Sometimes things don't come easy. Sometimes life's hard. In those times, inspiration people rally together and pick each other up. Tell their war stories and remind each other why they're doing what they do.
You need a community. You need your own inspiration. It doesn't have to be my community, but no (wo)man is an island.
These people want to make a difference. They want to help. They want to help you.
I want to help you.
What are you going to do?
I'm a bit of a scatter-brain. In fact, I have the worst memory and if I didn't have calendar alarms going off for absolutely everything I'm pretty sure I'd never achieve anything.
Whilst scatter-gunning your life isn't normally the best approach, and people tend to recommend focusing on a few things rather than everything (Jack of all trades, master of none), I've never been criticised for reading too widely or getting to know too many people.
This is the one area my scatter-gun approach comes in to its element.
There have been so many people who have touched my life over the years, but now, more than ever, it is so easy to connect with these people. People who can be a constant source of inspiration.
When I first started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, the internet was small, and slow...soooooo slow. If you wanted to know something, the best thing to do was to go get a book on it from Waterstones. This limited your field of vision so much.
Anyway, since then times have changed and it never ceases to amaze me how many incredible people there are on the web, crafting away, creating brilliant content, most of which is free.
You find one person, next thing you know you've found ten of their friends, then ten of each of their friends. The whole world is literally your oyster.
...hummm....maybe not literally....but you get my drift!
I never would have thought a couple of years ago I'd be publishing on Amazon
or have a blog people read, let alone be able to speak directly to people who have inspired me, regardless of where on the planet they might live.
So as a kind of thank you to those people for inspiring me, and a heads up to you, I thought I'd write a post on the people who inspire me, in the hope that you'll look them up and find they help you too.
There are so many great people doing amazing work it's hard to know where to start but hopefully these names will lead to a few more...
Tiny Buddha - This website was started by Lori Deschene and now has an amazing following. Lori writes herself and has a book but there are a lot of guest posters on there, myself included. It's full of inspirational stories from people who are constantly seeking to better themselves and learn. Real people, every day people, doing extrodinary things.
Dr. Wayne Dyer - Anyone who hasn't heard of Wayne's books should have done. They're positive and upbeat yet calming and gentle. Keep one to read and re-read when you need a boost and to know that's it's all worth it in the end.
Stratejoy - This is a relatively new find for me but Molly Mahar is the epitomy of peppiness. She's full of joy (awful pun but there's a reason her site's named StrateJOY) and actually a lovely, down to earth lady who for some reason I feel the need to share a lot of my secrets with! Some people just have that ability to let you open up to them and Molly is that person.
Kino MacGregor - Before you click this link, please remember these are people who inspire me. They are not people we need to strive to be like, nor people we should try to copy. Kino has the most incredible Ashtanga practice I've seen (although I've not been to India yet so that may well change). Whilst there are many people who are physically strong and can bend themselves in to pretzels in the name of yoga, there are few who seem to actually get why they're doing it as well. Kino has a calm, balanced presence, brought on, no doubt from years of yoga, spending time with gurus in India and a spiritual awareness. Watch some of her Youtube videos for some inspiration to start something and dedicate yourself to it. Anything is possible.
Amber Rae - Amber is all about helping people find they're fire and encouraging them to go for it. Following her on twitter gives you daily pick me ups of feel good-ness and the stories on Revolution.is give you hope that anything is possible.
So there you have it. People I have constantly showing in my twitter stream and who I subscribe to in Google Reader.