While technology has been introduced into our world as a means of assistance and improvement to the quality of our life, it also has become a means to distract us from being present, from finding balance and from catching our breath. In Time magazine last week, the cover story “The Art of Being Mindful” took aim […]
“Finding an ease with what you are thinking, feeling, the world as it is, not necessarily accepting it, but not resisting it. This is contentment.” —Andy Puddicombe The truth about contentment is that it is different than being happy. We cannot know what it feels like to be happy if we have not known sadness, […]
“When you take control of your mornings, you take control of your days. You get to engage with the world under your terms. You can act, instead of react.” —Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning Millionaires Reflect on those mornings in which you eagerly step out of bed regardless of the early hour. What was to happen […]
If you Google “self-care”, more than two billion posts, articles, books and videos pop up. For a variety of reasons, many valid, self-care is topic of discussion in the world, and the reality that stress levels in America have increased for the first time in 10 years is evidence that perhaps we all would benefit […]
“The French have a special word for it, La Rentrée; in English it is simply referred to as ‘Back to school’. However we choose to call the September post-vacation return, and no matter how far our schooldays are behind us, few would deny that this really is the moment in the year that shouts ‘new beginnings’, ushering […]
“The universe wanted you to celebrate and appreciate your life so every year she gave you a birthday.” -Debasish Mridha Each year as my birthday arrives, I feel most fortunate. No matter where or how I am planning on spending it (it is often simple and intimate), I take the time to celebrate the year […]
“To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy is to set your own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson A single day is analogous to our life journey but on a smaller scale. We can […]
“Success is sequential, not simultaneous. No one actually has the discipline to acquire more than one powerful new habit at a time. Super-successful people aren’t superhuman at all; they’ve just used selected discipline to develop a few significant habits. One at a time. Over time.” —Gary Keller & Jay Papasan from their best-selling book The ONE Thing: […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #172 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio “For me, style is zee whole package: how you dress, talk, move and behave. It all goes together into that first-impression equation. It shouldn’t be confused with chic; an extremely chic or well-dressed woman may have zero sense of style. Style is definitely more about who […]
“The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.” —Veronique Vienne Perhaps you have heard about the natural phenomenon that occurred Monday for people living in the state of Oregon running through the entire continental United States all the way to to South Carolina, […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #170 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio {As always, I encourage you to listen to the audio version as much more is talked about beyond the transcript below: more anecdotes, examples and ideas about how this episode is really about enjoying our time alone whether we are coupled or single.} Having lived on […]
I can still hear George Costanza’s father on the classic comedy Seinfeld declaring “Serenity Now!”. At the time, in middle school, the manner in which he spoke and body language threw me into an immediate bout of laughter and I have not much more thought to what he was seeking, but what if we can […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #163 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio “Growing your inner strengths through taking in the good is like deepening the keel of a sailboat so that it’s less jostled by the worldly winds, it recovers more quickly from big storms, and you can now safely head out into deeper waters in pursuit of […]
Beauty —Bastide Fréderic Fekkai, the man known for taking care of our tresses, has stepped into the beauty business with his wife Shirin, taking the reins of a 25-year old treasure in Aix-en-Provence, the Bastide beauty business. Bastide is the beauty brand somewhat similar to L’Occitane offering luxuriously simple beauty products each created from the gifts […]
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ― Confucius Having never experienced a particular event, feeling or sensation, it can be hard to trust that attaining what we have marked as our goal as something other than difficult to achieve. After all, if it were easy, we would have experienced it by now. […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #145 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio “The act of responding requires one to look at the circumstance, identify the problem or situation, hear what is happening and reflect . . . What matters is that you stopped and put an effort to think and suspended judgment. It is a conscious act and […]
“Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder–no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” ― Candace Bushnell in Lipstick Jungle The snow continues to fall, and from the images on IG, the snow was falling a little […]
“It is within the boundaries of reflection we are able to become aware of insights that can lead us to understanding.” ― Kat Lahr ~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #135 On the first of January with each new year, twelve months stretch before us full of potential to progress and evolve and to observe the magic that […]
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” —Thomas Merton A paradox of a well lived life is that it in order to live a full life we must not allow our daily schedules to become full. Superficially, such a statement sounds absurd, but upon closer examination, […]
Before Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam tennis final in 1999 at the age of 18, she had been practicing and finessing her game since the age of 3. Fifteen years of practice. Success not only in our careers but in our daily lives comes from intentionally choosing to improve, to grow, again and again […]
“The more tranquil a [wo]man becomes, the greater is [her] success, [her] influence, [her] power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” – James Allen ~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #121 Back at the start of 2015, I posted the idea of getting back to simple, sharing 22 ways to welcome simple habits […]
“If you think something is missing in your life, it is probably YOU…” ― Robert Holden ~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #112 The pursuit of goals, of dreams, either admittedly or unconsciously takes place to welcome more happiness, more contentment into our lives, but what about right now? Are you happy? Are you someone who can sit in […]
“Ultimately, self-control lets you relax because it removes stress and enables you to conserve willpower for the important challenges.” —Willpower: Recovering the Greatest Human Strength ~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #110 Much like a tank of gas, when we wake up each morning (depending upon how well we have slept), our minds will contain a finite amount […]
“Summertime is always the best of what might be.” ― Charles Bowden The abundance of fresh food at the markets, long days full of sun and warmth, more flexible schedules for many and hope for what might possibly be expands. As much as I truly enjoy setting resolutions when the new year begins, doing so and then […]
