Will You Tell Me About Being Brilliant?

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It’s not being smart.

Brilliant is far beyond smart. A brilliant person is so because of character, intelligence, wit, wisdom, creativity, ethics. With me it is the same as being in the presence of beauty. Your mind knows you have witnessed something great.Your heart reacts.
SashaKane told me that.

Brilliant is bright beyond belief. So bright in fact, the glare can hurt your eyes if you stare at it directly. Brilliant is sooooo sexy. . . . brilliant, awesome, overwhelming, intense: words that are often used too frequently away from the power of what they mean.
Elizabeth Grattan knows brilliant obviously.

Stopping to savor each word, I squint and can’t help smiling.

Rose said, Brilliant means the ability to see things in new ways and to find relations between seemingly unrelated ideas.

The connecting is brilliant. We know.

Human Folly said, Brilliance means something spontaneous & beautiful with a slice of genius.

I’m thinking every 8-year-old has a slice of that. Right?

Randy added this bit, far enough ahead of the curve that it shines for all to gaze at in bewilderment.

We gaze in bewilderment . . . awe.

A single drop of water doesn’t seem much.
Then it freezes and holds the light while it thaws.
Brilliant.

It’s a second. It’s a glimpse.
It’s a momentary catching of the light.

Ever been brilliant? Bet you have.
Will you tell me about being brilliant?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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So Tell Me, Are You Feeling Lucky?

Filed Under Successful Blog | 25 Comments

The dictionary says that luck is an outside force Lucky means that we receive good fortune or get hit by adversity.

Around here, we we define it differently.

When we say lucky on this blog, we mean ways we connect … Jannie said:
I feel my gurus thus far are you, Barbara Swafford, Cath Lawson and Vered … I feel awfully lucky.

people who encourage us … Vicky said:
I love Melissa and Life In Perpetual Beta too!
I am so lucky to know both of you personally. You both enrich my life and I believe God sent you both to me. To encourage me to dream big as both of you do and you know I have big plans too!

about making our own dreams … Patricia said:
Sigh. This is my dream, to live near the beach and take long walks on the sand.
So soothing. You must conjure lots of dreams for this community on those beach walks. Lucky for us!

We use lucky to talk about relationships … Writer Dad said:
My son and I wake up before anyone else. Every morning he reminds me how lucky I am.

appreciation and gratitude … Karl said:
I take a second to step back and try to appreciate the spot that I am in. It helps me gain perspective and feel lucky to do whatever it is I’m doing. Even giving a financial literacy talk to a bunch of bored teenagers is enjoyable.

I catch myself doing the same thing.
I’m one very lucky blogger.
Don’t think I don’t know that.

Around here, luck doesn’t happen to us.
We choose it for ourselves — in the people we love and the paths we walk.

Luck is an action, a choice, and a point of view.

So tell me, are you feeling lucky?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image: sxc.hu
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Social Anchors that Link Us Together

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Social Media Can Be Words

I've been thinking . . .

about connections. Earlier this year I had a conversation, tossing questions and answers with a person I just met.

Cheryl asked, “What are you proud of?”

Plenty of events rose before me, and faded gracefully back again. None of them what I might take pride in. This one owing to my child’s work. That one owing to a team’s participation. The other being a serendipitious aligning of the stars.

Proud feels like approving. Even when I feel proud just know someone, word often don’t say . . . I don’t want raising folks up to seem like putting them lower.

I didn’t know . . .

I replied, “I have an unusual relationship the word proud. I don’t see things quite that way.” I explained as best I could.

She said, “I like the way you think about that.”

Funny how words like that, words that scare ya in some way can turn out to become an important– an anchor — something that holds and ties you to a person and a moment in time.

It was an ordinary day — a day without a parade or ceremony. Someone who knew me wrote the proud word in the comment box. He put it there where people could see it. It was a simple statement.

“Fiercely proud.”

We were two Internet people who’d never been in the same room. He had trouble with the proud word too. He said, “It sounds weird to say.”

Can I tell you what that meant?

It was a link that worked in both directions.

I was fiercely proud of him too.

Those words were a social anchor — a link, a connection, a relationship on the Internet — only this one was between humans not sites. They placed us and a moment in time forever together on the same thought, like the star rising in the photo below.

star rising


Links hold us together. Some can last forever or as long as a star.

Do you have a social anchor — words that reflect a human relationship link you found on the Internet? Would you tell me the story?

If you leave your story, we’ll be linked in yet another way.

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In the Company of Trees While Walking in the Forest . . .

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 8 Comments

november_in_szczecin

There’s something about being an artist or a choreographer that’s akin being a writer. It’s the experience of doing the work and the learning that comes from it. A person gets to understand how parts together work differently than they do alone. It’s learning that the spaces and the empty bits add importance to the message.

There’s something about being a person that’s akin to being all of them. It’s the experience of learning that being with people is different than being alone. It’s learning that the spaces when we remove ourselves can add vibrancy and color to the times when we return.

This time of year many folks see the trees filled with color and don’t bother to see the leaves. Some folks see the leaves and never look at the trees they fall from.

To feel whole, we really need both to use our whole mind, to see the whole picture, to get the full meaning.

Spend time in the company of trees as well as walking through the forest.

How do make sure you’re putting all of the meaning in and getting all of the meaning out of what you’re doing?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Money or Principles: Do We Have to Pick One?

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Are We Better than That?

Tonight AiraBongco said “. . . it’s an issue on what a person values: principles or money.”

I know. But it’s not like it’s been all honey up until now. I don’t know anyone who’s been living easy. I can’t imagine you’ve had it much differently. Do you know anyone who’s life hasn’t been hard won?

We use easy to describe some other guy’s life not our own.

Yeah, I worry about how things came this bad and where they’re going. The story is complicated, on the other hand, nothing new happens where humans are concerned. The good keep being good and the bad, well you know. People keep doing the same people stuff again and again.

Didn’t we see misbehavior like this on the playground and survive it then? We’ve made it out with self-respect in tact and our feet on the ground before.

money grabber


Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, didn’t gain the confidence of million dollar handshakes by being untrustworthy. His businesses were built on his principles.

I guess I look at it this way, principles will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no principles.

Maybe we should write that on a wall.

Do we have to pick one — money or principles?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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