, opportunity- have been built- and now challenge those definitions with our voices, money, action, and vote.

It’s only by dismantling our current system and the injustices and racism baked into it before we can rebuild a better one. I hope we continue to move in a direction with more equality, freedom, and understanding for all. One conversation at a time. One donation at a time. One protest at at time. One headline at a time.

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Today’s Steps.

“If you believe that you have something special inside of you, and you feel it’s about time you gave it a shot, honor that calling in some small way–today.

If you feel a knot in your stomach because you can see the enormous distance between your dreams and your daily reality, do one thing to tighten your grip on what you want–today.

If you’ve been peering out over the edge of the cliff but can’t quite make the leap, dig a little deeper and find out what’s stopping you–today.

Because there is a recurring choice in life, and it occurs at the intersection of two roads. We arrive at this place again and again. And today, you get to choose.”

— Elle Luna, The Crossroads of Should and Must

The Order of Things.

Ancora Imparo. Still, I am learning.

In order to learn, we must first be humble enough to listen.

In order to stand with someone, we must first sit with them.

In order to change something, we must first recognize there’s a problem.

We can hear the cries and protests, but are we really listening? Listening diligently enough to learn, stand and change?

Ancora imparo.

(100% of all proceeds from my art during the month of June will be donated to Black Lives Matter Global Network)

How To Be Interesting.

Encountered a huge rattlesnake on today’s run which prompted me to reroute and explore an entirely different path.

Following a different trail and route led to these stunning views…

Sometimes the greatest discoveries happen when you willingly venture off the designated path and purely follow your curiosity. In podcasting, the best interviewers are those who can release their own agenda and go where the story is more interesting. In music, new harmonies and rhythms are discovered only when the artist is open to deviating from the melody.

If something tugs at you and seems intriguing, be brave enough to follow that childlike urge and explore where it leads you. You may stumble on a fascinating new storyline, career path, business solution, or poem. You may inadvertently be paving the way for others to follow in your footsteps. Or you may, at the very least, discover something fascinating about yourself or the world.

Interesting people stay interested. Go where the path leads you. And every once in awhile, step off it.

Kindness.

Quinoa-all agree that enough is enough? #blacklivesmatter

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

-Naomi Shihab Nye

Ancora Imparo.

“Ancora imparo” were Michelangelo’s last words on his death bed.

“Still, I am learning.”

I hope to always embrace this posture of being the humble and hungry student, eager to learn and staying wide-eyed with wonder.

Even to my very last breath.