Your birthday is a special time to celebrate the gift of 'you' to the world.

Today Mindful Mimi celebrates its 3rd birthday.

Indeed, on 30 May 2007, my first post went live.

They have been a wonderful 3 years full of interesting meetings, mindful meanderings, creative thought processes and plenty of learning opportunities.

At first scary to be 'out there', it has now become my 'brand'. And the online life has even expanded, for example to a Facebook page on subjects I am passionate about: Mindful Creativity.

So thank you readers, followers, commentators, supporters and friends.

I hope to continue to be a source of creative inspiration.

Thank you.

Mimi

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"Everything is alive; everything is interconnected." ~ Cicero

Lance from Jungle Of Life should be the ambassador of Bodacious-ville. He is bold and audacious and with his blog unites people from all over the world through his thoughts and projects.

This time he got me hooked as well to participate in the Car dancing project, a micro-movement organized by The Levity Project.

Do you ever dance in your car? Swing along with the music? And then you stop at a red light and suddenly stop moving because you become conscious of the people in the cars next to you?

Well, the car dancing movement was organized as a celebration. And even though it felt uncomfortable, silly and even stupid when I was recording it, after a few takes it was still silly but became less stupid and just simple fun.

For my boys this was just 'business as usual' as they don't really know yet what it feels like to be uncomfortable, fenced in by some society rules (who made those up anyway?).

When I showed them the final result with all the other people car dancing though, they thought that was pretty cool :-)

Watching the result below I feel honored and proud to have been a part of it. And you can see that all the participants had fun stepping out of their comfort zone.

So what did you recently do to step out of your comfort zone?

Nothing?

Why not visit The Levity Project and Jungle Of Life to find out what else they are cooking?

Enjoy the video :-)))

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The more it's fun, the more people want to do it...

...or, how to get people to take the stairs.




So how can you add some fun to the things you need people to do? Or your own tasks?
It is sometimes easier than you think.

Post your ideas/suggestions in the comment section.

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How a child deals with a heavy situation

My 7 year old niece and I were sitting in church for the very sad occasion of her cousin's funeral.

It was a  sad occasion and things were taking very long.

We were waiting for mass to start and she was obviously bored. One priest was already sitting up near the altar, waiting like us.

Out of the blue, she asks me:'Can the priest have a wife?'

This is catholic church and I explained to her that no, he cannot, that he has made his oath to God and that the catholic church does not allow him to marry.

Two minutes later, she asks me:'Can he have a girlfriend?'

By now I am smiling. I say no again and explain the same rules.

She seems satisfied with that answer. It takes her 5 minutes this time to speak again.

'Can he have a boyfriend then?' she asks.

I almost burst out laughing.
The sad occasion that triggers extreme emotions, often the opposite of the one's one is supposed to feel.
The boldness of this 7 year old girl and the kind of information she is already juggling in her head.

She seemed to feel with this poor priest and probably thought he was very lonely.

And that made me smile.

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You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. -- Plato

The basis of human trust is established through play as Plato rightly pointed out.
Play is serious!
Nothing lights up the brain like play.
Play is the beginning of knowledge.

Yet it seems that, just like creativity, it is educated out of us. When was the last time you played? Really played, engaged in silly, childish activity, with no purpose at all but to have fun?

If you have kids, it was probably yesterday. Children remind you of how simple things really are - or should be. A simple peekaboo makes them giggle. As adults we loose our creativity and start using our imagination to find excuses. We think about 'what people would think'. I mean, seriously, what would they think if we went up to a stranger and went 'you're it' and ran away playfully? The stranger would most likely think you just escaped from a mental institution. Because he does not know that play is vital - no matter your age.

Listen to Stuart Brown on this subject.



I love the idea of the wearable meeting at the end of the speech :-) It is in line with my earlier post on innovation and meetings at Ideo.

So go out and play. And if you lack imagination, go find some children, borrow them from friends or family if you don't have any. And just follow them along in whatever they want to play. And the more you do that, the faster your imagination comes back to you from way back when you were a child.

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Sunday laugh

I just looove Fawlty Towers and John Cleese :-)

There is too much butter on those trays



Communication problem number 2

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A laugh a day...

keeps the doctor away. Trust me.

You gotta love Billy Connolly. OK, he is Scottish and hence hard to understand for some. OK, he does not watch his language. But he cracks me up.

Watch him tell you what he thinks about Opera (which is the video with the least foul language I could find :-)



Another one of my favorite laughter resources is The Fast Show. Gotta like British humor. And if you like Johnny Depp and British humor, enjoy the Suit You Tailors (unless you mind filthy language and sex-obsessed men... don't tell me I didn't warn you).



If you prefer Robbie Williams to Johnny, click here.

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