“It’s always darkest before the dawn…
And it’s hard to dance
With a Devil on your back
So shake it out…”

—Lyrics to Shake it Out by Florence & the Machine 

Yesterday, as I was transferred for the seventh time during a 15-minute phone call that can only be described as a customer service black hole, my blood started boiling. RAGE.

I’ve had a cold this week, so my normal be a friendly decent human being defenses were down. I hadn’t gone running or to yoga in days. I had a devil on my back (as the brilliant lyric above goes) and I had lost my happy place.

Origins of the Happy Place

After my sophomore year of college, I did a two-month travel study program in Europe. My roommate and I devised a method for dealing with frustration, long lines, angry people and other mood-zappers: go to the happy place.

Mine happened to be on an island with Vin Diesel, and she taught me how to say it in sign-language.

When something would go wrong, instead of reverting to RAGE or complete bitch-mode, she and I would look at each other and sign our happy places. “I’m on an island with Vin Diesel!” I’d mouth while giggling. It might be a complete fabrication, but it worked.

(Consider also Adam Sandler’s happy place from Happy Gilmore for a good chuckle/example…thanks Alex Dea!)

Shake it out. . .

These days, my happy place is my yoga mat. While it helps to have a place that actually exists, it’s certainly not required.

When I feel my patience grow thin or my good-mood resources deplete, I know it’s time to get out of the house and get moving. Fresh air, a walk or a run, and definitely a yoga class. My dad has a theory that unused adrenaline (which we start out with every morning) quickly turns toxic in our bodies if we don’t put it to use within 24 hours.

When you’re in a funk, you don’t always realize that it’s because you’ve neglected your happy place…but it’s never too late to go back. Or to imagine yourself there in vivid detail.

Just as negotiators suggest “going to the balcony” instead of reacting on the spot, the same applies for going to your happy place. The next time you find yourself sad, mad, frustrated or otherwise on a rapid downhill slide into toxic energy, conjur up a place that makes you smile.

What does it look like? Who is there with you? What are you doing? What imagined scenario (or real activity) is guaranteed to lift your spirits? It might even help to make a list or do a free-write so that you have something to come back to when you’re feeling less creative.

I’d love to hear in the comments: what is your happy place?
What person or place (or puppy!) makes you smile just thinking about it?

***

P.S. Two fun features elsewhere on the web today: My “Act as If” story is up on Positively Positive, and the most in-depth interview I’ve done in a while is posted at Idea Mensch. Head on over and check them out — both are great websites that I am honored to be on and look forward to exploring more!

P.P.S. Thank you so much for all of your enthusiasm and kind words about the Mint infographic — it’s been a blast seeing it spread around the Internet!

My latest masterpiece! YUM. And yes, I am a one-trick cooking pony.

It’s December . . . have you tried making my mom’s chili soup recipe yet?! If not, you’re missing out! Click here for a handy ingredients list you can take to the grocery store. I make this every week, which means you know I have a Google Doc shortcut for it

Speaking of docs & spreadsheets — I just created a Moving Checklist Template by popular demand — if you’ve moved recently or have a big move coming up, I’d love to hear in the comments if I’m missing anything!

With that, it’s time for another Crock-Pot Round-up I’m-still-sad-about-Google-Reader-taking-away-sharing post . . .

Quick reminder: you can follow more of what I’m reading on my Tumblr, Google +1s page, and GoodReads (book reviews). 

• Book Worm Confession time: I caved. My brother and I bought a Kindle Fire for my mom for her birthday, and when she decided to return it in favor of an iPad (who can blame her?!) my gadgetlust kicked in and I decided to keep the Kindle for myself. Me, an avid proponent of paper and new book smell — now have a Kindle. It almost feels wrong. To be fair, it replaced my older MUCH heavier tablet, runs on the Android platform which I love, and still doesn’t completely phase out the purchasing of non-fiction books that I will proudly adorn my bookshelf with. But my early reviews? I LOVE IT, take it everywhere, and even spoon it to sleep . . . kind of like this.
• This video brought tears to my eyes: Zach Wahls Speaks About Family (on equal rights for marriage in Iowa).
• Torre DeRoche lays down the gauntlet in Chasing the Carrot of Tomorrow with poignant reminders about honoring exactly where we are NOW: ”Society puts unrelenting pressure on us to be always on the run, chasing one goal or another. ‘What are you working on? Where are you going? What’s next for you? Where is your carrot? If you manage to catch the elusive carrot, this pressure to keep shuffling forward may prevent you taking a single lick of your glorious prize.”
• In tune with Torre, Seth Godin reminds us that not everything is a calamity or a breakthrough – in fact, most of what we do in life isn’t either one . . . and that’s okay.
• Cara Stein, who has quickly become one of my favorite “truth post” bloggers, provides tips on How to get unstuck from 10 Mental Quicksand Pits.
• Willie Jackson — also affectionately known as Willie Freakin’ Jackson (WFJ) — extolls the virtues of Being Selfish (especially when it comes to your schedule and creativity). Willie’s blog provides a great dose of brief daily posts that always make me think.
• Chris Guillebeau released his latest manifesto The Tower (available for free in PDF, iPad and Kindle formats) on urgency and leaving a legacy.
• New Yorkers: I’m proud to be speaking at the NY Creative Interns’ One-Year Anniversary Bash next Wednesday, Dec. 14 at Wix Lounge to help them celebrate an incredible year of kick-ass events. Emily and team helped organize my book launch party which was so outstanding that it seriously replaced any need for me to have a wedding. My friend Ann even turned my book into a cake! But I digress. I’d love for you to help us celebrate next Wednesday if you’re in town
• iTunes givewaway winners: Huge thanks to he 62 of you who left comments on the Thanksgiving gratitude post! I loved reading what you all had to say, and it’s my absolute pleasure to send the gift of music to the 10 lucky winners (chosen via Random.org): Jana, Lindsay, Dee, Sarah, Rebecca, Pauline, Ginny, Rachael McKelvey, Udoka, and Laurel. I’ve left comments in reply to the winners in case there’s any confusion about whether it’s you or not.
• Best of Craigslist: Yoga Mat for Sale: This might be THE funniest thing I’ve read all year!! Side splitting, belly-laughing hilarity. If you’ve ever done Bikram (and disliked it as much as I did) or had a crush on an adjacent yogi in class, you’ll have tears in your eyes! Big thanks to Elisa Doucette for sending the link

Speaking of Yoga, to wrap things up I leave you with the Hey Yoga Girl music video, which also had me dying:

Quick update before we jump in: my book is finally out on Kindle – woohoo! Order your copy here. Not sure if it’s for you? Check out what 77 fabulous reviewers had to say.

I’m very excited to have my first post up on Lifehack.org today — a site that has inspired my own thoughts on organization, lifehacking and providing useful content for readers for as long as I’ve been blogging.

My Lifehack post is about how doing a cleanse (and subsequently “going Paleo”) changed my life — and business — for the better. It’s not necessarily the fastest, magic bullet-iest (new word!), or sexiest lifehack (or maybe it is?); it requires dedication and tough choices, but I’ve found the rewards to be exponentially positive. I’ve included an excerpt at the end of this post.

Here are some related posts (a virtual welcome mat, if you will) for all the new readers this week — hopefully this serves as a nice recap for the veteran readers as well!

On Health & Fitness: 

• I owe all of my success with Paleo to this soup recipe, which I make every Monday
• Check-out my detailed health journal from the first 21-days of my cleanse / health experiment
• Related books I’ve recently read and enjoyed (more reviews on GoodReads):
  • The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolfe
  • The Four-Hour Body by Tim Ferris
  • Wheat Belly by William Davis
  • Clean by Alejandro Junger
  • Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

On Side Hustles, Leaving Google & Solopreneruship:

• 6 Ways to Manage a Side Hustle Without Going Insane
• Forbes.com: 5 Tips for Managing Your Energy, Not Your Time
• I’m a Free Agent: From Six Figures to Suitcase
• Free Agent Part Two: On Big Decisions & Very Real Fears
• LocationRebel.com – Someday.
• 20 Lessons from 2 Months of Solopreneurship (Part One)
• 20 Lessons from 2 Months of Solopreneurship (Part Two)
• Escape from Cubicle Nation: Side Hustle & Flow Feature

On Lifehacking & General Organization: 

• How I stay organized, Part 1 - 15 tips to get your online and offline life in order
• How I stay organized, Part 2 - 27 new tips & tricks (primarily focused on Internet-based tips and apps)
• Make Sh*t Happen Tools – 50+ resources to help people with big, hairy, scary goals (Sound interesting? Sign up to be notified when my Make Sh*t Happen course re-launches in January!) 
• Book Recommendation: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry

My latest greatest (pen and paper!) organization strategy:

I’ve tried everything for daily organizing – Todoist, TeuxDeux, Evernote, Google Docs, Google Calendar, my own Weekly Activity Tracker - the list goes on.

And then I discovered the one…the only…Post-it Weekly Organizer! It’s simple, it helps me map out my week, and the best part is that I can SEE it all day while I’m working.

This has also helped me ensure that work, people and health get equal billing in my life. No one category takes priority, and I made it a point to list the daily health goals first. At first I resisted only having five lines for each category, but now realize that it helps me stay focused and prioritize the most important tasks.

Intro from tbe Lifehack post: The best decision you can make for your business — that has nothing to do with money

Imagine two people starting identical companies with the exact same resources, network, and time at their disposal (gender randomly assigned for brevity’s sake):

Both of these people are me.

I quit my job at Google two months ago to pursue my passion as an author, speaker and coach, and during my first month of solopreneurship I was Person #1.

I wasn’t running my business, my business was running me. And as 100% of the company, the opportunity costs of operating at half-mast were extremely high.

Continue reading the full post on Lifehack.org, which includes 4 key tips for growing your business or big goal, and improving your life by putting your body first.

A quick note before jumping in: I was all geared up to announce Make Sh*t Happen enrollment in my next blog post, but the course sold out within 24 hours of the doors opening! I’m thrilled by the response, and incredibly excited to work with the inaugural group. To receive monthly(ish) goal-tackling tips and to be notified when the course re-opens in January sign-up here. 

***

You may not know this, but I have the cooking skills of a fourth-grader. Probably worse.

Much to my mom’s chagrin and semi-frequent prodding to learn the important life skill of how to cook, I’ve been spoiled these last ten years.

I ate dorm food during freshman year of college, I lived in a sorority for the next two years (three meals a day), then I lived at home while working at the start-up and benefitted from mom’s home-cooked meals, and THEN I worked at Google for 5+ years where I ate three meals a day — and dated a chef for a year and a half (survival instinct kicked in on that one, I tell you).

So here I am, turning 28 in October, with absolutely ZERO clue how to cook. None, zero, zip. I toast and I microwave, and even that is pushing it on the effort scale.

But alas, I have been on a health kick lately AND trying to save money as a newly-minted solopreneur, so I am PROUD to announce that I’ve learned how to cook SOMETHING!!!

The recipe, shared by my mom, is a popular chili soup.

It’s AMAZING. It  tastes delicious, it’s as healthy as it gets, and serves as lunch and even dinner for an entire week!

If I can cook this, a troupe of monkeys can too, which means you’ll knock it out of the park! I can’t find the exact recipe the way that she makes it, so here it is:

Chili Soup (that lasts all week!)

Meat: 1 pound lean ground turkey or lean ground beef (2 lbs if you’re really going for protein)
Base: 1 can of pumpkin or butternut squash, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 box of chicken or beef broth
Veggies (diced): 2 yellow squash, 2 zucchini, 2 bell peppers, 1-2 boxes of sliced mushrooms, 1 onion, 1/3 bundle of celery (slice directly across the stalks), 1 can black beans / garbanzo beans / kidney beans (or all three!), and anything else that sounds good!
Seasoning: 1 packet of chili powder, garlic salt (optional), flax seeds (optional)
Directions: On medium, brown the meat, then drain. Add in the base, followed by the veggies and seasoning. Let cook on medium for ~30 minutes — eat! Turn off the stove and let the soup continue to simmer until the pot cools, then refrigerate.
Serves: 12-14 bowls
Cost: ~$40 if you have to buy all of the ingredients from scratch

Update: click here for a handy shopping list you can take to the grocery store.

Best online recipe boxes:

My friend Ben Tseitlin, whose Tumblr is one of my “must-reads” for awesome pictures, quotes and titdbits, recently reblogged “5 Best Online Recipe Boxes” for those of you who are interested. If not, check-out Ben’s blog and gourmet handmade chocolates - he’s also hosting a chocolate-making class for any of you living in the SF Bay Area on September 19.

***

Update on my August Health Challenge:

I’m writing a longer guest post for Forbes Woman on the health challenge that I will share with you soon, but for now, suffice it to say that I feel like a NEW person. I’ve decided to make my health challenge journal public for any of you who are curious about how things progressed over the last 30 days. Grab the template version here. 

You don’t have to do a crazy cleanse like I did (though I highly recommend Dr. Alejandro Junger’s Clean Program if you are interested); see what experiments you can run in your own life that work for YOU. Now that I’m in maintenance mode I’m adding some coffee back in (can’t skip those deliciously foamy lattes forever!) and 1-2 cheat days per week, borrowing from Tim Ferris’ Slow Carb Diet and The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet (a GREAT book I just read by Robb Wolf).

Here’s an excerpt of my post:

During the first three days, I had complete monkey-mind — craving coffee, sugar and TV like the addict I was — unable to focus because I was thinking about them every five minutes. But on the fourth day and every day thereafter, I started noticing something incredible.

I felt clear-headed. Creative. Confident. Energized. Productive. HAPPY.

I was getting more done in one week than I had completed in one month. I was no longer experiencing crazy mood swings or unproductive days. I started sleeping like a rock. I was in a great mood, glowing and energetic at conferences and razor sharp during my coaching and speaking engagements. I was on a roll and I stayed there.

I used to scoff at the countless magazines that preach healthy eating and exercise — get over yourself! Until I experienced, firsthand, the insanely powerful impact it had on my business’s bottom line (not to mention my actual bottom, which now fits nicely back into my best jeans).

Do you have any health tips or observations to report?
Got any so-easy-a-monkey-could-make-this recipes you can share (ideally that will last for longer than one meal)? 

Someone send me to blog detention. I’ve been meaning to write a summer “Hodge Podge” post for two weeks — but procrastinated instead, thereby missing the boat on several key announcements. Doh!

Speaking of which, I came up with a four-part reminder whenever I get stressed or start taking a doomsday view on my to-do list:

1. Nobody’s dying.
2. I’m not curing cancer.
3. Everyone can wait.
4. It will all get done.

Do you have a similar mantra to counter out-of-proportion overwhelm?

LAC Book summary featured on The Personal MBA

20 Something Blogger Summit: Conference Pass Giveaway

Location Rebel Case Study

For those of you who want to hear more about my decision to leave Google, I’m one of three featured Location Rebels for Sean Ogle’s new course. Although his program is now closed (sold out in less than an hour!) you can read my inaugural story here. Here’s an excerpt that I haven’t yet shared on this blog:

I’ve always prided myself on being an independent woman, but for a long time I felt like I could only go out on my own once I was in a stable, long-term relationship (ie when pigs fly, for those who know me well . I thought that would give me the safety net I needed in case I fell short on income one month or wasn’t able to pay my bills.

But I quickly realized that if I was going to do this, I had to be ready and willing to do it all on my own; not to put my dreams on hold for someone else or some uncertain future state. I also realized that I am rich in friends and family; people who want what’s best for me and are willing to provide support through the big transition.

Links I love:

• Julien Smith’s No one cares if you succeed or fail: why I walked 500 miles…barefoot
• The Email Game – makes responding quickly a game, and lets your correspondants know why they shouldn’t expect a long email…I’ve got to try this! (h/t Charlie Hoehn)
• Speaking of which, “save your friends from outdated email” with an Email Intervention
• Communicatrix - Advice to a Young Aspiring Writer
• Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology’s How to Lead a Life of Utter Mediocrity
• ChaChanna Simpson of Your Stellar Star’s What’s Holding You Back?
• Cordelia’s 27 reasons you might fail & 2 reasons why you WILL
• Scott Dinsmore’s 57 Living Legends Expose the Moment that Defined their Passion
• ….and many more on my shared Google Reader page

August Health Challenge

If at any point I get grumpy this month, blame it on the modified cleanse I’m starting. We’ve been having a great discussion on Google+, which began with my shameful confession about indulging in Panda Express and a Snickers bar at the airport on Sunday. New low. That’s it! I thought. Time for a change.

I’ve become too reliant on coffee, sugar and bad foods as a crutch for low energy (and boredom/procrastination), and they’re causing mood swings and an energy rollercoaster that I know can largely be avoided.

Here’s how I’ve crafted my personal challenge (I’m doing this with a friend for added accountability):

• 21 days no alcohol, refined sugar or caffeine
• Minimize significantly: wheat, beef, dairy, processed foods
• Exercise at least 20 min/day 5 days a week, with yoga at least once per week

How about you – any fun links, productivity or health tips to share for this month’s miscellaneum?

Having a bad day? A rough week? Imagine finding yourself in Intensive Care after an invasive 8-hour surgery for head and neck cancer, unable to speak after doctors cut out part of your tongue so that they could replace it with muscle from your forearm.

That is just the beginning of Nick White’s story. The more impressive part is the pure joy he brings to life — and to everyone whose lives he touches. Nick couldn’t speak when he woke up from surgery, but he could write — and that’s when he started blogging. In Nick’s own words:

“Since getting cancer & going through treatment, I’ve learned a lot about life in a very concentrated way.  My cancer experience has been serious business, but it has also enhanced my outlook on life. Thanks to the support of all my family & friends, I’m the fittest & happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

Some of you may recall Nick from my May Miscellaneum post — he sent me a photo of my book on the beaches of Hawaii, en route to World Domination Summit (he made his way there all the way from Wellington, New Zealand). After checking out Nick’s website and emailing back-and-forth, I couldn’t wait to meet him in Portland.

Nick didn’t disappoint. I immediately spotted him across the bustling crowd of 500 attendees. Nick was glowing, radiant, and friendly. His mere existence and survival is an inspiration to me — but throw on top of that his incredibly optimistic, cheerful, all-smiles, bursting-with-energy personality, and I knew I’d made a friend for life. Update: Nick is also Making Sh*t Happen by writing a book — he asked me to be on his goal “Dream Team” (great idea!) while I was writing this — a total honor

I highly recommend you listen to Nick’s story (the video is five minutes long) for a reminder on what it means to be resilient and stay positive in our lives — and maybe even say hi to Nick on Twitter. He’s someone you definitely want to know.

Nick White on The Power of Speech (5 minutes) – Click here to open in a new window

Nick — you are an inspiration to all.

I am so thankful that you reached out, and that we had a chance to meet in Portland. Thank you for bringing me a cupcake at the opening night party — consider this post a little piece of virtual #cupcakekarma!