Child Star Actress Angela Cartwright's Advice to Parents
By Chris Dunmire
Q: What is one ‘reality check’ piece of advice you’d like to offer to parents of aspiring child actors? A: Rejection is a big part of show business. It can be tough on anyone who doesn’t have fairly good self-esteem. Especially kids, as they try to discover who they are. When I was a young kid, I thought everyone my age went to work everyday and was on television (I started when I was 3). As I got older, I never considered that tons of people were watching me on television every week. I give a nod to my parents for keeping me as normal as I could be in an un-normal adult world. My parents kept me in check. I had to make my bed, set the table, and do my chores every day but those things were balanced with getting to laugh and be a kid, too. Read more »

Opportunity, Possibility, Experience, Nausea (O.P.E.N)
By Chris Dunmire
That's my newly made-up acronym for OPEN. Last year, when I wrote about Opening to Possibilities, I didn't include the part about nausea.

And to be fair, having butterflies in your tummy or dry-heaving from nerves isn't always a distinct risk in opening yourself up to new creative or life-changing things, but in a realistic sort-of-way, it could be.

Nausea is a sure sign that you're outside your comfort zone — a place you're certain to learn and grow, and from my experience, eventually be glad you visited. Read more »

Pattie Mosca's Ultimate ‘Yes!’
in Permission Slips . . .
By Chris Dunmire
I've been cutting out and giving away pages from Pattie Mosca's Permission Slips for almost two months in preparation for the books' official launch this week through Story People Press. Creativity Portal celebrates with Pattie with an interview about her creative journey and sample permission slips from her book that you can download, print, and use.

Although I've mostly retired from reviewing books, I wanted to enjoy and report on some field experiences with Permission Slips in my coaching practice because I know how beautifully Pattie, a fellow Kaizen-Muse™ creativity coach, helps others work through self-limiting habits and beliefs towards more possibility and self-care — all great soil in which compassion and creativity thrives . . . for all of us. Read more »

Samples: Unlimited Mistakes Day, Open Up a New Door Day

Creating Time through Flow
By Marney Makridakis
We all have had moments when we lost track of time or became unaware of the time passing. There are several ways to describe such experiences. In 1964, Abraham Maslow coined the term peak experiences to explain those moments when we are fully engaged with something outside ourselves. In his book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the concept of flow, a mental state in which we are fully immersed in what we are doing through energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Read more »

Exclusive and Provocative Leak
of Upcoming Book
By Jill Badonksy
In an effort to replace Wikileaks as news leaker leader, Trixyleaks, has surreptitiously issued excerpts of Jill Badonsky’s new book, The Muse Is IN: An Owner’s Manual for Your Creativity, which is receiving widespread b u z z on Flitter, (the alternative social network to Twitter). Read more »