I’m a little obsessed with Jessica Swift‘s new line of iPhone cases from Case-Mate. She’s doing such amazing things lately, first with her line of rain boots — which are now available for pre-order — and, more recently, with her new e-commerce site and more products than ever. I’m so impressed with all that she’s accomplished, even since our interview in July. I just love seeing how passion and productivity can make BIG things happen!
For more about Jessica, check out Case-Mate’s “Happiness by Design” video below:
I think good design and beautiful things make people happier on a subconscious level. – Jessica Swift
En route to our new home in Redwood City, California, Brian and I drove through Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I adore Santa Fe! There’s something magical about the environment and, with hundreds of galleries, how could I resist it? One of my favorite stops this trip was Andrew Smith Gallery, which represents more than 100 photographic artists. It’s also where you can see a wide range of historical and contemporary work on display.
In one of the upstairs rooms, I stumbled across Annie Leibovitz‘s 2001 portrait of June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash, taken in June’s hometown of Hiltons, Virginia. Isn’t it beautiful? There’s something so intimate and poignant here, two of my favorite qualities in photography:
Copyright 2001, Annie Leibovitz
Although I’m uncertain whether this image is considered part of Annie’s commercial or personal work—I’m assuming it’s commercial due to the subject matter—I feel like what she’s said about her personal work applies here:
“It’s the most intimate. It tells the best story, and I care about it. You don’t get the opportunity to do this kind of work except with people who you love; people who will put up with you. They’re the people who open their hearts and souls and lives to you.”
For more inspiration from Annie, check out her book, At Work, which tells the story of her photography career and sessions in her own words. It’s fascinating. In fact, I think she says it all:
“The book is more emotional than I had imagined it would be. But, most importantly, it is my edit. No one is going to care about, or understand, your work the way you do, and if you are going to explain it you have to be able to present it the way you want to.”
I just watched Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University.
When he lead with how expensive Stanford is and how dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he’d ever made, I wondered if the invitation committee and leadership team were having a collective “oh shit!” moment. As with his start in life, the start of his speech was unconventional but, as you’d expect from a visionary like Jobs, in entirety it is truly momentous. In fact, I’ve seen his speech referred to as “The Gettysburg address of graduation speeches.” Wow! If you haven’t watched it, you can do so here:
And here are some of my favorite takeaways:
“You can’t connect the dots [of your life] looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever—because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.”
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it and, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice and, most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Thank you, Steve, for everything you’ve brought into the world and for these thoughts you’ve left behind. They, like your memory, will be treasured.
Most of the folks who read this blog are women, so today I’m going to talk about something near and dear to all of our hearts: the well-being of girls and young women around the world.
Did you know that less than two cents of every international aid dollar goes to support girls? Less than two percent! And yet we know that investing in girls changes the world. When you educate a girl, she ensures that her siblings are educated; she marries later in life; she gets a better job (or founds her own business) and improves her family and community’s situation; she has children later in life; and she decreases the number of children living in poverty and desperate circumstances. Talk about power.
This idea is not new. Two years ago, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wrote a New York Timesarticle about this phenomenon, which later became the book Half the Sky, stating: “In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy. [Women and girls] represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty.”
Here are some details:
When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
And yet, currently, the fate of the 600 million girls living in the developing world is uncertain:
Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls.
38 percent of girls in the developing world are married before age 18.
A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as were girls who married later.
Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared with women ages 20 to 24, girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely, worldwide.
75 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds living with HIV in Africa are female, up from 62 percent in 2001.
But these are just statistics. What if we attach a face to them? Let’s hear from 13-year-old Kidan from Ethiopia, who dreams of becoming a doctor:
Today, October 4, 2011, bloggers around the world are talking about Girl Effect, a movement started by the Nike Foundation to change the fate of girls and the economics of giving. To learn more, visit their website. And if this is a topic that matters to you, I encourage you to join the movement by writing your own blog post this week or investing in a girl. Go on, I dare you!
Cheers,
P.S. In case you were wondering, this is more than a blog topic to me. In fall 2009, I spent a month volunteering in Ghana to help empower women business owners through Global Mamas. Here are just a few of the wonderful people I met: Joanna, Sabina, Mary, Gifty, and many more…
So, there I was, relaxing with a grande soy latte at Starbucks and reading my Blogshelf. It was meant to be a quick, fun break from the daily routine. I checked out some artists I know, coaches and consultants, PR writers…and when I’d finished and was getting ready to leave, I realized that I felt worse about myself than I had 10 minutes before. As I had been exploring and learning and perusing, part of me was making comparisons between my progress and other people’s.
Wow, what a gorgeous photograph/painting/collection of poetry, I’d think. Oh look, Amanda has a new e-course/project/blog post. I really need to register for that class/buy those new thingamawazzits/finish my own e-course…
Although we all want to know what others in our field our doing, regularly checking in can be counterproductive. There are a lot of people out there creating all kinds of cool art and valuable products.
It’s easy to feel like you’re not doing enough or that your work isn’t good enough, which inevitably leads to arrested progress. You could lose days feeling poorly about yourself when the simple secret to getting your beautiful work out in the world is…do the work.
You have no control over what someone else is doing and how you compare. You can only impact what you’re doing, so choose to make it count. Put aside the negative self-talk and think about what you can do now to make positive progress.
Photo inspiration by Graham (gtall1) via Flickr
If you’re really feeling stuck and unproductive, however, you might need a little pick-me-up first. Here are a few of my favorite activities for banishing self-doubt and restoring positive energy:
Get some exercise, preferably outdoors where you can bask in the sun and soak up some Vitamin D.
Practice yoga or meditation. Five Tibetans or cat pose are guaranteed to get the blood flowing.
Put on your happy music.
Catch up with a friend, particularly one who has positive things to say and share.
Look back at what you’ve accomplished already. Thumb through your portfolio. If you don’t have an easy way to do that, make one. Hello, art project!
Dig up some notes from happy customers. Better yet, post them in a prominent place as a daily reminder.
Grab a pen and write a list of everything you’re grateful for, right now in this moment.
Spread loving kindness. This is a simple practice that never fails to make me feel great. I sit in a quiet space, close my eyes, and envision positive, healing energy and light coming from within me and radiating out into the world. I start with “watching” the light slowly fill my room, then my house, the neighborhood, my city, the state, nearby states and eventually the whole country. And then I watch that light cross the oceans to the shores of other countries touching other people, spreading outward more and more until fingers of light intertwine around the Earth. I pause to watch that bright, glowing light surround the Earth. Next, I push the light out farther to our solar system, all of the Universe, and then forward and backward in time to everything and everyone that has ever been or ever will be… I bask in the light for a few more moments and then I open my eyes and go on with my day. It’s amazing how good sending positive thought, love and energy to the world feels, even if just for five minutes.
Wishing you a creative, joy-filled and blessed day,
when the simple secret to getting your beautiful work out in the world is…do the work.
I often find myself wondering how to banish all of this and making my passion my cash flow – and that’s it. Just do the work. Thank you.
Link Round-Up » Pierced Wonderings-[…] needed to read this post from Kate Watson. I often browse blogs – and now that I belong to a couple of photography […]
Kate Watson -You’re absolutely right, Ariane: We do have to press on and keep creating. Happy this post resonated with you!
Ariane-Simply beautiful Kate. We can be our own worst enemies at times but at the end of the day all we can do is press on and continue to put our beautiful work out into the world.
Kate Watson - Glad it was helpful, Caitlin! Thanks for your comment.
Caitlin B - Thank you for this line:
when the simple secret to getting your beautiful work out in the world is…do the work.
I often find myself wondering how to banish all of this and making my passion my cash flow – and that’s it. Just do the work. Thank you.
Link Round-Up » Pierced Wonderings - […] needed to read this post from Kate Watson. I often browse blogs – and now that I belong to a couple of photography […]
Kristina - THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
Kate Watson - You’re absolutely right, Ariane: We do have to press on and keep creating. Happy this post resonated with you!
Ariane - Simply beautiful Kate. We can be our own worst enemies at times but at the end of the day all we can do is press on and continue to put our beautiful work out into the world.
Wonderful post :)!