Photo by Fastily

How many times do we have promising ideas and not act on them for fear of failure? How often do we stay in unsatisfactory situations because we’re afraid that we might lose what we have if we try for something better? Unemployed college graduates with no experience and nothing to lose have been finding Rings for themselves by starting businesses in their own kitchens.

Julia Moskin reports on the recent wave of young homemade food mavericks in this inspiring piece from The New York Times.

“This is my investment in the future right now,” said Fabiana Lee, 26, an interior designer who lost her job in 2009. She has been selling at the Greenpoint market since its inception in October. After experimenting with cookies (too much competition), she has pared her offerings down to two: gorgeously browned empanadas and irresistibly twee “cake pops,” golf-ball-size rounds of cake perched on lollipop sticks. At the moment, they are her main source of income.

Young, college-educated, Internet-savvy, unemployed and hoping to find a place in the food world outside the traditional route, she is typical of the city’s dozens of new food entrepreneurs. As the next generation of cooks comes of age, it seems that many might bypass restaurant kitchens altogether.

Faced with a difficult job market, a few have found an alternate route to success by taking risks and doing what they love. This shows an incredible sense of ingenuity and optimism that would benefit anybody in the business world, not just newcomers. I’m impressed by the confidence and willingness to try new things; in my language, to dig for new Rings.

Aspiring cooks (and the adventurous eaters who love them) come face to face at markets like this one, which are opening and expanding at a brisk pace. The Brooklyn Flea, the Hester Street Fair and the soon-to-reopen New Amsterdam Market have become tasting destinations, where handmade food is as much of a fetish as vintage Ray-Bans or bargello pillowcases. The all-food Greenpoint market, which is open to home cooks of all stripes, is one-stop shopping: Mexican-Indian tacos, artisanal soda pop, roof-grown produce, exotic chili peppers, long-brined pickles, Taiwanese street food and retro-Southern snacks under one roof.

“I feel like I’m at a science fair and I get to eat all the experiments,” said Erin Massey, a Chicago native who lives in Brooklyn, looking around the crowded church basement. “It’s like going to a music festival with all the different bands, only here it’s different kinds of kombucha.”

Everyone has this creative ability to some degree. Too often it’s just buried under the rubble of fear and doubt. Wouldn’t it be great if we could dig past all that rubble and tap into this talent again? You can. But you have to pick up the shovel and start digging!

The Ring in the Rubble rang true with a recent audience member. She approached me after my keynote speech flashing a well-adorned digit, to say how she had coincidentally made a new ring her symbol for change. The young woman had just started in her new job with the organization that had invited me to speak.

“When I quit my old job to take this new one, I rewarded myself with this ring!” I was told. She went on to say that the ring is a reminder of the risk in making a big change…something she wanted, but not a guarantee.

As an author on finding rings, I couldn’t agree more that she had a worthy symbol to signify a big decision. Rings traditionally mark special achievements from engagements to Super Bowls.

But I was most impressed that the woman from the audience was reveling in making her recent leap from a steady job to an unknown opportunity. She made a change with no guarantee of success. Such is the essence of finding the rings in our lives.

Symbols—whether jewelry or a ticket stub—serve as milestones and provide benchmarks to help us review our progress and landmarks to guide us whether things go as planned or not. They help recall how we felt at a crucial point in time. A photograph might remind you of commitments and principles when you get discouraged. A souvenir from a successful project might suggest a forgotten talent that could be useful in the present moment when you think you’ve run out of ideas.

Don’t forget to leave some markers along your path.

5th floor lecture hall at Baruch College. Taken on the day of an Economics Final Examination. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Some of us groan about our SAT experience or having to wash dishes for spending money in the cafeteria, but for others, the typical middle-class college tribulations were non-issues because just getting accepted and managing to stay enrolled were the real challenges.

Kathleen Megan, writing in the Hartford Courant, offers a compelling read covering four recent degree-earners who had to dig through serious rubble just to get to class on time.

“Getting into and graduating from college is never easy, but there are factors that make it even harder: Growing up in poverty. Suffering neglect and abuse as a child. Having a child at an early age. Suffering mental illness…”

They’re all inspiring stories of not accepting our own excuses and avoiding the victimhood often bestowed upon us by society. And there’s a lesson, too, in understanding the human spirit and its ability to get us through adversity. Or, in the examples of the four students, multiple adversities, one after another.

“When Khaliyl Lane was a little boy, he liked to ride his bike down the road to visit his good friend, Mike Allison. ‘I’d take a peek at what a real family is supposed to look like,’ Lane said. ‘I was always envious of the fact that they had so much love for one another.’

“Though he was only age 6 or 7, Lane knew his life wasn’t normal. His mother didn’t pay much attention to him or his younger brother. He didn’t know the word neglect, but he knew his mother acted differently from other mothers.”

There’s an almost magically redemptive effect in wiping our slates clear of bad experiences, mistakes and squandered opportunities. Morgan’s story tells us of sheer self-discipline from knowing “deep down” it’s the only way to stay on course and of teachers with lessons on maintaining perspective and creating your own reality.

“Born to a 17-year-old mother who dropped out of high school, (Denise) Poventud, a graduate of Weaver High School, was determined ‘not to be a product of my circumstances. … To stop the cycle.’

“Her mother, Mayda Rodriguez, had run away from home and spent time homeless, sleeping in hallways when Poventud was a newborn. Rodriguez shared her daughter’s ambition. ‘She was not going to go down my route,’ Rodriguez said. ‘She was going to do better.’

Please take a few minutes to read it all!

The take-away for me is that we should prepare ourselves for “surmounting” as a daily routine. Even on the “peaks”—as Dr. Spencer Johnson describes—of easier times we know they are inevitably followed by the experience of climbing out of valleys.

It’s always inspiring to see creative thinking at work. With no money for drums this school band director headed for the hardware store.

When people are in need, close to us and far away, we sometimes struggle with ways to truly help. Send money? Get on a jet and lend a hand? Pray? All are good choices. Sheer human compassion can also help the healing process and sometimes this is simply a matter of thoughtful words

CNN.com reports on a Haitian-born French professor in Minnesota who chose to give free lessons in Creole for aid workers bound for Haiti. The story tells us how experienced volunteers in Haiti not only improve their practical skills by speaking the native language, but they also are rewarded by the warm, thankful response they get from Haitians who have suffered devastating and lingering loss.

“If they see an American say ‘How are you today, how are you feeling, what hurts?’… I know the smile that would put on somebody. The appreciation they would get to see an American not only care enough to be there but care enough to learn the language to speak to me in my own tongue and make me understand that I matter … I know the joy that would bring to a Haitian’s heart.”—Max Adrien, from CNN.com

Helping others dig through the rubble of an earthquake or the rubble of lost jobs or family crisis is always enhanced by also “being present” as a fellow human being and empathetic to validate the person’s situation and efforts.

How many times has sharing your problems with others refreshed your perspective and given you new strength? Don’t underestimate the power of lifted spirits!

I hesitate to call it “rubble,” but is there anything more challenging to an otherwise healthy person than a lost motor skill or similar handicaps? Paralysis, impaired hearing, blindness—when your own body presents an obstacle how do you surmount the challenge on a day-to-day basis?

People do it every day and sometimes they’re also moms and dads who have to “be there” for very physically capable children.

CNN.com wrote a moving article on the lives of handicapped adults managing the physically demanding role of parenthood…

When Sarah Kovac watches her son, Ethan, crawl or grab objects, she feels proud, but also has mixed emotions. Already, the 8-month-old has abilities Kovac never had.

“He relies on me, but he’s already able to do things that I can’t, which is kind of a strange combination of feelings,” said Kovac, 26, of St. Joseph, Missouri.

Not surprisingly, a lot of differently able parents count on their children for support in overcoming physical challenges, which is an encouraging lesson in the strength of children. But also, it’s often a matter of the parents finding innovative ways around their own limitations, like the determined mom who has no control of her arms but manages to bathe her son and accomplish all the usual daily tasks, including driving…with her feet.

When you talk to people with disabilities and learn about their solutions that seem downright amazing, you start to see the potential for overcoming all sorts of situations that we too quickly consider to be impossible.

The next time my computer crashes on a deadline, maybe I’ll be inspired to find a work-around, considering what I might have to do if I couldn’t SEE my computer screen!

Inspiration abounds if we pay attention.

There is a popular bumper sticker that implores the reader to “Commit random acts of kindness and senseless beauty.” As with a lot of pop culture in the Internet age, it’s entirely unclear who coined the phrase. Wikipedia documents several sources.

What’s most encouraging about the expression is how it has “gone viral” without any formal backing or official sanctioning. Which leads us to Web based organizations like The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy.

Forbes calls it “guerrilla philanthropy.” The basic idea is that “agents” from the SSCP anonymously give $100 to people with the promise that they recipient will donate the $100 in some creative fashion. People regularly offer their own innovative suggestions, such as: “Pay the bill for people who are angry and impatient in line, to remind them not to sweat the small things. We have all been stressed out and in that place before.”

Okay, so one hundred one dollar bills handed out in small portions isn’t going to solve world hunger. But making philanthropy a compassionately creative process is a neat idea. SSCP is getting global attention. Maybe because it taps into some universal desire to validate the innate kindness of humanity.

What I like about it is how it turns the notion of philanthropy upside down and reminds us that we can all—with a little creative leverage—make a positive difference with small, sometimes whimsical, actions.

When you’re having a bad day, how good does it feel for someone to notice you with a kind thought or small gesture? And sometimes giving a kind thought or gesture feels even better. Which is great because when you’re digging in your own rubble, a small gesture might be all you can afford!

Right now, millions of hopeful students are celebrating the receipt of acceptance letters from colleges and universities. But with school’s like Harvard accepting only about 2,030 applicants out of 29,000* you can bet there is also a lot of crushing news in the mail.

Sue Shellenbarger wrote an encouraging piece in the Wall Street Journal that I recommend to any applicant.

In “Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were…Rejected,” Shallenbarger reports on example after example of famously successful individuals—Warren Buffett to Meredith Vieira—who were flat out rejected by their first choice of higher education. The lesson learned, in most of the examples is, that our unrealistic expectations for what we think we have to attain often create an illusion of defeat when we don’t get what we desire.

Certainly, even illusions of defeat can create rubble in our lives. In these cases, much of the “digging” is a really a matter of asking how real the perceived obstacles really are.

In the cases that Shallenbarger describes, Buffett, Vieira, Tom Brokaw and others became phenomenally successful by finding a “plan B.”

Is an Ivy League degree the real goal? Or is it to be the best in your field? Or is it to be happy in your work? Sometimes if we reframe the situation against real goals that we can control, the rubble simply disappears.

*According to The Wall Street Journal.

My speaking engagement at the Tucson Festival of Books is presented by the Arizona Daily Star. The newspaper is staging two days of keynote speeches by some very notable writers and thought leaders.

Their Saturday, March 13 session, in which I will speak, is built around the theme of dealing with tough times.

From the Star…

If you want to help yourself but aren’t quite sure how, let the Star’s lineup of inspirational authors, dubbed “Help for Tough Times,” show you the way.

“We have assembled the most inspiring authors we know to provide an unprecedented day of life-changing learning and discussion,” Star Publisher and Editor John M. Humenik said. “We know people are struggling at the workplace and at home due to terrible economic conditions. Our authors have answers to questions many of us don’t even know to ask.”

The list of speakers reads like an all-star shelf of self-help books come to life. [Full story here.]

Kudos to the Star for a thoughtful community service!

I’m honored to be invited to speak at the Tucson Festival of Books at The University of Arizona, Saturday, March 13. The weekend event (March 13-14) is a celebration of literacy where authors gather to share their work and meet their readers. The festival will include author panel discussions, workshops for attendees, events for children, food and fun. There’s an impressive roster of speakers this year including Alice Hoffman and Daniel J. Balz.

The Arizona Star is sponsoring me at the event. They have asked me to talk about The Ring in the Rubble at the festival and have also invited me for a luncheon address for an employee group at the paper.

What a great way to celebrate literature! Proceeds from the festival promote literacy in Southern Arizona through the Tucson Festival of Books Foundation that donates money to the Literacy for Life Coalition. Last year, the festival raised $200,000 toward this cause and made huge strides toward 100 percent literacy in the local community. If you are in Tucson during the festival, please join me!