Do not allow pizza to thaw or eat before cooking.

Communication is great and makes the experience better. Most of the time. Unless your communication just doesn’t make any sense at all.

No matter how hard I could have tried, this pizza wasn’t gonna eat a thing before it went into the oven. It would have been better to leave off this warning all together. (Unless there’s some lab experiment somewhere that makes this warning necessary. And if that’s the case, I give up eating frozen pizza all together…)

Bad communication is like an out-of-focus image — most of the time it doesn’t do much of anything for anyone. Except make them squint and scratch their heads. And if that’s your goal, I know where you can get a hungry pizza.

But what does it mean? Why is storytelling the new hot commodity? Because stories create empathy and allow us to identify. They draw out emotions. And quite frankly, stories are way easier to remember than bare facts. They’re a way to make the unfamiliar more familiar.

The trick is learning to tell a story that people want to keep hearing. Or in my case as a photographer, one they want to keep seeing….

Today in the TV and storytelling industry, conservative tried-and-true strategies have been utter disasters.

Fear has no purpose in current market phase, it is an unmetabolized emotional reaction. Two things happen when you’re fearful. First, you make seemingly rational decisions that are actually hedges. Or second, you fail to do something because you worry about the consequences. ~John Landgraf

If you’re not willing to live on the fringe of fear you’re not gonna make it as a business owner. ~Steve Bell

Gearing up for the work week, organizing thoughts and days, and came across this short video on what it takes to run a successful business. It’s worth the 30 seconds:

And amazing study that makes me appreciate our military men and women all the more, while at the same time allowing myself the freedom to acknowledge that my own life experiences have altered who I am and what I look like.

Fresh on the heels of leaving a full-time position and going back to freelancing, I am reminded of how unsettling it can be at times, not knowing where the next gig is coming from.

Zack Arias has been a long time inspiration to me, both in his style and his philosophy. His article this morning on How To Make It: 10 Rules for Success From Freelance Photographers hit home. Great read. Reminds me that yes, I love this job. And yes, it’s so incredibly worth it.

No matter the jarring, a jar of fresh water can’t spill filthy water. ~Voscamp

This hit me today. When I’m happy, it shows. When I’m tired, it shows. But when things really don’t go my way at all, what’s really inside floods out. Putting in the right things surely helps me make sure I’m flooding out good stuff, because if there’s one thing that can be counted on it’s that stuff goes awry, and what’s inside is just gonna show.

Feeding the creative, feeding the body, feeding the soul — these all matter.

We all want our customers to love us. On a small budget, it can feel like a daunting task but it really comes down to effective storytelling. Just like when you were a kid and it was bedtime — there’s nothing like a good story to make you dream amazing dreams.

Inc.com has a fabulous article on how to accomplish just that:

• follow a template
• have a moral
• connect with an aspiration
• let the audience be the hero

“Anyone who tells you they don’t encounter creative block is either not passionate about what they do or is stealing someone else’s ideas,” asserts the graphic designer Mike McQuade.

All creatives dread the creative block. Just read this article by Belinda Lanks and feel inspired and ready to handle that dread the next time it creeps up. Oh wait — I need some elastic waist pants first…

This man inspires me. He so simply says, “You fall down and you get up. This is how we do it.” He has courage and embraces life and all the challenges it brings, and doesn’t let anything hold him back. He dreams. He creates. And he just keeps trying new things.

I can’t imagine all the things that went through his mind during that 4 minute, 20 second freefall that 24 miles above human civilization. The Washington Post says this about it, “Even for the legendary skydiver it was understandably daunting. Might we have detected a hint of fear as “Fearless Felix” stared down at the world beneath him? Probably. But it was a reminder of what makes even the most audacious people human.”

And it’s not a careless free fall he fancies. He prepares, plans, and anticipates problems. And he’s daily learning to love what he’s been taught to fear.

#livingaudaciously.

My friends and family are important, it’s humbling when my kids remind me to put down my phone so I can listen, focus and appreciate them.

Until I want to remember the moment, and I grab my phone to document it with instagram. sigh.

#constantlychallenged