Category Archives: Inspiration

You Don’t Need To Settle

by Rebecca Thorman on December 0817 Comments
Guest Posts Happiness Inspiration Knowing yourself Get the free newsletter: sign up

This is a guest post from my dear friend and change-maker Sam Davidson. Sam Davidson is a writer, entrepreneur, and dreamer who believes that the world needs more passionate people. To help people find and live their passion, he has written 50 Things Your Life Doesn’t Need. He is the co-founder of Cool People Care and Proof Branding, and lives in Nashville with his wife and daughter.

50 Things Your Life Doesn’t Need from Point House Films on Vimeo.

Finding and living your passion is a process. It’s not something you do once over the course of an afternoon at a coffee shop and are done with.

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Just One Word

by Rebecca Thorman on December 0223 Comments
Accountability Inspiration Knowing yourself Get the free newsletter: sign up

You know how in Eat Pray Love, the sage memoirist Elizabeth Gilbert summarizes entire cities and personalities into one singular word? New York City is predictably assigned Achieve, Stockholm receives Conform, and the word Attraversiamo, which means “let’s cross over” in Italiano, is eventually assigned to Gilbert herself.

Now there is even a Facebook group to one-word devotees, where the city Provo, UT gets Marry, and Jacksonville, FL is stuck with Ridiculous. But there’s no need to stop at cities and people. Much can be acutely summarized in one word – your dinner meal, a presidency, a TV show – and now, as the year comes to a close, the last 365 days.

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3 Ways to Design Your Career

by Rebecca Thorman on February 0322 Comments
Career Creativity Design Inspiration Get the free newsletter: sign up

John Besmer confirms our meeting with “Word,” and signs off with, “Yup!” like he’s in the middle of a Jay-Z video. At the corner of corporate and hipster, I arrive to his office to discover him in a plaid button-down shirt, designer-rimmed glasses and a whole lot of Midwestern charm.

I first saw Besmer in a similar uniform on stage. Ten designers shared twenty inspiration slides for twenty seconds each, but Besmer’s stood out; he was the only person to play electric guitar, read from a book and live-tweet during his – he later told me – “horribly lashed-together” presentation.

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Your passion is lost on others

by Rebecca Thorman on October 23Comments Off
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13-year old Tavi posted this excerpt from a Washington Post piece on her blog:

It’s always a bit discombobulating when people raise their voices in anger because they’ve gotten wind that designers are making and selling $25,000 dresses. After all, it’s not as if the existence of a dress that costs as much as a car negates the availability of cute $25 frocks at Target. And it isn’t as though edicts have been issued that all women must now dress like one of the superheroes on Balenciaga’s runway.

For personal and sometimes tortured reasons — I can’t have it so no one else can!

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A plan to change the world

by Rebecca Thorman on October 01Comments Off
Bonus Content Engagement Guest Posts Inspiration Philanthropy Get the free newsletter: sign up

I have a dream book. Not the kind where you put your sleepy, bleary-eyed memories of the night before under shut-eye, but the kind where you sprint to write down all the excitement in your chest before it escapes you forever. The kind where you write down how, exactly, you plan to change the world.

I’ve had this dream book since Christmas of 1998, a gift from my mother. I read it over the other day, and smiled at this entry -

“I want my generation, the time that I live, to be great and remarkable and groundbreaking. I want my generation to be the one with the first black and woman presidents.”

This was before Obama and Hillary declared their intention to run for President of course, and before I knew how close my dream would soon be a reality.

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Niceness is the new career trend

by Rebecca Thorman on June 0234 Comments
Career Community Happiness Inspiration Get the free newsletter: sign up

In what is arguably one of the worst times in American history since the Great Depression, the people of America have their chins decidedly up.

The sanguine mood is characterized by “an outbreak of niceness across the cultural landscape — an attitude bubbling up in commercials, movies and even, to a degree, the normally not-nice blogosphere,” the New York Times reports.

Harvard MBA students are making a promise to be ethical in an age of immorality, young talent is shifting towards do-gooder jobs, and more people are holding the elevator door open for me daily.

Enron and Madoff are no match for the almost hermetic happiness that now protects the Nation.

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My non-advice for the New Year

by Rebecca Thorman on January 0822 Comments
Inspiration Knowing yourself Self-management Work/life balance Get the free newsletter: sign up

I’ve been writing a lot of crap lately. No, really, I have. You don’t know because I have been gracious enough not to post it, but it’s been crap. Complete and utter sh*t.

I think it’s because I feel obligated to write an inspiring New Years post, but regurgitating what the rest of the world is saying makes me nauseous. And also, I haven’t been too inspired lately, and this blog is supposed to be happy, angry, inspirational, controversial, exciting – anything but depressing – but depressing is the only way to describe my writing as of late.

I was going to show you my calendar of the nineteen meetings I have this week, which is typical.

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13 steps to a must-have talent

by Rebecca Thorman on December 2517 Comments
Inspiration Get the free newsletter: sign up

I have two talents in the wintertime. One is my ability to walk in high heels on the ice and snow. The other is to make three-dimensional snowflakes. Which has everything to do with Generation Y and leadership. Trust me.

Okay, maybe not. But look for a post on how social media affects Generation Y leadership on Friday. In the meantime, enjoy the snowfall!

While at my mother’s house for the holidays, I demonstrated how to make these snowflakes in thirteen easy steps:

1. Gather the materials (2 pieces of white paper, a pair of scissors, and scotch tape).

Step 1

2. Cut six equal-sized squares from the paper.

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What passion looks like

by Rebecca Thorman on November 2926 Comments
Inspiration Self-management Get the free newsletter: sign up

When I got sick, one of the first things I had to do to get better was learn to give myself shots in the stomach. The very first time I had to do it, I sat on a hospital bed with Johannes across from me and the nurse beside me, and I cried. And when I say cried, I mean I bawled harder than I have ever bawled in my adult existence. My whole body heaved with the impossibility of the task.

Johannes sat cringing next to me. He had just spent four years studying to be a doctor, and for him, this was like opening your eyes in the morning.

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How to think bold and dream big, and a realization

by Rebecca Thorman on November 0815 Comments
Inspiration Knowing yourself Leadership Get the free newsletter: sign up

‘Tis the season for annual dinners and last night was another one. When the keynote speaker took the stage and began his litany of jokes, I turned to my friend and asked, “Is he drunk?” My friend’s eyes got wide as he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head.

Better drunk then boring, we shrugged.

But as the speaker went on, his short stature quickly filling up the two big screens on his left and right, and then the entire room, I realized that he was certainly not drunk. He was Texan. A Texan State Senator and former Mayor of Austin to be exact – Mr.

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What gives you the right to be a young leader

by Rebecca Thorman on November 0124 Comments
Generation Y Inspiration Leadership Get the free newsletter: sign up

My friend Nick asked me first. Then Marci said the same thing. And then today, one of my favorite creatives posed a similar question. They all wanted to know, what gives you the right to be a young leader? What gives you credibility?

Wait, what? What do you mean what gives me the right? I must admit that I didn’t have a good answer, even the third time around. To me, it’s like asking what gives women the right to work?

It seems to me that if I want to do something, then I should do it. This notion that young people have something to prove, that we must pay our dues, is outdated.

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