Inspiration

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I fled the mountains of Koyasan for the sweet little town of Takayama, nestled at the base of the Japanese Alps, where I got stuck for over a week because I became obsessed with a building (see below).

Hey girl!

Hey girl!

All the school girls wear these little yellow hats. As if they're not already so cute you could lose your mind!

Beef on a leaf

One day as I was walking to what would become my favorite onsen (hot spring) spa at the Takayama Green Hotel – go go go go if you’re in town!  For ten bucks you can spend all day hopping from luxurious pool to luxurious pool to sauna to bathing station where you scrub yourself pink as a baby gerbil.


Anyway, I’m walking over to the onsen and I see this big weird gold….space ship thing off in the distance.

So I keep walking towards it and it gets bigger and weirder and looks like its sucking all the light out of the sky.

I swear to you it made all the hair on my body stand up.  There was something CRAZY about this place.  It literally made me feel like my heart was going to pound through my chest.

I wobbly kneed it up to the entrance and walked inside to find this enormous room with gold scales on the walls, glass flowers hanging from the ceiling and a gigantic fish tank full of koi running across the altar at the front that also had a little mountain scene going on with boulders and trees and stuff.

No pictures allowed.

Turns out it’s called the World Shrine, and it enshrines the Su God, the Creator of the Universe, and claims to be the source of divine light for the whole world.

Cocky?  Just a tad, but I am telling you, I don’t know about the whole world or who this Su God is, but it was the source of divine something for Jen Sincero.

The only way I can describe it is it somehow revealed the unexplainable massiveness of everything, and nothing, to me, and suddenly everything looks different.  It’s, large, Marge.

I’ve been to holy places and sacred sites all over the world, but I ain’t never….I left over a week ago and it’s still standing right next to me.  All the time.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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This is the picture I have on my desktop these days:

And I look at it the way I used to look around my living room.

“Hmmm, maybe I should move the couch next to the ficus?  I think that would open the place up a bit.”

“Hmmm, maybe I should go to Sri Lanka between my trip to Japan and Bali.  I think they have elephants.”

A year ago, buying a ticket to Iceland would have been a huge deal, requiring much forethought, a bit of a freak out over planning and timing, and agonizing over what to bring and what to leave behind.

I mean, even driving from my house in Venice Beach to downtown LA was an epic ordeal.

Now I fly off to Qatar as if I’m heading down the street for a slice of pizza.

The world has gotten SO SMALL to me suddenly. I literally feel like I’m hovering above it from a different vantage point, looking down on our planet as if it’s all right at my fingertips.

And it occurred to me this morning – it not only is, but it always HAS been.

It’s all always been right there, hanging around, doop de doo, waiting for me to notice it.

It honestly makes my hair stand up.  Because it’s almost creepy:

THERE ARE COUNTLESS HUGELY AWESOME GIGANTIC OPPORTUNITIES AND EXPERIENCES AND VERSIONS OF OUR LIVES SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND.

They’re just waiting for our perspectives to change.

So next time you’re feeling stuck or freaking out about paying your mortgage or wondering how the hell you wound up living the kind of life you used to make fun of, take a deep breath, look beyond the ordinary and reconsider what you deem impossible.

Because the motherlode is at your front door, she’s just waiting to be invited in.

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In December I had the great pleasure of becoming a TEDx speaker.  Gave a talk called “Freefalling Into the Strong, Hairy Arms of Uncertainty” in Scottsdale, AZ, which was real exciting because:

TED talks are kind of a big deal.

I did it without having to write anything on my hand.

I got to perform alongside geniuses like Tania Katan, Julie Hampton, Todd Woloson and a bunch of other rockstars whose talks aren’t up on the site yet but who made it so much fun I wanted to stay in that little red room with them forever.

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Today is the last day of my 30 Day Detox.  Tank Da Lawd!

I’m looking very forward to not having olive oil and garlic shakes for breakfast anymore or drinking stuff that looks like grandma’s ashes 5 times a day.

 

I think I just saw a tooth go by

 

I’m fairly amazed I don’t feel very different.  I don’t have tons more energy, haven’t had a spiritual awakening and didn’t poop out any old truck tires or rusty license plates (real disappointed about that, actually).

BUT I do have a mighty sense of accomplishment, rock solid discipline and, most importantly, a heightened awareness that I’m walking around in this utter miracle known as my body.  I mean, the fact that we have beating hearts and growing toenails and spleens and sight and it all still works even after we abuse, neglect and eat fried food!  We should be clawing at ourselves, gripping the furniture and screaming in tongues because our tiny minds can not handle such stupendous impossibility happening right before our very eyes.

So, thanks to my cleanse, I’ve been reminded that food is meant to nourish my body, not just stop it from being hungry or keep my tongue happy.

That exercise, and for me, yoga, should be as non-negotiable as getting out of bed in the morning.

And water!  It is made up of water!  Why am I not drinking tons of water all the time every day?

In closing, on this high, holy, last day of my cleanse, I would like to send a shout out to my awesome bod and:

1.) Thank it for hanging out with me.

2.) Beg its forgiveness for the years spanning age 16 – 30 and all the substance abuse, sleep deprivation and humiliating outfits it had to endure.

3.) Tell it I love it.  Sniff.

 

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Greetings from 2012!  I’d like to start out the year with a little story, a story about what it takes to get what you want, regardless of your fears, doubts or an entire 747 full of pissed off adults staring you down.

Check out this little kid with giant cajones:

 

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Speaking at TEDx Scottsdale was such a blast that I want to do more more more!  If you’d like a motivational, inspiring and, ahem, pantwettingly hilarious bestselling author and coach to speak at your next event (anywhere in the world), please contact me.  TEDx video coming soon.  In the meantime, do please watch this:

 

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For the past 7 months I’ve been honing my skills as a professional houseguest and would like to share with you a very important lesson learned.  As well as a shot of my friend’s cat:

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Read more about it on my latest Huffington Post article, “The Tao of Houseguesting.”

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In honor of my upcoming TEDx talk: Freefalling Into The Strong, Hairy Arms of Uncertainty on December 10th in Scottsdale, AZ (woot woot!), where I’ll be speaking about living and working on the lam, my feet and I have decided to catch the blog up on shots of my many offices.

I do believe the last posted was Office #10 at Lisa’s place in San Francisco back in August.  Because I forget or am respecting people’s privacy for once or am too cold to take my socks off, I’ve neglected to photograph almost half of the places I’ve stayed and worked.  But it has been grand grand grand and fun fun fun and I know so many spectacular people and hotels with really comfortable beds it makes my head spin – here’s to sleeping around!

 

Office #11: EJ's livingroom, San Francisco, CA. August 2011

Office #12: Audi dealership, Denver, CO. August 2011

Office #13: Three Dogs Tavern, Denver, CO. August 2011

Office #14: Black Bear Diner, Bend, OR. August, 2011

Office #15: Driver's seat, Pismo Beach, CA. September 2011

Office #16: Tania's B-day party, Palm Springs, CA. September 2011

Office #17: Jill and Rob's Hammock, Guilford, CT. October 2011

Office #18: Niclas' roof garden, NYC. October 2011

Office #19: Room 3204, Trump Soho Hotel, NYC. October 2011

Office #20: Room 2008, Trump Soho Hotel, NYC. October 2011

Office #21: Gina, Glenn and Ginger's, Malibu, CA. November 2011

Office #22: Karen's deck, La Jolla, CA. November 2011

 

 

 

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Not fer nothin, but there’s a big difference between ad-libbing videos on your iPhone using your own arm as a tripod and writing a script, hiring a professional crew and having someone who knows how to wield an eye pencil do your make-up.

I shot this fancy new promo video during my recent trip to New York City with the help of the brilliant crew at Ballad Pictures.

Special thanks to Mom, Dad and my brother Stephen for allowing me to shove cameras and microphones in their faces.

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Heed my words!

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