Are you a good listener or a committed speaker? Take a few moments to think back to the last three proper meaty conversations you had with friends or family. If someone had been holding down a timer every time you spoke and releasing it every time you listened, which would be the bigger number? Take a moment to imagine if the people you have last spoken to were asked that same question. How might [...]
My word for 2021 is Curiosity! Every year i pick a word or phrase for the year. Looking back to 2019 i can see that my word for that year was Stewardship and as i read through the list of attached goals and hopes i can see that most of them were achieved. But then we entered 2020... i remember last year tbV and i were nearing the end of our two month trip [...]
Ready for an update on the Community Garden that continues to grow and thrive? It has been 10 days since i shared the story about The Little Garden That Could. That feels way too recent to be writing any more about it. And yet so much has happened. If you are following me on Instagram, you will know that i have already made five different posts about the garden, which is a lot in [...]
How does one go about creating Eden? Especially when the story starts something like: Once upon a time there was a wasteland, a dry and barren verge of ugliness in a small corner of Diep River. Well, the first step is to have a dream and my wife Valerie [aka tbV or The Beautiful Val, to me!] and i had been wanting to do something creative and gardeny in our community since we moved [...]
Are we a World Covided? Yesterday my blog kinda exploded a little bit [in the very best of ways]. This week had seen me share 6 different stories of people who have faced and survived Covid-19. They all had decent engagement, but nothing special. Until story number 5: Enter Nicola Date, stage left. On the first day of her story it had just over 500 views, which is a good post on my blog. [...]
As i reflect back on what has been the most bizarre year for the world in my lifetime, one person's name pops up a lot more than most: Megan Furniss Choritz. We have been friends since 1999 - well, that's the year we met and i stepped into her Improv world and so friends probably happened a year or two later. Especially as one of my final moves before leaving for an 18-month journey [...]
Where are the Brave Spaces? For a long time, i have spoken about creating 'Safe Spaces' for conversation. But someone said something this past weekend that has caused me to shift my thinking on that. Because surely what we need are Brave Spaces where people will come and engage deeply and leave changed. The idea of a Safe Space is one where you can be vulnerable and honest and feel free to share yourself [...]
Yes, yes, i know what you're thinking - "Sharing is CARING, Brett!" - and that's true. Teaching kids to share can be one of the greatest lessons we can give them - actually teaching adults to share would be an amazing accomplishment and sort out many of the world's problems. But i want to suggest a new way of thinking about this, especially when it comes to the internet. Sharing is Blaring. Blare: to [...]
This week i was super inspired and encouraged by a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez i don't like to put people on pedestals. People will always let you down. For me, the only person i ever raise as the standard is Jesus Christ. And as much as my faith and religion have taken a bit of a beating these past few years [ironically as i started focusing more on matter of Justice and particularly race] [...]
Describe to me how the world would look to you if everything was working for everyone the way it was meant to. i imagine for a lot of people this might look like a list of negatives: No more racism No more sexism No more zenophobia No more hatred of any groups or people who are different in any way. No more wars No more rape No more violence And so on... What is [...]
