joyfulness

Shut down the hectic day with a reflection that fosters awareness, acceptance, appreciation, and the ability to revere the common daily occurrences you experience.

Between The Lines TTM podcast message to fan the flame in the hearts of women and men who are seeking after the high calling of motherhood according to The Word, Will, and Ways of The Father God, His Son Jesus Christ, and The Holy Spirit in the earth.

41 min., 33 sec.

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In this week’s episode, Chief Victory Officer Eric Guy talks with Chief Joy Officer, Faith Guy about the lessons we can learn from Buddy, from the movie ‘Elf’ and how we can share some holiday cheer even through these difficult times!

Key Takeaways:

• Do you have a word of the year? Faith’s word of the year was ‘joy’ and having a joyful mindset everyday.  Be joyful for existing, breathing and getting opportunities.
• There is so much power in giving specific compliments to others.
• Step outside of your comfort zone, do one thing for somebody today.
• If you can refine what your purpose is, you give yourself a second chance to have a purposeful life.
• If we’ve lost our way, focus on the simple steps of being a good person, a good neighbor, and a good friend.
• Find your joy in the small things
• Treat everyday like a holiday

Quotes:

• ‘Treat everyday like Christmas’ ~ Buddy
• ‘You have such a pretty face, you should be on a Christmas card.’ ~ Buddy
• ‘You can sing alone, you can sing in front of people; there is no difference.’ ~ Buddy
• ‘The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.’ ~ Buddy
• ‘They just lose sight of what’s important in life, it doesn’t mean they can’t find their way.’ ~ Santa to Buddy
• If you can refine what your purpose is, you give yourself a second chance to have a purposeful life. ~ Faith
• Find your joy in the small things. - Faith

Barton tells stories from his past as an Opera Singer, learning to "let go", and find his authentic voice.   he asks the listener to think of times they too  showed up big in important moments.  Goal: How can we level up our performance in the things we seek to improve on by bringing our authentic self and finding joy. 

Backstory about Barton:
Barton lives in Austin, TX with his wife Valerie and their 7 year old son, Jack.  Barton's been a personal trainer for 13  years.  Barton and his family love outdoor hikes, traveling, and living a healthy lifestyle.  His background in the arts, sports, and working in Africa all inform his unique perspective.  

Barton hung up his basketball shoes after high school and decided to pursue music; specifically vocal performance.  He never sang at Davis High School, but when he arrived in San Diego, CA for college, he went for it! Barton sang in operas like "Marriage of Figaro" and "La Boheme," took acting classes, and performed a solo concert to receive his BA in Music.  Before graduation,  he spent a year in Aix-en-Provence studying French and traveling Europe and North Africa.  Barton's two trips to Morocco instilled in him a curiosity and profound respect for the diverse cultures of  West Africa.  Once back in the US, he applied for the Peace Corps so he could travel back to Africa and immerse himself in the culture and learn about their way of life.  Barton spent two years in Diadjibine, a small village of 2,500 people in Southern Mauritania, West Africa.  As a Peace Corp volunteer, he taught English, helped build water pumps, and started a solar-powered computer center.   The time in Mauritania shaped Barton's mindset on the importance of community, teamwork, leadership, and supporting hard-working people who don't have the resources Americans have at their fingertips.  

After Peace Corps, Barton moved to New York City to pursue singing and acting.  He was accepted into the Maggie Flanigan Studio and spent two years studying Meisner technique and writing a one man show about what he learned as a Peace Corps in West Africa.  His show opened up new doors for him and he performed it around the country.  On one of his trips, he traveled to Austin, TX where he met Valerie.   Barton moved to Austin after graduating from the Acting Studio and four months later, they were married.  

When Barton moved to  Austin in 2007, he became a personal trainer.  concurrently, Barton created  a voluntourism company taking people to East and West Africa to do volunteer work and enjoying Safaris.   He was introduced to Camp Gladiator in 2012 and his love for performing and passion for fitness made Camp Gladiator a perfect fit.  He sold his tour company and went all in to his new role with Camp Gladiator.  

The Mindset Forge Podcast is Barton's  newest passion. Barton hopes the podcast will  help  people  find the tools and inspiration to go after the things in life that matter most to them.  He deliberately chooses guests from a variety of athletic and artistic backgrounds to help listeners gain multiple perspective of how they show up big for performance and how we can too.  

Austin Rowing Club Event: https://bit.ly/3zRVklo

Join Premium: https://themindsetforge.supercast

Email: Barton@bartonguybryan.com

Website: http://bartonguybryan.com

Use this link to get a 30 minute discovery call scheduled with Barton regarding the Team Bryan Wellness Concierge Fitness Program
https://calendly.com/bartbryan/conciergecoachingcall

My 3 Top Episodes of the first 100:

7 Essentials to Building Muscle after 40
3x Olympic Gold Medalist Brendan Hansen
MMA Strength and Conditioning Coach Phil Daru

Alex Wolf starts with the premise that traditional education is not serving talented kids, resulting in disengagement and poor self-esteem among learners. With a robust research team, a clear set of sequenced research questions and design systems for patterns and spatial skills, Alex, and the team at Na2ure believe it is possible to impact learning and its emotional component to align talents and motivation. 

Alex’s epiphany and pivot was the birth of her daughter. Alex wanted to give parents confidence, joy, and to make the time that they spent with their children, special. She decided to make games, toys, puzzles, and books that you would keep reaching for to find the magic in the moment. 

Alex’s perspective begins with the concept of joyousness. As you grow in adulthood, if you still have questions, you’re still reading, you're still wondering, you are starting your own self education. Using joy to create opportunities for parents and kids to imagine and wonder about what they see, how they can draw or create something, and make it, it becomes tangible. While the natural world is one of biggest ordered, yet unordered systems, Na2ure aids learning in a visual mode for all ages. It encompasses things like weather, plants and more. Alex wants people to start priming their eyes to nature and its relatedness. For example, a spiral, a curled fiddlehead fern, a seashell, a hurricane, the galaxy and more. Her motto: Take back wonder.

With her own path in mind, Alex wants to help people find what they're good at, what gives them pleasure, which will lead them to pursue learning more on their own.Alex was deeply influenced by Richard Wurman: “Design a life that you want to live”. Your job is to create your own livable life. Don’t let fear stop you, do interesting things and become an interesting person. Do things that are worth doing. Listen to where your heart  takes your curiosity. 

Alex believes it’s time to shake things up. It's time to be brave, step up and change how we're delivering a lot of learning. It needs to be more fun. There needs to be more time spent physically moving through and exploring nature, so we can connect and make necessary changes. It's the alphabet of natural forms that we'll need to use in design. The radical shift that needs to occur will come from learning more about nature, so that we don't destroy her, and are able to live with her. The more we learn about her, we will stop destroying habitats, species, and ecosystems.

Alex’s perspective is that it’s important that we start respecting individual skills and individuals, for people with those skills to learn what they are attracted to and what they're drawn to. From cradle to career, we are hierarchizing jobs and employment which will only make life more challenging. We value the work of a doctor over the work of an essential employee, even though we need both of their work every day. All the displacement and unhappiness our manufacturing segment has experienced, including the exodus of jobs from the US needs to be reimagined. All those who are spatial learners, including our builders and our artists and our plumbers and electricians are part of a segment that needs to be re-built with a fresh perspective.  Our plumbers and electricians are just as important as our engineers and their skills set needs to be recognized and rewarded, the old class structure, white collar, versus blue collar is no longer relevant.

To Alex the future is green in color and bright. She believes we all need to see ourselves as green employees of the future. That will help us live sustainably and not perish, which is a critically important task. We all need to see where we can add value to how we solve problems, from a multitude of perspectives. We can and must change how we see ourselves, the natural world, and our participation in it.

Takeaways & Quotes:

Alex’s father told her that you will know when you've succeeded in your field, "When people can't discuss your field without discussing you and your contribution to it."

I tried a lot of things. I trusted my own curiosity, and as Rilke would say, “live the questions until you live your way into the answer.” Alex had this faith that this perspective would lead her to where she needed to go. 

“Take back wonder”

Richard Wurman says, “Design a life that you want to live”. Your job is to create your own livable life.

Being the only person without a PhD in the room was the key to my success.

The future is green-collar.

How to reach Alex: 

Twitter, na2ure.com or na2ure.org na2ure on Instagram and na2ure on Facebook.

Bio:Alex Wolf had a playful childhood and a bang-up education at a NYC girl’s school, Exeter, Rhode Island School of Design and in programs abroad. Ever since, she has been trying to dissect her RISD know how and give it to children in breadcrumb-sized pieces, one bit at a time. As an artist/designer/inventor, she researches and designs for spatial intelligence with a multi university team. Her PatternABC is in use at NASA and has been tested for UNICEF. She co-authored a chapter on the pattern ABC for the first textbook on Biomimicry due in 2022 from Elsevier.  She designs systems for learning: a pattern alphabet for natures core patters, a periodic table of biology to help make a formula for an animal or plant; and a motion alphabet to introduce babies and toddlers to motions and positions to understand spatial relationships before, and then as they gain, language. Convinced that children are bright creative thinkers, from 0-5 especially, and need literal and figurative space and tools to express that creatively, she works in how they see and perceive space, form, pattern, and motion.

Explore God's gift of humor, how it eases our struggles and brings us the gift of joy. Featuring special guest Kerri Pomarolli, comedian, actress, author and "super-model wannabe."

Currently painting real people and situations using oils on canvas, artist William Cain recalls, “I’ve been a model, actor and fashion illustrator lucky enough to travel around world. I hope you get both a sense of déjà vu and joyfulness when viewing my artwork,” he tells host Don Hutcheson. Wanting to get away from judging people by their looks, growing tired of the Hollywood "casting couch" mentality, he dropped out for awhile. Approaching his 40s, thinking about aging, he took a corporate art job, but found it “soul crushing”. Before work, he would get up early in the morning to paint.