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Driving up T.’s drive I felt fear. It felt irrational – silly even. T. is a good and trusted friend, and I had flown over 2,000 miles to spend just 48 hours with her and sing together for the first time in 15 years. But, yes, there it was: fear.

So, I took a few moments to unpack it. And what came rolling forward were the unknowns: What would it feel like to inhabit my artist self fully once more? Would we still sound good together? Where would our reconnection take us? Would we get gigs? And how would bringing music centrally back into my life shift my sense of self?

Really, I had two choices: get back on the plane and go home, or breathe into the questions and fear – and keep going. Which is what I did.

There are those experiences, big and small, that give us the choice between going home or going forward. It’s our bravery in those moments that makes the difference, as Chöngyam Trungpa reminds us: “The bravery of a warrior is like a lacquer cup. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break.”

I’ve recently come across a beautifully crafted online magazine, fear.less, dedicated to the exploration of what it means to come face to face with our fear. I hope you’ll read it and use it as I do to embrace the challenge and journey.

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We all have those things in our world that fit into the “could have, should have, would have…umm, okay – DIDN’T” category. True confessions: one of mine was, until yesterday, returning to my yoga practice after a one year hiatus (and my body is sure feeling it today).

Where does the resistance to doing what we most care about come from? That resistance is the voice of fear, cynicism, complacency, and indecision – the voice that tells us things like:

• “It doesn’t really matter – I can do it next week.”
• “It’s never going to be good enough.”
• “No one really cares about what I do.”
• “If I try to do something new and daring, it might fail – better to play it safe.”

That voice – in the words of Seth Godin – is our lizard brain talking. But it’s called other things, too, that you may remember from biology class: The Amygdala, The Limbic System, or the Fight, Flight or Freeze response.

So, why are we talking biology? Because, really, we’re walking around with “two brains” – our more evolved one that can dream up amazing possibility and action, and the other that is purely interested in survival. And guess which one often wins out? Exactly.

Those times when you feel hesitant, or afraid, or indecisive, or unsure of yourself? Well – it’s your lizard brain whispering to you. It’s what keeps people from taking a chance: speaking up in a meeting, sharing an idea, challenging the status quo.

Yes, our lizard brain is afraid of failure, but it’s also afraid of success. It’s also whispering things like, “What if your idea is a smashing success? Your life could change forever – are you really ready for that? What if there are consequences that you can’t foresee? It’s better to just stay put for now…”

Ironically, while all this whispering keeps us from reaching our full potential and feeling stuck, frustrated and stymied, it also keeps us feeling safe.

What to do? Try using your resistance as a weather vane. Lizard brain telling you to stop? Try going. Lizard brain telling you to keep your mouth shut and not share the big idea that’s just popped up? Maybe sharing it is exactly what’s called for. In the words of Seth:

“When you feel the resistance, the stall, the fear, and the pull, you know you’re on to something. Whichever way the wind of resistance is coming from, that’s the way to head – directly into the resistance.”

So, hold onto your hat and go for it. Let me know how it goes – and feel free to ask me any time how my yoga practice is coming along.

The one thing (well, there are actually many things) that I love about doing my work through Imago is that I get to create a work environment that honors broad commitments and cultivates flexibility and responsiveness to life’s ebbs and flows.

But it hasn’t always been that way, and much of the work world is still operating from a 9 to 5, rigidly scheduled workday (or night). Enter a new trend: the results only work environment, based on what gets accomplished, but not how.

NPR has done a really fascinating three-part series on this new trend, and how it is applied to different work environments, even hourly positions. You can access the series by going here.

Anyone out there working in a flexible environment? What’s it look like?

My friend was recently speaking with her spiritual Teacher about the amount of illness and death those close to her are experiencing. Her Teacher showed empathy, then said:

“Well, you know how it’s going to end. The question is how you will use the time between now and then.”

It struck me when she shared the story – yes, I do in fact know how it’s going to end (this iteration of life, anyway). Sitting with the question, “what will I do between now and then?” seems that it should be easy – but in fact I find it quite challenging.

Easy because it’s not hard to answer the question, “what matters most to me?” Difficult because there are so many ways to pursue those things, and I find myself moving in many directions, often distracted. The question then, I guess becomes: what gives me the most joy? And what will allow me, at the end of it all to know that I’ve lived and loved well, and perhaps made a small difference in the lives of others?

I took a “think day” earlier this week (I’ll be doing lots more of those) to consider those questions as they relate to Imago. It was more than useful; it was clarifying and offered me the chance to not only notice what matters most, but to be accountable to those things as well – and create a plan.

I was inspired by an e-book that’s been sitting on my desktop for the past few months, a co-op resource created by Seth Godin. In it, over 70 thinkers (“big names” and “small”) meditate on the question, “what matters now?” and have some intriguing answers. You can access and download it here or by clicking the image below.

What most matters to you right now?

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“We are all at the mercy of our wild monkey minds. Incessantly swinging from branch to branch.”

Those of you with a Mac are fortunate: you have access to a beautiful writing environment called Ommwriter. Ommwriter is a simple text processor and a humble attempt to recapture what technology has snatched away from us today: our capacity to concentrate. And it’s free.

Since I have a PC, I’ve created my own virtual “paper environment” by downloading Dark Room and tweaking the colors. I’ve found the blank screen to be soothing and the perfect environment to allow words to flow easily. It isn’t the same as Ommwriter, but it will do until they come out with a non-Mac option. Check it out!

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Is Web 2.0 the magic bullet when it comes to communicating with those who are invested in our efforts? Of course not. The digital divide and lack of access to technology is a huge issue and concern that many of us are currently addressing. And then there will always be those who will want you to pick up the phone instead of send an e-mail, who prefer to have a chat over coffee instead of over instant message, or who will enjoy your printed newsletter but delete the e-mailed one.

So what’s the important lesson for your organizational communication strategies?

Howard Moskowitz may have the answer. His research revolutionized the food industry when he declared to Prego in the early 1980′s, “There is no perfect spaghetti sauce – only perfect spaghetti sauces.” He went on to help Prego develop a line of four spaghetti sauces when they had  originally intended to create one. Ever wonder why we have multiple kinds of mustard, soda or cereal? Thank Dr. Moskowitz.

Ultimately, it’s on us to figure out how to meet people and engage them in ways that make sense for them – and then do it. So, I like to think that Web 2.0 is one kind of spaghetti sauce and coffee conversations is another (by the way, there’s a fun anecdote about how we like our coffee in the video below).

At a recent TED conference, Malcolm Gladwell (best selling author and staff writer for the New Yorker) gave the talk below about Dr. Moskowitz’s work.

How do you take your spaghetti – or better yet, your conversation?

I enjoy wordplay (as you may have noticed in my previous post about the fabulous tool, Wordle), so I don’t mind telling you that some days I let a word or phrase play over and over in my mind searching for new meaning in it.

Think about the paradigm shift when “disease” becomes “dis-ease” or “enjoy” becomes “in-joy”.

So it is with “letting go.” You can think of the phrase as we often do, as in letting something (or someone) leave our lives or consciousness. Or, you can flip it to mean letting GO – as in “letting GO happen.” Framed in this way, letting go becomes extremely proactive, allowing new things or experiences to grow and manifest.

I can’t imagine a better way to visualize this flip than Madonna’s Jump video, which features gravity defying Parkour. En-joy!

The following video may be a bit tongue in cheek, but in all honesty, it isn’t that far off. There has been much conversation in recent months and years about the importance of acknowledging and learning from the full range of experience on the continent of Africa, and supporting the innate capacity of all Africans to help themselves and create their own solutions (as all humans can and do).

The same conversation needs to happen here in the U.S., too. And, luckily in some quarters, it is. How often do we in the nonprofit and philanthropic community, while having the best intentions, see ourselves as “saving” or “giving voice” to those “less fortunate?” I have long respected the work of John McKnight, and was forever changed by the perspective shift I gained from reading his book  The Careless Society. Check out his work through the Asset-Based Community Development Institute for tools that could radically change how you engage in community change work.