Jumping (on) the Shark
June 4, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
What lights you up? What really gets your heart pumping and enthused about your life? What fills you with a sense of awe and wonder and giddy excitement? My BFF and travel buddy, Barb and I both experienced amazing underwater surprises on separate diving and snorkeling excursions during our recent visit to the South Pacific. We had both wanted to see the Islands after watching the movie as children and it was finally our time to see that part of the world and what was underneath it.
I know when I am living Hartfully when I’m awe-struck by nature’s beauty and bounty, and in the midst of grandeur or maybe even danger. It’s a fine line. Much of our trip was spent underwater or at least on top of the water to view the incredible creatures. Why neither one of us thought to bring a Go Pro underwater sport video/camera, I’ll never know. We were the only ones on the dive boat to not have one and I’m sorry we could not capture those moments.
I’ve been SCUBA diving since the early 80’s and have seen my fair share of marine life, but what we experienced just outside our over-water bungalow and on deeper dives is nothing short of incredible. I’ve never been surrounded by so many sharks in any of my dives anywhere in the world. At one point I counted six black-tipped sharks and eight lemon sharks circling our group until the largest barracuda I’ve ever witnessed came swimming right towards me with something hanging out of its mouth. A half-eaten lunch, maybe? I stretched out the length of my 5’2” body and that barracuda was every bit the length of me. Where was that camera when you needed to document being one of the smallest things not at the top of the food chain at that very moment? Then we saw a herd, pod, gaggle, school, whatever, of eagle rays float effortlessly by on their way to someplace away from the sharks. I was in absolute heaven and I couldn’t wait to regale Barb with my story. Little did I know she would come back with a story of her own.
When we reconvened back on the ship after our separate underwater adventures. Barb’s story won, hands down. It seems that their snorkeling group landed amidst a school of lemon sharks who liked playing about the dive boat. So naturally what do divers do but jump in the water to get a closer look and better pictures. (If you’ve brought your Go Pro – note to self, go buy a Go Pro camera.) Just when Barb thought it was clear to jump in the water; off she goes and immediately after she is already committed, a 10-foot lemon shark swims from underneath the boat and SHE JUMPS ON THE BACK FIN OF THE SHARK! Yup, Fonzi famously jumped the shark in the TV sitcom Happy Days, and my friend jumps ON TOP OF A SHARK! Luckily he was only merely annoyed and swam away. Then a bit later the dive master, who weirdly stayed INSIDE the boat top side, announced to the snorkelers who are IN the water that “The sharks are getting agitated. Get in the boat NOW!” You can bet there was a bee-line for the ladder on that boat. Last one up the ladder is shark bait!
So, we learned a lesson that no matter how good you think your story is, there is bound to be somebody with a better story, and sometimes a good story is better than a good time. Although we did come back from that trip with a ton of stories and a heaping good time. Sometimes you luck out when you are in search of a Hartful life. Look for the good stuff, always seek good stories and ways to keep you lit up. What lights you up? What have you done lately to create a good story?
Life Balance Begins at Home
July 4, 2016 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
Life balance is vitally important to your happiness, success, and health. There is considerable evidence showing that mishandled stress at home interferes with work performance, and mismanaged on-the-job pressures create or magnify problems at home. Other research shows that the quality of personal relationships strongly influences job productivity, disease resistance, and longevity. Evaluating your various roles in areas of your life and attaching a level of priority to each is another important step toward making more intelligent decisions on where to put your time and energy.
Providing time for Leisure Moments in our lives, helps increase our resilience to stress, helps improve self-confidence and self-esteem, our physical fitness, and mental alertness. Often, when we take time out to re-create, refresh, and renew, we feel more in control of our lives which helps lower stress levels. When was the last time you went out and played to recharge your batteries?
Humor and laughter can build a healthy heart. Cardiologists at the University of Maryland studied 300 participants, half with healthy hearts and half with heart disease. Those with heart disease were 40% less likely to see humor in situations based on a survey and were more hostile and angry than those with healthy hearts. You can test your healthy sense of humor with their survey at http://www.umm.edu/news/humor.html . Another study of 240 heart-attach survivors found those who laughed at comedy videos every day were less likely to suffer a second heart attack during the course of a year. Based on an article by Allen Klein, the Jollytologist, in the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor Newsletter.
Many workers believe that the supportiveness of their boss is an important factor in determining their attitude or outlook at work. Nearly 61% rated this factor as extremely important, while 26% rated the supportiveness of their boss as somewhat important. When choosing a workplace, 87% sought out a place that is understanding of their personal and family needs. Only 4% actually sought out employers who are strict about attending to family needs, while 9% found employers who appear to be unaware of family needs as reported to Careerbuilder.com. Being content at work is a big part of having a balanced life. Take stock of where you work and with whom you work and if it’s not working for you, find something that will.
Living Hartfully: Just Do It Now
March 4, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Are you consciously living with your heart and purposefully living Hartfully on a daily basis or are you waiting for the new mate, retirement, to lose weight, to find a new job, to quit your job, to start your business, for the kids to grow up or go to college, or to move cities? I’ve been very, very lucky to have great friends as role models who are living Hartfully and have shown me how to make moments count on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. I feel so blessed to have them in my life to show me the way. Most of them are older. I’m guessing my old soul is more attracted to souls older than mine to share their insight from a life well-lived. I’d like to pass along some insights from watching how my buddies move through life that gives me great ideas on how to live mine. I learn from clients, customers and close friends on how to be or not to be and I want to share their teachings.
Don’t wait. Do it now. Doesn’t matter about any outside circumstances, make it work. Many of my friends are already retired or have closed their businesses to play more and explore themselves and the world more. Greg went back to school at 62 to learn how to be a chef. He says most of the “kids” in his class are in their 20’s and want to know why he wants to get his chef’s certificate or degree or whatever it is he gets after months of chopping, sautéing, slicing and dicing. He said it’s the joy of knowing how to do the art well. He’s doing it for the sheer joy of cooking and the confidence of knowing he’s learning how to do it well. There’s no other outside influence. He had a cancer scare recently and took a semester off and is now back in the kitchen. Funny how those wake-up calls make things clear. His wife Kathie recently closed her business after 26 years and is pumping up the volume of leisure pursuits in her life such as yoga, beach walking, hooping, starting a writers club and a book club, kayaking and travel.
I’ve recently lost my friend Karen to cancer. We met in a mastermind group called a Success Team in Germany around 25 years ago. It was Greg’s wife, Kathie who started the group of women and we all remain friends after all these years. Karen was very healthy, ran daily, her husband retired and started a travel company and they travelled well. She was still working when cancer struck and she fought valiantly for several years and lost the fight last Fall. She had never retired. She got sick while working long hours. She was looking forward to retiring some day and travelling more with her husband on his fabulous trips. That never happened.
My BFF Barb is my adventure travel buddy. We met at ski club in Germany nearly 30 years ago and share the same passion for exotic adventure travel, experiencing new discoveries, and doing things most women just don’t do. We’ve sailed the Greek Islands in a small sailboat, hiked for days in the Austrian Alps, survived horse-packing in Ireland in driving rainstorms, and skied all over the world in blizzards and dirt-laced slopes. Barb’s life purpose is to follow her passion and share it and that she does very well. She’s a great role model for me. More about our adventures and our lessons learned in future posts. She’s decided that she’s reached her point of enoughness, is retiring early and bought a tugboat to live on and sail around America’s inter-coastal waterways and throughout the Caribbean. Guess who’s tapped to help her through some of the stretches? Ahhhhhh, it’s nice to have a friend with a boat. She’s going to do it while she’s young enough and healthy enough. She just met a woman who is 85 and sails her own boat around seeking great adventures. Doing things while we’re healthy is so important.
Barb and I recently sailed on the Queen Mary 2 for a Trans-Atlantic crossing from New York City to Southampton. It was on both of our Hot 100 Lists to do one day and we decided a few months ago was the time. We were the youngest ones on the ship by a couple decades. I was wondering why they all waited so long to do it. Then after lots of shipboard conversations, found out this was not their first time for many of them. There are some who spend months on ships to see the world and have their meals served to them and be entertained and meet new people. This is a lifestyle and not a one-time cruise. Hmmmmm, new ideas spring into my head as to what retirement can look like. We thoroughly enjoyed the white gloved high tea service and I could certainly get used to that. We also dined at Sardis in New York before hitting a Broadway play and experienced Times Square – something that we had wanted to do for a long time to have a quintessential New York evening on the town.
My other friend Sue is an Artist with a capital A. She is the most creative person I’ve ever met. She can sing, dance, act, paint, photograph anything, write and whatever else artsy fartsy you can think of. Sue has created a very cool life to suit her fancy. She combines all her talents and passions and does free-lance work in all the areas mentioned above. She also combines her travel writing with her photography and writes off her international travel as a business expense, sells her work which pays for her trip and enjoys once adventure after another – never a dull moment.
My friend Silvana is another explorer who never has a dull moment. She has travelled with her husband and daughter across country in an Airstream trailer doing speaking gigs and having her daughter test drive internships while they wrote a book about their adventures and teen internships about their experience. They’ve also travelled for several years around the nation sponsored by a non-profit setting up special events to raise awareness. She’s been on a reality TV show and her next adventure is to house-sit for several houses for several months in Europe so they can do more exploration in other countries. Free lodging, getting paid to travel, what’s not to love?
So what are you waiting for? What does Living Hartfully mean to you? How are you stepping up right now to live how your heart wants to live? Let me know of our adventures. I’m always looking for more role models who get it and I just may share your story.
F1 – Function – What is Yours?
May 26, 2014 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
What is your function in life? Studies show that those who have a purpose, and are actively working towards achieving their goals, are happier than those who just show up for life each day. Set goals, change them, as your needs or situations change, and actively work on them. Do you have a mission statement and vision statement for creating your personal life as well as running your business or working in your organization? How does your professional function merge with your personal purpose? Writing down your goals, your purpose, and your function help to ingrain those visions into your subconscious to assist you in achieving them and giving you energy by looking forward to them. I’ve said it before in other posts – find your why that makes you cry and you’re on your way to living out your calling.
Anticipating and preparing for congruent personal and professional functions add energy and enthusiasm to your life. Knowing your function can give you the strength to face adversity in the world. Help increase your resilience to stress by choosing to align your workplace values with your personal values and purpose. When these two foundational things are congruent, you get the least stress and the most energy from the partnership. A playbook by Kathie Hightower called Your Enchanted Life: A Journal of Discovery & Delight at www.JumpIntoLife.net has tons of exercises and action steps to help you discover your function and what you really want. Spend some quiet time and meditate on your fuction and your why, then match that to how you can best serve. I find that being in nature helps me clear my head and clarify my thoughts.
Happiness Habits for Living and Leading Hartfully
March 1, 2014 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Seems like the happy factor is touching many sectors in our society. The popular catchy little tune Happy as sung by Pharrell Williams made an appearance at the Oscars earlier this year and has hit #1 on the charts in 24 countries. Indeed happiness has struck a chord with the world. Outside magazine recently offered a cover article on What Makes us Happy. I wanted to share some of the things that Outside Magazine says makes us happy with these simple habits that can change our lives.
Here is more scientifically proven methods for living more happy….if you need even more proof than I’ve supplied thus far:
- Wake up with the sun to get your dose of vitamin D and also ensure you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. We need this amount of sleep for our bodies to do their thing and regenerate. Less than that and we are less sharp, heavier, cranky and perform less. Being awake with the sun and getting more daylight, according to Boston University medical researches boosts genes that play a role in resisting cancer, infections and auto-immune diseases.
- Enjoying freedom of choice – being more in control of our time and our life improves our happiness according to a 2010 University of Rochester study. Free time is important to our well-being and if we spend it with people we enjoy, we get a double dose of the good stuff that happiness brings.
- Play your favorite songs – crank up the tunes. Neuroscientists at McGill University in Canada cited in 2011 that brains create dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, when listening to favorite songs. They scanned music listeners’ brains while they played different types of music and the dopamine surge was greatest just before and during a favorite part of a song.
- The 2011 National Geographic True Happiness survey suggested that the happiest people were those who watched less than 1 hour of TV per day.
- The Boston Consulting Group working with a Harvard professor in 2009 who wrote the book Sleeping with Your Smartphone; agreed to unplug one night per week. No email, no texting or clients calls and no TV. After 5 weeks, the consultants were functioning better as a team, did more work in less time and now they have embraced the weekly disconnect as company policy.
Gracious Acceptance and Asking for Help
December 7, 2013 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
I’ve noticed that leaders and particularly strong, independent female leaders have a hard time asking for help and then accepting help, accepting gifts or even compliments. After spending over 3 decades witnessing and consulting with leaders; it seems that asking for help is considered a sign of weakness and many just gut it out and figure it out themselves or go without and struggle to get through it or to the other side of it. Whatever IT is.
I’m here to tell you that asking for help is surely not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength that you know your limits and what is out of reach. It is also a sign of gracious giving to allow others the joy of offering their expertize, their help, their perspective and their compliments. You are GIVING others a change to feel good about themselves and their abilities when you ask them for their help. You are GIVING them an opportunity to be of service. And doesn’t it feel good to be of service to somebody? In what book is giving a weakness? Giving comes from strength and abundance -we have what we need and have the ability to give more. When we give opportunities for others to share their services, we expand positive energy all around.
And then there’s gracious acceptance on the other end of generous giving. So many people, mainly women, brush off complements, well-wishes and gifts or they act embarrassed to be the recipient. Learning the art of gracious acceptance, allows others to experience the joy if giving. Particularly in this time of year where there is lots of gifting and giving; practice the art of gracious acceptance to expand the good feelings all around. You deserve it and even if you think you don’t, somebody thinks you do. Accept help with the holiday party plans, accept help with dinner, accept the fact that you really don’t want to cook or clean this holiday season and hire it out, or do something that doesn’t infringe on your time and space.
Now is a great time to practice the art of generous giving and gracious acceptance and allowing others to give freely. Give the gift of grace and gratitude this holiday season and see what changes appear before you.
Creating Hartful Time to Renew & Recharge on an Energy Escape
November 15, 2013 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
It seems we’re being pulled in many directions by our personal and professional responsibilities. Leaders at work are answering to the front office and to their teams. Leaders at home are answering to friends, kids, spouses, faith, school, volunteer and sports groups. It’s a difficult challenge to honor free time spontaneously any more, so need to schedule some time for re-assessing our choices, reaffirming our paths, reconnecting with others who are like-minded, or not who have your best interest at heart.
I suggest planning a weekend getaway, or Energy Escape, to connect with close confidantes for brainstorming, master-minding and recharging your batteries. We tend to be in high gear producing and implementing and reacting to life at work and at home. Leaders sometimes have nobody to turn to at work to bounce ideas off of and discuss vulerabilities, possibilities and question their choices. Creating time and creating space with supportive friends and colleagues can help catapult you in the right direction and affirm what you are thinking is your direction, or help guide you down another path.
These gatherings can be weekly Success Teams or Mastermind Circles or quarterly gatherings or even larger annual affairs in person with emails and calls in between the weekend soiree. Hiring a coach to bounce things off of is another option. I find my clients and myself included tend to talk our way through situations better than if we just think it through in our heads on our own. The synergy of the group and the energy it brings to the issue results in a much better and clearer outcome. We tend to question ourselves and when we have the confirmation of a group of knowledgeable and respected professionals and friends; we get it faster and it sticks. There’s something about accountability and knowing others are believing in you and counting on you to do what you say that helps propel us forward in the right direction.
I’ve experienced a few of those weekend gatherings recently which I call Energy Escapes, and have another planned in the near future. They are uplifting, energizing, refreshing and rejuvenating. There’s something about being together in a different setting without distractions to sit and be and talk and set imaginations free for coming up with solutions to professional and personal issues. A nice number is 5-7 attendees coming together with their ideas for others and asking for what support and resources from the group they want as well. Being focused on each person at a time and coming together to pool resources generates incredible outcomes in these synergy sessions. It also helps each participant live and lead more Hartfully, staying closer to their truth, their heart, their centered way of moving through the world. It keeps us focused on the right path and gives us the courage to choose that path.
Why not plan for a solo getaway to get refocused on your personal goals and then plan several more with your pals to help each other achieve their goals as well. I generally use the holidays and the new year change-over to reassess what I’ve accomplished the past year and what lies ahead – calling it my year in review and year in preview. See earlier blog posts about that and the Hot 100 List. I see these gatherings as my 10,000 mile check-up and continual tune-ups for a life well lived in a very Hartful way. Try it yourself and see how much further along the right path you go with the help of others (pals, coaches, colleagues, other professionals) who are conspiring in your favor vs. doing it on your own. I bet you’ll see a vast difference. Facilitating Energy Escapes is something you do for yourself so you can do more for others. It’s a way of giving back to the world your best self with your highest goals in mind.
On the Art of Living & Leading Hartfully
August 25, 2013 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
I’ve been a student of the art of living simply and beautifully for a couple decades now. Ever since finding Alexandra Stoddard’s first books on the subject of leading a beautiful life and incorporating it into every single delicious aspect of my life. Why not surround yourself with beautiful things that have meaning and bring your joy? Why not surround yourself with beautiful thoughts, intentions, music, art, love, abundance and design? The philosophy oozes its way into they types of soap, lotions, potions and vessels that find their way into your home, the clothes that find their way into your closet, the work that finds its way into your life, and the friends that find their way into your heart.
I’ve been ruminating about the transition of of message that the world needs to hear and transitioning my work to mesh with what I’ve learned over the years, who I”ve becoming and am still becoming and what entrepeneurs and employers need to know as well as those that are in charge of their lives if not an entire company. The transition has moved from changing my own personal name with much thought and consideration of a grand representation of my life’s purpose but to my company name and what it/I stand for. Afterall, they are one in the same. My work is the outward expression of my essense and purpose: to be a successful artist and messenger in the community spotlight. So bringing the message of living and leading Hartfully has been years in the making.
Recently I hosted a “Gaia’s Girls Weekend” which truly expressed the art of living and leading Hartfully. Gathering some of my favorite women on Earth from “the Southern Contingent”; we enjoyed food, frolic, frivolity, friendship and a stretch limousine to take us to a grand estate for a peek into the truly elengant ways of Living Artfully. Indeed, our lives are works of art that we paint with every choice we make. This particular weekend was delightfully rendered with little scheduling to allow the energy to flow and to just BE with each other and connect peppered with some highlights of living lusciously and treating outselves beautifully. Why not treat ourselves to luxe indulgences to feel special now and again or at least more often than we have in the past. Why not experience the feelings of lushness and grace. What is holding you back from getting a limo now and again to whisk you and your friends off to an amazing day or evening celebration and joy? It doesn’t need to be for anything in particular. Give the gift of a great experience and see how it makes everybody feel…pretty darn good.
What a treat and a blessing to be able to bring my gal pals together and practive the Art of Living and Leading Hartfully. If we can’t live Hartfully, how are we expected to lead Hartfully? If we are not in touch with our purpose and message and the big why’s of ourselves and our hearts; how can we expect to show up and lead in any decent way? I’ve consulted with many leaders who have not found that balance of leading and living fully in their hearts and it’s not a pretty sight. What can you do for yourself to living and lead more Hartfully? More fully in your heart?
What small changes can you make to your home and office to be living more beautifully in what fully represents you? Might I suggest clearing out anything that doesn’t make sense any more. This could be items, thoughts, people, busy work, tasks, clothing, shoes, knick knacks and habits. What can you infuse into your life to help you live more Hartfully? What new habits, new friends, new work projects, new things in your surroundings could help you live more beautifully?
What can you do in the service of others to help you live more Hartfully? What can you do in the service of yourself to express your life more Hartfully? What can you do to bring in more beauty? It was such a treat to treat my freinds to a glorious day of living Hartfully – a cherished memory for all of us. Looking forward to practicing more Hartful habits.