Thanks Mike. Michael? Mr. Stanier?

When I lived in Memphis, it was a hard year.

I spent a lot of time feeling alone and challenged, in a bad way. I knew that while the work I was doing made a positive impact on some of the people I interacted with, others found the work to be trivial and my view on it to be wrong, naive and stupid. I wanted to push the program to be more well-oiled and productive, but was met with unprecedented amounts of resistance.

I felt like a failure, like All I Ever Tried To Do was a big mess. I wasn't having ANY fun. Because I was by myself so much of the time, I did lots of internet surfing [which also inspired me to start a blog..somewhere to put my thoughts down, somewhere to collect ideas and try to do something MORE with my time. (Which is not how it's turned out, but all that surfing is what started my thinking...)]

You may have already seen this, but one of the things I found during that time made a pretty huge difference in my perspective:





It inspired me to make a change in my outlook, focus on a bigger picture and by signing up for this guy's newsletter, I continued to be inspired until I was successful in what I was trying to do. I got down to business on searching for THE RIGHT JOB. This video made me say "Hey, my life doesn't have to suck! I can do something more worthwhile and be a more awesome person to be around!" I needed to reevaluate my path and measure the importance of my happiness and my passion.

It's been a year since I signed up for the weekly newsletters that gave me something to look forward to, something that directed me toward a more rewarding life. Michael Bungay Stanier, who is the guy behind this, sent me an (auto-generated, I'm sure) email this week to "touch-base" on what my life has been like in the year since I connected with his message. I can honestly say it's changed 100% for the better.

I wanted to share it because maybe it'll be a kick-start for you. Maybe you'll find it eye-opening like I did...maybe it'll give you something to do at work.

Thanks Mike! (visit the box of crayons website, please.) (No one bribed or enticed me to say any of this.)