It’s Friday!! What are you going to observe this weekend? If you missed this week’s blog post or video, pour yourself a beverage of choice and dig in! See yawl next week!

In this week’s Show & Tell video, I highlight three reasons storytellers make great observers and vice versa (Plus a peek at the new intro for the weekly videos… you like?):

Note: This video is also about twice as long as it should be for those of you looking to make “How To” type videos for your websites. Under three minutes is the goal and two minutes is ideal. Next time I’ll stop being such a blabber mouth….

Of all the pay-the-bills jobs I’ve had over the years, the one that people seem most curious about is my history as a stand-in for actresses on television and film sets. In case you’ve never heard of this occupation, the sole purpose of the stand-in is to…wait for… it… stand in for the “real” actor/actress during the hours it takes to light and set the scene. Non-“industry” folks are often surprised to learn how unglamorous the job of the stand-in really is. Typically, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. The stand-in watches the rehearsals, takes notes, and then emulates the blocking (movement) of the actor. That’s (more or less) it. Other than that all you have to do is resemble the actor (especially height, hair color, and skin tone).

Ok, that’s Stand-In 101. But why should you care?

Because a good stand-in and a good storyteller (writer/artist/entrepreneur/politician/teacher/etc) must have an ability that most people overlook as too passive and time consuming to be of real value:

The ability to observe.

Will being the best stand-in in cinematic history ever put you down the path for Oscar gold? Absolutely not. Does being hired to do a job with the sole purpose of emulating someone else, simply because you look kind of like them, drive you slowly insane? Very possibly.

But by spending 12-16 hours a day watching how the pros do it, you learn a thing or two. By silently standing on your mark while two dozen crew members frenetically circle around you and make hundreds of decisions in a matter of minutes, you witness how the parts of the puzzle combine to make the whole. And by essentially being a fly on the wall, you become privy to the unfiltered thoughts of the director, writers, producers… and I do mean unfiltered.

Doormen and security guards aside, I’d be willing to wager few people spend as many hours a day standing around watching the world unfold around them as stand-ins do.

As Yogi Berra said, You can see a lot just by observing.

When we observe, we not only see the big picture, we see all the elements that unite to create it. We learn new ways of approaching situations. As the observer we can briefly take ourselves out of the story, and see the patterns we miss when we’re too close to the subject.

I’m reminded of this in moments when I feel a sense of overwhelm by the daily to-dos, or I’m having a difficult time with a present situation, or just experiencing an over-all sense of feeling stuck. By remembering this is one piece and not the puzzle, the situation at least feels instantly more manageable. And when I’m trying to write or edit or create and I hit an inspirational block, the solution is often found when I stop trying to push through and instead take a moment to step back, get out of my own ego, and observe the world around me.

In order to find the answers within, we often have to turn our focus out.

And now we turn the attention towards you:

When was the last time you took a backseat role in order to better move forward?

I’d love to read your responses in the comments below!

I still close my eyes and go home- I can always draw from that. ~ Dolly Parton

This week I’ve traded in the hustle and bustle of NYC for some R&R with my family in Southern California. Wherever you are I hope your home is filled with memories that inspire you.

{If you need a vacation from home, check out this little iPhone video I made from my recent travels. Just be sure to let it load for a few seconds to avoid skip-age}

The next Show & Tell newsletter is just around the corner! Sign up here to get your weekly dose of storytelling inspiration.

As promised in yesterday’s post about the importance of editing when telling our stories, this video is my little labor of love.

I wanted to share my story in a way my words couldn’t.

May I present to you:

Disappear

(Note: You may want to let to the video load for a few seconds before watching to ensure a smooth viewing and clearer image)

{For more on the experience, feel free to peruse these past posts:}

Travel Narratives

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: A Bus Ride In Myanmar

Building A Strong Foundation: New Beginnings For A New Year

Project Runway: The Making of A Blue Dress

Leveling Expectations: A Meeting of the Monks in Luang Prabang

An Effective Escape: Bamboo Nest in Chiang Rai

Running In Bangkok

Lessons in Travel

Returning to Civilization: A Passing of Time

Struggling to Understand

A Changing Perspective: What Travel Is Teaching Me

Friday Photo:

Friday Photo: My Favorite Color

Friday Photo: A Love Story of Epic Proportions

Friday Photo: Where the Straight Way Was Lost

~Frederick Wiseman, American Documentary Filmmaker

There’s one final but important step to refining our stories.

The edit.

For many of us, this step can be excruciating. I’m not a Type A personality. I prefer forward motion and broad strokes to nitpicking and clarifying.

But I recently discovered that editing does much more than polish or troubleshoot. Editing is where the story becomes a story rather than a goup of individual moments.

Editing is also where we can find hidden gems that have the ability to completely alter the story.

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a little 4-minute 53-second video of my travels in Southeast Asia. I knew the overall feeling I wanted to convey when I sat down to the computer to edit, but it wasn’t until I actually began meddling with the 400 iPhone clips (yes- it was shot entirely on my iPhone) that I discovered how the story would take shape.

And surprisingly, I loved the process! I loved that there was no right or wrong way to edit. I loved that each time I thought I was nearly finished, I’d stumble across a clip that told the story better. I loved that I began to interpret the images differently with each viewing.

That’s not to say the process was easy. Editing can be agonizing. Every frame has to be accounted for. (iPhones shoot 30 frames per second). That’s a whole lotta choices to make.

When it comes to making those choices, the hardest part of the editing process is deciding what to leave out.

It’s painful. We feel a kinship to our work. We don’t want to abandon those stories to the abyss!

But in editing a movie, or any story (including our own), there comes a time when we have to choose what stays and what goes. We have to chip away until we reach a point when we feel in our gut that we’ve told the best story we can.

And when we find ourselves staring blankly at the monitor or in the mirror, there are two ways to get unstuck:

1. Try it out. Place this clip here and that one there. Doesn’t feel right? Move them around again. Shorten one, lengthen another.

Like the first version better?

Press Command Z.

Voila! We can go back to the previous version, only this time without wondering what could have been.

2. Ask one simple question: Does this choice add or subtract from the story?

More often that not, this one question points us in the right direction.

However we edit our stories, it’s imperative to keep in mind:

The audience doesn’t care about what gets left on the cutting room floor. They just want to watch a good story.

Make the choices that need to get made.

Tell the story.

Leave the rest.

Speaking of improving our stories, the new Show & Tell website will be up next week! Make sure you’re on the list to get in all the action—> THE LIST

~Walt Whitman, Song Of Myself

Koh Yao Yai, Thailand

This week on Show & Tell, we explored the benefits of being multifaceted, with the idea that everything we experience makes it through our unique filters, with our core self as the final destination.

Wishing you a Friday full of all that life has to offer and a weekend that outshines the rest.

In this week’s SHOW & TELL video, we’re talking about three facets that are crucial to delivering a shiny speech:

1. Starting off with a bang

2. Crafting well-designed transitions

3. Ending with a grand finale

Here’s a closer look at delivering a presentation with shape and flow:

{Psst this website is getting a major make-over! Wanna help celebrate? I’d be oh so honored if you’d “Like” the brand-spankin’ new Facebook Page here} Updates coming very soon!

As promised in this week’s newsletter, today we’re having a chat about the value of being multifaceted. (High quality diamonds are multifaceted as to best reflect and filter light. This gives them sparkle.)

But this is not a post where I wax poetic about how to balance all your numerous interests, nor is it where I’ll write about branching out and trying new things. There are countless other blog posts that can talk about this in a much more prolific way than I ever could.

A Matter of Need

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Refresher course:

Now, I’m not one to argue with a Brandeis professor of psychology, but I do think as a human race we may be interpreting his model a tad incorrectly. I mean yes, of course, we all need basic things like food and sleep. But this pyramid image often creates the assumption that the peak of the pyramid (Self-Actualization) can only be achieved or strived for after the lower levels of the structures have been accomplished.

This ideology is how most of us make decisions. We attempt to eliminate risk by focusing the vast majority of our attention, time, and energy to the lower levels of the pyramid. We tell ourselves we’re paving the way so that we can focus on the rest of the pyramid at some point.

For example, we think we’ll have more confidence (Esteem) once we get a better paying job (Safety) or find the spouse of our dreams (Love/Belonging). We see this methodology often in advertising as well: If we buy this skin cream or lipstick shade or diet drink, we’ll be loved and therefore happy. This “stuff” may make us feel better about ourselves for a short amount of time, but I believe this is a false sense of confidence.

A New Model

What if, instead, we turn the pyramid upside down? And then we give the pyramid a filter.

Through the filter goes all of our life experiences, good and bad. Our relationships, our hopes and dreams, our bank statements- all of them get pushed through one way or another.

Ok, now imagine that instead of just one filter, each level of Mr. Maslow’s hierarchy gets a filter of it’s own. With each level, all of our experiences (and interests and passions) pass through another layer, until finally, reaching the point of no return.

That point is us. At our core. Everything we do, have had done to us, experienced, thought, breathed, touched, everything affects us to some degree. Not everything has the same impact, of course. Some things don’t make it past our physiological needs. Others go straight to the depths of our soul.

But a piece of it all gets through.

Our Job

Our primary job is not to determine precisely what goes into the upside down pyramid. Yes, we have a say in what goes in, but we don’t have total control. Much gets added that we didn’t bargain for. That’s ok. It will get filtered as necessary.

Our job is to make something brilliant with the experiences that do make it all the way through to our very being.

Life Defined

All experiences in life are life. Each and every moment. We need them. They become our stories, and we become theirs.

This is why I believe in creating, inspiring, and participating in as many interests, passions, and adventures as our hearts desire. Everything goes through the filter so we can be sure that what remains is the most alive version of ourselves.

So go ahead: Be multifaceted! Embrace experiences!

A well-lived life will outshine the rest.

{Psst! SHOW & TELL just got a Facebook Page! I’d be honored and thrilled if you’d “like” it. )

 Sunrise in Bagan, Burma

 Sunrise on Inle Lake, Burma

 Sunset in Mandalay, Burma

Sunset in Yangon, Burma

When I think about color, I think about Burma. From the golden stupas to the jam-packed street markets to the colorful longyis worn by the beautiful people, color was everywhere.

But the color that resonated with me most in Burma was the color that resonates with me most everywhere I go: the golden/purple/rose hue that spills across the sky just moments after the sun rises and just before the sets.

Is there a name for the color of post-dawn/pre-sunset?

Because that would have to be my favorite.

Wherever the sun is setting on you, I wish you a weekend of saturating beauty.

{This is part three in a four part series exploring the four elements of Diamond Grading as a muse for sharing our stories: Clarity, Carat, Color, and Cut}.