Today is Valen’s Day.

I wager you’ve never heard of that particular holiday. That’s because Pace made it up. Several years ago, she posted a silly picture:

(that’s Valen from Babylon 5); can you guess what it means?

Yeah, it still hurts me, too. “Happy Valen-tines day”, indeed.

But, at first, I got “Valen’s Day” out of it, and the name stuck. We started celebrating Valen’s Day on 2/12, because 212 is Pace’s lucky number.

Ta-da! A goofy, self-proclaimed holiday was born, one we celebrate with glee every year.

Holidays in general are largely made up. Most Christian holidays were, shall we say, procured from the local pagans, in order to more easily convert them. And the “real meaning” of most holidays has been converted into mass commercialism, the spiritual or earthy meanings long forgotten.

Taking something important to you, be it funny or inspirational or devotional or whathaveyou, and turning it into something to celebrate, making it a holiday, is very freaky. It’s fun. It can be sacred. It can mark something monumental (like a wedding anniversary or a divorce anniversary) or something meaningful only to you. It’s also revolutionary, because society says “celebrate these certain holidays and no more or less, you filthy heathens!”

Society be damned.

Happy Valen’s Day!

Yes, folks, this is a post about my girly bits. Specifically about my cervix, but my vagina is discussed.

Daddy and Little Brother (and anyone else uninterested in my girly bits), you probably want to stop reading right here. I’m going to be disturbingly frank. Consider yourselves warned.

There’s a good lesson at the end, though. (Tempt, tempt.)

Let’s begin.

My vagina and I are good friends. Unlike most women, I’m rather familiar with how mine looks and feels, inside and out. This has come in handy from time to time, when something is awry – I can catch it before it gets too awry.

You might already know where this is heading, right? Because why would I be talking publicly about my private bits unless I had damn good reason?

Yup.

Last week, I went to the bathroom as usual. When I attempted to reinsert my Diva cup (yes, that means I was in need of the menstrual hut), I found my vaginal cavity blocked.

And promptly freaked the fuck out.

I calmly said to Pace, “Honey, get the flashlight and meet me in the bedroom, stat.” (Calm, because I didn’t want to terrify my son, who was setting up a game nearby.) Pace picked up on the panic in my voice and didn’t waste any time getting to me.

After a while of uncomfortable poking and prodding – and the least sexy photographs of a usually sexy place possible (for science!) – she went off to the computer. She was doing the research, as I am forbidden to google medical issues.

(This is because, once, I sprained my ankle and read an article on how a sprained ankle can lead to death and freaked the fuck out.)

After extensive research, Pace said, “Okay, it looks like your cervix.”

Pardon me?

My cervix?

As in, the thing that’s supposed to be at the other, far away, hard to reach end of my vagina?

It seems to have wandered a bit out of place, don’t you think?

I was, unsurprisingly, still freaking the fuck out. Pace remained extremely calm and helpful and kind, and took excellent care of me. I called friends and they said reassuring and comforting things and gave me good advice. I stayed up way too late because sleeping seemed like a bad idea. I mean, what if my uterus as a whole decided to climb out and run off? Apparently, various bits of me are getting errant ideas! So I fussed and freaked and panicked for hours, then asked the internet what to do.

The internet, in a moment of stunning grace, said, “Everything is going to be alright.”

So I went to bed.

The next morning, I went to the doctor. I managed to find an Ob/Gyn recommended to me my best friend, so at least it was someone I knew by proxy about to shove her fingers up my girly bits rather than some stranger dude in the ER.

I told the doctor about my past (miscarrying and being raped) and that I was extremely terrified, and she thanked me and promised to be extremely gentle and tell me everything before she did anything. I told her the whole story about my bits trying to escape, and she listened (mostly). Then she did prod and poke and I cried a little (because it’s so fucking triggery I can’t help it).

Diagnosis?

Uterine prolapse. In English (or Kyelish), my uterus is, indeed, trying to escape.

And here I thought we were friends.

But seriously, it means my uterus isn’t in the right place and is collapsing. There are lots of things I can do to mitigate the symptoms. I’m going to survive. I’m devastated, and there are some pretty horrible consequences (more on that later), but it’s not going to kill me. It’s not as terrifying, now that I know what’s going on.

But, here’s the thing.

Had I not known my body well, I might’ve missed it until it became life threatening.

Once I made myself get to the doctor, I had to hold firm and make her tell me that my uterus wasn’t going to actually come out. I needed to hear her say it so I could chill (at least a little).

And wow, did I need Pace there to make sure I covered all the things I needed to cover. I was so terrified and freaked out, I knew I’d never remember everything. And then, on the table, on my back, my cervix (trixy trixy cervix) wasn’t as far prolapsed, so there was much discussion before we were able to get her to really understand that there was a very serious problem. Had I not been so familiar with my vagina, I might not have had the knowledge with which to move her to action – and without Pace, I might not have had the emotional strength to keep trying.

Being able to inform your healer of all your symptoms, being able to provide a complete and clear story, is critical. If you can’t tell your healer for whatever reason (like, me choking up from body-triggers), tell someone you love and trust and then ask them to come with you and help. Or write it down before you go – most healers are so delighted to have a complete picture, they’re happy to read it.

Don’t let your very private parts go ignored. Our breasts, vaginas, penises (penii?), anuses, and internal reproductive organs get ignored the most because they’re the hardest to talk about when things go awry – but if they malfunction, so does the rest of us.

Whole health is about being entirely healthy. Even our pink squishy bits need to be healthy to help complete our picture.

So, to break it down:

1) Know your body. Become familiar with how you feel on a regular basis, so you can get an early sense of something going wrong.

2) Make sure your whole story is told. Tell it yourself, either to the healer or a friend. Write it down. Get it all out, even things you think are unimportant and unrelated – they might be neither.

3) Ask questions. Even dorky questions. (I asked, “Is my uterus going to fall out?” The obvious answer is no, but I needed to hear it from the doctor.)

4) Make sure you feel informed. If the healer acts like they’ve told you everything, but you don’t feel fully informed, keep prodding for more. They almost always have more.

5) If you’re afraid, go anyway. Take someone you know and trust and feel safe with, to offer you comfort and support.

People, I am utterly, utterly terrified of the ob/gyn. Every time I go, I cry. It shakes me up for days. Ever since I miscarried, being put in stirrups is enough to send me right back to that terrible moment and I’m flooded with fear and despair. It’s not easy. It’s why I avoid regular girly-bit maintenance. But this time, that avoision could have cost me my uterus – or my life.

Knowing our bodies is critical to our health. If we don’t know what “normal” feels like, we can’t know what abnormal feels like.

In Ireland, the “I don’t drink” issue comes up more often than in America. Drinking is part of the Irish national culture. In fact, Ireland ranks #4 in the world for alcohol consumption per capita. (America ranks 43rd. The top three are Uganda (!), Luxembourg, and the Czech Republic.)

Usually, I say “No thanks, I don’t drink,” and that’s that. But this time, I was met with a curious and interested “How come?” from two friends, and the answer turned out to be far more interesting than I expected.

Here’s how the conversation went.

(Notice how my friends mostly played the roles of cardboard cutout dogs.)

I stopped drinking 4 years ago because it felt like a Good Thing To Do.

If that’s the case, then my image of a spiritual role model isn’t really my image at all — it’s hers.

How about I completely ditch that old stale guru image that wasn’t really mine at all. How about I think about my own spiritual path, Pace’s path, the Pace of the present, and see what I feel called to?

And that’s what I did. I threw away my old envisioning of “The Right Way” to do spirituality. I threw away my guru-based “shoulds”. I meditated on what spiritual path I feel called to. I listened to my heart.

This is what my heart said.

“Yo, rest-of-Pace. Here’s the skinny. Our spiritual path is to seek reunion with Source. As for alcohol, it’s kind of a crutch, but at least it gets you out of your head and into me. It’s totally fine for practice, but it isn’t a long-term solution or anything. Also, I love you.”

The next day, I drank a pint of Guinness in an Irish pub and thoroughly enjoyed it. I got surprisingly tipsy; apparently 4 years of no drinking lowers one’s tolerance!

So I guess a more accurate title would have been “A teetotaler changes her mind and drinks a pint of Guinness”, but hey, Irish Guinness is pretty darn good, so I don’t mind the implication. (:

The moral of the story

The simplest way to personal growth is to Ask yourself why.

Don’t count on your two curious friends to ask you why. Ask yourself. Write down your answer, if it helps you to work it out. Question. Examine. Journal.

Simply asking yourself why can get you out of a years-long rut.

Think of one thing you might be doing because of someone else’s reasons, or because of old stale reasons.

Ask yourself why.

In Ireland, we rented a car. Her name was Reilly, she was a little blue Ford, and I absolutely adored her.

I did not, however, adore driving in Ireland.

The roads are tiny and windy. They’re usually one lane roads – but whereas in America, that means one way each direction, in Ireland, it means one lane. One lane, period, for both cars going in opposite directions. When you encounter another car, you have to pull off onto the shoulder to pass each other. This usually meant I’d pull off and slow way down, while the other driver would pull slightly off and speed up. Exciting, especially when you take into account the shoulders. The “shoulders” were usually comprised of bushes, small cliffs, the occasional big cliff, stone walls, and moats. Very rarely was there an actual shoulder one could actually pull off onto. At one point, Pace said, “That sound you hear? Those are the BUSHES hitting the MY WINDOW!”

Fun times.

And that doesn’t even take into account the occasional sheep, donkey, horse, or human you might find hanging out in the road.

The general speed limit is 100kph (60mph). Friends, let me tell you, I never went above 80kph – and usually, I averaged about 40kph. I have no idea how anyone in their right minds can drive 100kph on the roads I was on – but I think the answer is: most Irish drivers are completely insane.

Most American drivers are completely insane, but at least we have bigger lanes and divided highways on which to flaunt our insanity.

All this insanity on these itty bitty twisty windy roads – and I was driving on the left side of the road on the right side of the car, shifting with my left hand.

Funny thing about that. 18 years of driving really impresses upon you the importance of leaving room on your passenger side, because half of the car is on that side.

And it’s nigh impossible to suddenly switch that in your brain when the passenger side suddenly switches to the other side of the car.

This produced a lot of frantic yelps and pleas for me to move to the right from Pace, poor girl. “Too far left! Too far left!” became her mantra.

After three days of driving like this, I was finally getting the hang of it and Pace’s cries were becoming less frequent.

And then the ice came.

I knew we were only two hours, at most, from home in Galway. I wanted to go home badly. I wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with our friend and her friends in a safe warm pub drinking Guinness. I was incredibly attached to these plans, and equally attached to not spending the night trapped in Lisdoonvarna. So, I tried to drive us out despite my fear. But the main road was closed! I hit two icy patches before I could turn down the alternate route, and it was so dark I could barely see 50 feet in front of the car. I pulled off the road and started sobbing, hysterical. I can’t drive on the ice.

I’m from Texas, ya’ll. And while I don’t act like a Texan or look like a Texan or own a horse or even a pair of cowboy boots, I learned to drive on our always warm, never icy roads. If it ices here, the whole state shuts down. One flake of snow and people stay home from work for weeks. And here I was in Ireland, surrounded by serious ice, not the little piddly ice slicks we may occasionally have in Texas.

I lost my shit, I am not ashamed to say. I wept and shook and begged Pace to let us stay in Lisdoonvarna and pleaded with the universe to save me and probably made a whole lot of immediately-forgotten promises to a God I never talk to anyway before Pace nearly slapped me and we turned around. (Pace couldn’t take over – she can’t drive a stick.) I kept saying, “I cannot do this!”

I have twice ever driven on ice – and twice I’ve slid and gotten into an accident. I was so tense on the way back into town, I could barely breathe. I was terrified and barely made it to a parking spot, and as soon as I turned the car off, I was in hysterics again.

I was utterly terrified.

So, we spent the night iced in a tiny town in very rural Ireland. We met every resident in Lisdoonvarna, and only two of them liked us. We were Strangers here (and stranger than their usual brand of strangers, to boot!). One pub lied to us about not having food, another lied about not having a room. We went from place to place, seeking food and shelter, and were turned away multiple times. Finally, we found a lovely place with a lovely pub that gave us a lovely room and fed us lovely food and gave us lovely Guinness, and we went back to our room and Pace was asleep before midnight.

Yeah, happy new year. Ha!

The next morning, I woke after a delightfully restful sleep to a bright sunny day. Cold and icy, yes, but sunny with clear blue sky as far as I could see. We had a big healthy breakfast. We packed our things and got back in the car.

I took a deep breath and hit the road.

I drove through the most treacherous ice I’ve ever seen. I slid all over the road many times. I had to pull off to let someone pass me, twice – and I had to back up 100 feet once to let a tractor get by! I was tense, barely breathing, but I drove in the ice for two hours.

Finally, the roads cleared, and I was able to breathe and go faster than 10kph.

But I’d done it. I did it, I drove on the ice.

I faced my fear and got through it.

The key was doing it on my terms. I knew it was too dangerous to try in the dark. I got triggered when I slid the first time, so I was nearly panicking – another reason to stop. But the next day, in the bright sun, well-rested and fed and feeling adventurous, I did it.

And that’s the key to facing fears: do it on your own terms. Make sure your bottom-level needs are met so they don’t distract or make things worse. Breathe a lot. Bring a friend, someone to support (or slap) you, someone to get your back so you can take care of the rest. Turn back if you feel like that’s the right thing to do in the moment.

And, most importantly, follow your heart.

Hey, everyone!

My name is Leah and I am a rabble-rouser.

I like to stir things up! I like to make you think, I want you to question stuff, I want you to try on a new perspective every now and again. I encourage you to try new things, things that interest you – and maybe some things that scare you.

I will challenge you to learn what feels good to you and to notice what does not work for you.

I want you to embrace the parts of you that are different, and instead of making them wrong…I want you to learn to love them. It’s all good here!

I want you connect deeply with yourself and make that relationship the most important one in your life.

What if you made your happiness your first priority?

Hell, I want you to take full responsibility for your own happiness (Oh My!) and let other folks be responsible for their own happiness too.

I want you to fly your freak flag high and proud, so all your peeps can easily find you.

Why do I want these things for you?

Because, this is where the juicy goodness lies……and maybe you want more of that?

That juicy, yummy, delicious goodness that makes your heart overflow, that makes life feel deeply meaningful and fun!

It is where the magic is and the easiest way to jump into your ever abundant flow.

Do you want some?

It’s waiting right there for you.

The surest way to bring more juicy goodness into your life is by deepening your own relationship with you. This is the most important connection that you can create; otherwise, how do you know what brings you happiness, meaning and success?

This is trickier than it may sound for many people, especially the freaky folks.

We live in a society where there are lots of expectations and pre-packaged beliefs around how we are supposed to live and who we are supposed to be in this world. When you don’t fit into the mold, it’s easy to feel like there’s something wrong with you. It’s easy to feel unworthy, undeserving, resentful – and a whole lot of other unpleasant emotions. It’s really easy to start making yourself wrong for being different.

The worst part is that you tend to settle for whatever comes your way because you think that you can’t have anything else. You’re so busy trying to be something that you’re not, there is no space to ask yourself “What would feel good to me?” or “What works in my life?”

But these questions are the key to bringing in more juicy goodness.

I know this sounds simple, but it can be very difficult to do. So many of us never learned how to ask themselves these questions.

When we’re young, we set our course for who think we are supposed to be in the world. This course is not necessarily based on who we are, but rather who we think we should be. So we spend our time trying to force ourselves in to a life that doesn’t fit rather than exploring and discovering who we really are and what feels good to us.

We end up in jobs that are dull and meaningless, in relationships that feel crappy, and feeling unsatisfied. In order to make ourselves feel better, we shop, eat, have sex with the wrong people, read self help books, and usually blame everyone else for our misery. We spend our time looking outside ourselves for the solution – but it is right there inside of us waiting to be discovered!

You are the only one who knows what is right for you. The key is being committed to deepening your relationship with yourself.

How do you do that?

Make a commitment to knowing yourself better. Get in the habit of asking yourself some of these key questions:

“What makes me happy?”

“What already works for me and feels good in my life?”

“What do I enjoy doing?”

“What do I want from _________________?” ( my career, relationship, health, sexuality, or any given situation)

“How do I want to feel when I _______________?” (am at work, in relationship, walk down the street, anything that you do)

“What would feel good to me right now?”

If you really want to get intimate with yourself, whenever you are feeling bothered, upset, irritated, or uncomfortable, ask yourself, “What about this is making me feel uncomfortable?”

Listen to the answers to all of these questions! Then, go out and use that information to create a life that is designed to suit your unique style. Surround yourself with people and things that support your happiness. Nurture your relationship with yourself as if you were your favorite lover. Give yourself everything you need to be happy and feel great.

You’ll be surprised at how easy it becomes once you get in the habit of asking yourself what you need. As an extra bonus you will discover that all the people around you will benefit from your happiness. Soon enough you will all be surrounded by all the juicy goodness that life has to offer!

Leah Shapiro is Head Rabble-Rouser at Defy the Box. She is not your typical Life Coach. “I teach you to be 100% you in your full freaky glory, and I show you how to use what makes you different to bring success, fun and meaning into your life.” All freaks are welcome!

Download a free copy of Leah’s special report : The Secret to a Life Full of Juicy Goodness!

“Awesome” is usually associated with all things kickass and 100% bodacious. Even the thesaurus can’t help itself, throwing down the fabulous with:

• awe-inspiring
• beautiful
• breathtaking
• magnificent
• mind-blowing
• wondrous

But sometimes something so amazing and ‘mind-blowing’ can be daunting…even terrifying. (Climbing Mt. Everest is pretty spectacular but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also formidable and massively intimidating.)

Sometimes it isn’t even the awesome itself that we find overwhelming, being haunted by the fear that we cannot possibly sustain something so incredible.

Sometimes we wonder if we will even create something special or extraordinary. What will our life mean if we leave no legacy? We fear having squandered our potential, of wasting every opportunity.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be so defined by our accomplishments that we aren’t able to see past them and eventually find ourselves living in that past. The moment passes even as we try to capture it.

But the question is: why?

Why are our accomplishments, achievements, and talents the source of our awesome? At the end of the day, at the end of our days, will it matter that we set a world record? Became a published author or multi-millionaire? Won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Our successes are most extraordinary when they are successes of our spirit, of our PURPOSE. When, being aligned with our deepest gifts, we are able to impact the world with the full force of our being.

That is the truth of your awesome.

Hayden Tompkins is all about rocking the universe and embracing the awesome! (Especially if said awesome is edible and traditionally served after dinner.) She writes a personal development blog at Through The Illusion.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you sometimes feel like an outsider. Maybe you feel like a freak, left out, not quite like the rest.

That doesn’t mean you can’t live a great and fulfilling life. Actually, not to make you feel any less special, but chances are you’re not alone in feeling like an outsider.

How to Relate to Others

I first started “going off the deep end” as some have called it, when I started eating more raw fruits and vegetables. People didn’t know how to relate to me anymore, because I didn’t fit in the usual box. I didn’t eat the standard American diet, and I seemed perfectly happy not to chow down on a steak or a hamburger.

The first thing I had to learn was how to continue relating to others. You see, in my example, food is a super important part of the social aspects of life.

I can picture cavepeople gathering around some food and telling stories as they eat. Well, maybe that’s a little idealized and they were really just hiding in the bushes eating their own little shares.

Still, these days most social get togethers involve food and if you don’t fit in, then people get confused. If you let them get confused, or you allow their confusion to get to you, you’re just creating space for your mind and their mind to judge.

Judgment and persecution occurs when your mind needs to prove that it is “right”. Have you ever seen someone start an arguement because you were different, even though no one mentioned your difference? What happened was the other person felt threatened, felt that their decisions were being put on the spot by your mere presence.

How to Disarm the Judgment Before it Happens

The way to really enjoy being different, without causing tons of uncomfortable reactions is to address the situation overtly.

If you notice that someone is eyeing your tattoos suspiciously and about to comment on your piercings… maybe it’s a good idea to mention that you enjoy creating art with your body, but that it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a great person.

In my case, I like to address people’s most insidious concern when it comes to my eating raw food: that I prefer eating raw food because it taste good and makes me feel good, but that I don’t expect them to change their eating habits.

In fact I embrace the diversity, because we’re all different and that makes things exciting.

How’s that for diffusing a situation before it gets all prickly?

So hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought, when it comes to living the life of the outsider. I suspect that more of us feel like outsiders than we’d like to admit.

It’s just a matter of embracing our differences, loving ourselves for who we are, and letting the world know that we’re okay with their differences too.

Nathalie Lussier helps men and women who know they need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables when they don’t know how to get started, get over the cravings, and avoid family drama. She is known as the Raw Foods Witch, and you can also find her as @NathLussier on twitter.

Part I: In Which I Lose My Spark

There was a time when writing came easily to me. There was a time–and it was only a handful of years ago–when my appetite for delectable content and my ability to create were pretty evenly balanced. In the past year or so, that balance was tousled and my consumption of content skyrocketed. My creation of content… well, it nearly ceased altogether.

I’ve noticed this happening, but haven’t given it a lot of thought. After all, there’s a plethora of great content out there. Between blogs and Tweets and books and interviews with really smart, fascinating people, a Curious George like me could make a full-time job of doing nothing but keeping up with everything that interests me. So what’s the downside?

Wily little creative spark, flighty and mercurial. I wanted you to make an appearance, but for naught–plenty of other people out there were creating more than enough great content to make up for your absence anyway.

Part II: The Squelching of the Spark

The downside of this unending buffet of consumable content is what hit me when I sat down to write this post and found myself staring down a writer’s block larger and more looming than any I’d encountered before. After engaging in some de-blocking exercises born of maturity and self-awareness (read: “I kicked, screamed, and pouted, and procrastinated on Twitter”), I finally paused to ponder what it was that made up that formidable block standing between me and my written utterances.

And damned if it wasn’t a big ol’ pile of all of that wonderful content I’ve been consuming so voraciously over the past year or so. If my own creative voice is a spark, and stimulating, fascinating content is fuel to its embers, I’d managed to dump the equivalent of a mighty redwood onto my spark. And then got frustrated when I couldn’t figure out how to stoke the fire.

Poor little creative spark, smothered under a world of others’ input and thoughts. I berated you for abandoning me, but as it turns out, I kind of squashed you.

Part III: Awareness

I tweeted a few days ago that it’s a fine line between being inspired by other peoples’ content and being overwhelmed by too much input. What I didn’t realize is how much I’ve effectively silenced myself by constantly turning outward for inspiration, ideas and conversation. I’d simply forgotten to leave any space in my brain–let alone in my day–to listen to my own ideas, process all of my own snippets of information, and flesh out my own internal dialogue. I kept piling on more and more consumed content without leaving any room for me to create my own.

But then I realized, as I excavated the spark-smothering mass of consumed content, that my little creative spark was still there, a little pilot light that managed to stay lit. And the more I lifted the self-imposed pressure to write like the writers I enjoy, to be “as good as” the experts whose advice I try to heed, to create content that mirrors that which I consume in heft and in import (as judged by harshest-critic-me, of course)… the more that little spark flickered.

Resilient little spark, nestled at the bottom of this overwhelming pile of potential fodder and fuel. I fed you too intensely, when in truth, I needed to give you room to burn, big and bright and bold.

Part IV: The Renewal of the Flame

“Well,” I said aloud to the mental image of my creative spark, “looks like you and I have something to talk about after all.”

And damned if that potential-laden spark didn’t crackle up into a respectable creative flame.

Into the empty screen I’d stared at for hours earlier I suddenly poured the story of how I lost–and rediscovered–my creative spark. It’s neither keyword-rich nor particularly ReTweet-inducingly funny, neither list-formatted for easy skimming nor a how-to guide for easy online dissemination.

But it’s mine, and it’s heartfelt and real, and after all that pain of writer’s block battling, it actually feels really good to write.

Marvelous little spark, flames licking into the open space we created around you tonight, I tried so hard to consume enough great content to make you be great yourself, when in truth, all I needed was to give you space to BE.

Part V: In Which I Reflect and Intend

And so it is that I wrote this blog post for my dear friends’ blog, which became a manifesto of sorts, and a love letter to my creative spark. It being the time of year for reflections and intentions, I offer this commitment to myself: Embrace the exploration of others’ thoughts and musings, but respect the necessary space around my own spark; admire the power and humor and wisdom of others’ creations, but nurture the manifestation of my own.

Can you relate to this–to the writers block, the smothered spark, the feast of content consumed and famine of content created? If so, what’s your secret for finding balance between the input and the creation? How do you feed your creative spark without overpowering it?

Marissa Bracke is a Can-Do-Ologist who specializes in bridging gaps between small business owners’ to-dos and their can-actually-get-dones. When not solving collaboration conundrums or giving great email for her clients, Marissa is most likely creating a collage masterpiece, compiling the perfect eclectic playlist, or spoiling her two dogs (her Vice-Presidents of Customer Relations and Creative Napping, Ernie and Rosco).

If you don’t see the video, click here.

Megan Elizabeth Morris, or The Magnificent Megan M., [proper noun]: Superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination & resourcefulness. Exudes enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential. Master thinker; writes, designs, manages, ideastorms, markets, inspires, connects, grows, teaches, makes things happen, changes the world, and throws a mean right hook. (Okay. Not the last one. Well! Not literally.)

Megan, also known as That Idea Blueprint Girl, writes at Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M.

Today’s the last day for 52 Weeks to Awesome early bird registration!

Click here to see more about the course, including all the neat stuff early birds get.

52 Weeks to Awesome in the news

Several people have interviewed us via email about 52 Weeks to Awesome, and we also did a fun phone interview with Johnny B. Truant, wherein he asked us lots of science-y questions about how exactly we define awesome and how you can measure whether you succeed in becoming awesome. It’s neat, go listen! (:

Our Second Book

After the success of The Usual Error, we immediately started thinking about writing a second book.  We already knew exactly what we wanted to write about, and we even had a working title: How to Be Awesome.

But then, we noticed something important.  Even though the book form of The Usual Error helped a lot of people improve their communication and their relationships, our Usual Error workshops helped even more.  We got far more "this changed my life" feedback from workshop attendees than we did from book readers.

That got us thinking.  Even with all the learning modalities in The Usual Error book, the one that a book can’t cover very well is learning by doing.  It’s easy to consume a book passively, never getting up out of your chair.  With a workshop, especially a live, in-person workshop, it’s much easier to get people active and engaged.  However, you can only interact with a few people at a time at a workshop, and there are a lot of logistics involved in traveling around to various cities around the world.

How could we combine the best of both worlds?

That’s when we decided to morph How to Be Awesome (the book) into 52 Weeks to Awesome (the e-course).  We cover the same material we would have written in the book, but we focus more on engaging you so that you’re not just reading passively.  It’s an interestingly different style of writing, and we’re confident that it will be more effective in doing what it’s meant to do, which is helping you live a more awesome life.

Click here to see how it turned out!  (Remember, today’s the very last day for early bird registration.)