You’ve been hard at work on a project, a hobby, or even a dream.  You’ve reached that “point of no return” moment and you feel unsure, anxious.

There is a reason that Reset and Power are different buttons.

Is it good enough? 

Will people like it?

Will people hate it?

Will I be criticized? 

Is it worth it?

And in that moment you panic and hit Reset.  You decide to move on, to do something better, to start over in hopes of being perfect.

You never will be.  Perfect, that is.

Art is never perfect, never finished.

Art isn’t even art unless it is shared.

Cutting your losses can be an wise move (when done objectively and without emotion).  It can also be an easy way out, and is dangerous when it becomes a habit.

If you keep pushing Reset in pursuit of perfection, you will never make progress.  You’ll be stuck repeating the first stage (1-1) over and over again – like a real life Groundhog’s Day.  And while you may become great at stage 1-1, you won’t get to experience the other 99% of the game of life.  You’ll miss out on the amazing effects of compound action, and never accomplish the impossible.

That’s what happens when you become a serial starter, an endless loop of  starting -> quitting -> starting over.

Is that how you want to live?

I didn’t think so.

I know how easy it is to push Reset.  You’ve been working on something and the silent dread creeps in.  It’s the tension between releasing your work/dreams into the world, and the fear of what the world will think of them/you.

Maybe it’s easier not to be judged.  To live comfortably without making too much noise.

The problem is we know better.

So what happens, why do we do this to ourselves?

In the moment, it feels good to push Reset.  It delivers a cathartic release of expectations, responsibility, pressure, and judgement.  A chance to begin anew.  To create from scratch.  Sounds enticing, right?

Wrong.

Jeff Goins puts it like this:

Before you start, you must finish. That’s what “shipping” is: the discipline of letting go so you can experience the thrill of starting again.

When I’m working on a project that I know is important, but I’m at the point where I’m sick of it. I want to give up — to throw in the towel and just cancel it.  But I know this feeling; I’ve felt it before. This desire to quit means I’m close to something great.  So I push forward and persevere.

Chances are you’re working on something great, and the only way to know is to finish and ship.

Then do this repeatedly.  Get stuck in the cycle of start -> finish -> ship -> start.  

Listen to Steve, he knows a thing or two.

What if I fail?

Sometimes you will.  It’s okay.  You’ll adapt and improve.  I’m not one who says failure is necessary, but it sure can help you.

Remember: even if you are failing forward, you are succeeding, growing, and changing.  You’ve improved as an artist and as a human.  You are making a difference.

To answer the questions from the beginning of this post:

Is it good enough?  Yes it is.

Will people like it?  Yes they will.

Will people hate it?  Yes they will.

Will I be criticized?  Constantly.

Is it worth it?  More than you know.

Now go finish what you’ve been working on!

Why do you push Reset?  What are you creating?  Are you pursuing your dreams?  What is holding you back?  Please share in the comments.

Inspirational Resources: 

The Chuck Norris Guide to Life Domination 

The Complete List of Convincing, Unique, and Legitimate Excuses

To Risk – William Arthur Ward

Get Over It – Jeff Goins

All of the Inspiration You’ll Ever Need – Steve Kamb

Unacceptable.

Please help spread the word.  Our mothers deserve better, and our children need their mom’s.  All comments and discussion welcome, add to the conversation below.

I Love You Casey

For my Casey on Valentine’s Day

A portrait of a sunset
seen in the iris of your eyes
gentle, breathtaking, calming my spirit
with amber hues speaking directly
into my consciousness
subduing wild instincts
with compassion and stopping time
with a mischievous blink,
for the sun will not set
as long as we are visitors in Eternity, its canvas
preserved in your gaze
allowing my presence
as long as I marvel at the beauty within
and forget the world around me,
illustrating my meaning
as your paintings interpret me

Copyright © 2012 Cole Bradburn

While there are many pregnancy songs out there, when I narrowed it down to boy specific I found very little to go on.  Undeterred, I pressed on.  After hours of digging, I came up with a baker’s dozen songs to choose from that were meaningful and fit our musical taste.

To make it easier for you, I decided to share this playlist so you would have an easier time finding songs for your future son.  Get it on Spotify.

To make it easier for me, I want you to add songs to the playlist in the comments below, and I will frequently update the list.  Thank you.

Without further ado, I present to you the…

It’s A Boy Playlist:
Songs For Your Son

1. Beautiful Boy – John Lennon
2. Hourglass - Mindy Gledhill
3. Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
4. A New Day Has Come – Celine Dion
5. With Arms Wide Open – Boyce Avenue
6. Sweet Child O Mine – Sheryl Crow
7. Forever Young – Rod Stewart
8. Still Fighting It – Ben Folds Five
9. Godspeed – Dixie Chicks
10. Dare you to Move – Switchfoot
11. Reach Out – Rob Taylor
12. Innocence – Avril Lavigne
13. In My Arms – Plumb

Get this playlist on Spotify by clicking here.

YOUR TURN.  What did I miss?  Leave your suggestions in the comments below and let’s keep this list growing!

And if you are pregnant and reading this, congrats, I’m so happy for you!

Highlights include: How drug companies hooked our nation, more Americans taking drugs than ever before, most drugs have no benefit and some harm.

Click anywhere to enlarge.

What do you think?  Leave your impressions in the comments.

In a few short hours, I will get some info on the baby growing in my wife’s belly.  The anticipation over the past 24 hours has made all else seem insignificant.  I feel like I am stuck in Dr. Seuss’s Waiting Place.

Super Bowl?  Didn’t care.

Reading a book with some hot tea?  Felt forced.

Whatever I’m doing, my thoughts drift to Baby Burn.  For the first time in my adult life (and during this pregnancy), time has slowed to a crawl.

Here’s the thing…I know that once we hear boy or girl, not much changes.

Pregnancy continues.

I can begin work on the nursery.

Casey’s friends can plan her baby shower.  

None of that explains the constant suspense I’ve felt leading up to this moment.  Where is the anticipation coming from?

I’m so excited to meet our baby that any detail about him/her is monumental.  

I know that Baby Burn is in there growing and developing.  I can hear a heartbeat and envision him/her, but I know nothing about him/her – and I can’t wait to begin learning!

Soon Baby Burn, we will learn something about you.  Until we finally meet, I’ll keep telling you all about us.  Hope you can hear me in there.

 **UPDATE**

Here’s baby’s head and chest.  He was showing off his man parts, but I thought I would spare you the visual.

IT'S A BOY!!!

All rights reserved by philwirks

Searching
for a land far and distant.
I’ve glimpsed it in lucid detail
before my eyes met the morning.

I’ve felt it in every chamber
of my restless heart that’s searching
for meaning,
for dreaming,
for respite from this bated breathing.
For dancing,
for singing,
for nothing short of life fulfilling.

This vision left burning bright
keeps me searching every night.
Until I wake from this place keeping
Me trapped in this state of being.

Copyright © 2012 Cole Bradburn

Then we decided to go through our pregnancy with a midwife and use a birthing center for delivery.

Open the floodgates.  I was now treading water in a sea of questions.

• What kind of training to midwives have?
• Is that safe?
• Wouldn’t a hospital be better?
• What if something happens?
• Can you get prenatal tests?
• Don’t you want the best for your wife?
• Aren’t they just labor coaches?
• What are you thinking?
• Ok, but who is your OB?
• Don’t you care for your wife?

You can see that they range from curious to malevolent.  And so this post was born to explain our decision and serve as a resource for future parents-to-be.

Midwife versus Hospital Birth

At the core of our decision was this: Casey and I have a philosophy that pregnancy is a naturally occurring healthy experience to be nurtured, and shouldn’t be treated as an illness or disease.  We did not come to that conclusion lightly, it took a lot of thought and fact finding, and it is one that I encourage all parents-to-be research and make on their own.

Here is what we learned through our discovery process.

Midwives and birth centers are for healthy, low risk mothers and healthy babies.  What constitutes low-risk?  Here is a list from our birth center:

I have certain health problems, so how do I know if out of hospital birth is safe for me?  Many women have health issues that are well controlled by lifestyle or medication and can still birth safely at the birth center. Examples are:

• Thyroid disorders managed with medication
• Mild asthma
• Depression managed with counseling or medication
• Abnormal pap smears, or surgery on the cervix
• Pregnancy with a prior history of infertility
• Women 35 or older
• History of miscarriage

The following is a partial list of common medical conditions that would “risk out” a woman from the birth center:

• Hypertension or high blood pressure
• Diabetes requiring insulin or medication
• Prior surgery on the uterus
• A new patient with a prior Cesarean birth planning on a vaginal birth with a subsequent pregnancy, or VBAC.
• At this time we can only offer VBAC’s to our established patients whose prior pregnancy under our care ended with a Cesarean birth
• Bleeding, or blood-clotting disorders
• With a first pregnancy, being very overweight with a BMI higher than 35
• With a second pregnancy or higher, being very overweight with a BMI higher than 40
• History of a blood clot
• Smoking more than 1 pack per day

The vast majority of women (80%) fall into the low-risk category and can have a normal birth.  The main benefit of using a midwife is that they are specialists in normal birthing.  Midwives focus more on women and babies, and less on technology.  Their thorough knowledge of normal birth allows them to safely minimize the use of technology and medical interventions during pregnancy and delivery.

Benefits of a Midwife Assisted Birth

• A personal, individual level of care than honors the woman’s body and birth plan.
• Lower intervention rates.  An episiotomy occurs in 80% of hospital births and midwives use it less than 1% of the time.  Labor is induced in 40% of hospital births and almost never in midwife-assisted birth.  Midwives also have lower rates of Cesarean, forceps and vacuum extractions, and infections.
• Midwives allow women to change positions, eat, and drink during labor.  They also allow labor to take the amount of time it needs.
• Midwives monitor the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle (it’s typical to have monthly visits in trimester 1 and 2, and weekly in trimester 3).
• Midwives provide the mother with individualized education, counseling, prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support.
• Midwives DO identify and refer women who require obstetrical attention.
• Here is a great independent article on 8 Ways Midwives Promote Safe Childbirth

Research on Hospital Births

When you begin to research hospital births, what you find will shock you.  For all our technological advancements and incredible expenditures in modern medicine, our results are appalling.  About 99% of all births in the U.S. take place in hospitals, yet we currently rank 29th in the world in infant mortality.  This is the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world!  Who is in front of the U.S.?  Hungary, Northern Ireland, Australia, Israel, Japan, and 24 others (see full list here).

U.S. ranks 39th in deaths in childbirth

Even more important to me is the safety of my wife, Casey.  When examining the safety of women delivering babies in the Unites States, we find that maternal mortality is higher than 38 other industrialized countries, and is double that of Canada and much of Western Europe (remember, 99% of U.S. births take place in hospitals).

Extra Reading: U.S. urged to confront shocking maternal mortality rate – Amnesty International.

This is even more of a shock when you consider that Americans spend much more per person on health care than the rest of the world, with care for mothers and newborns combined being the fourth largest category of hospital expense!  That seems crazy.

Women from all cultures, tribes, and countries have been successfully having children without hospitals since time began.  Check this out:

In 1900, 95% of births in the United States took place at home.

In 1938, 50% of all births took place at home.

By 1955, less than 1% of births took place at home.

In 2008, midwives attended over 70% of births in Europe and Japan (remember those countries that did better than us in infant mortality rates?), but in the United States they only attended 7.5% of overall births.

Study: Comparing Equally Matched Midwife Attended Home-Births to Hospital Births

Women birthing in hospitals were:

• Five times more likely to have high blood pressure during labor
• Nine times more likely to tear
• Three times more likely to hemorrhage
• Three times more likely to undergo cesarean sections

Hospital-born babies were:

• Six times more likely to suffer fetal distress before birth
• Four times more likely to need assistance to start breathing
• Four times more likely to develop infections

Our Conclusion: hospital outcomes are simply not as good and involve much more risk for normal, healthy women than choosing a midwife.

What was your birthing experience?  Did you choose hospital, birthing center, or home with a midwife?  Any wisdom to share?  I’d love to hear your story, please share in the comments.

OK Cole, pick your jaw up off the floor

Such was my 6:30 am wake up call on October 29th, 2011.  My wife was anxiously trying to get me out of bed to come see something, and like a bear coming out of hibernation I was resisting the waking world.  As I stumbled out of bed, protesting the whole way, she presented me with the above picture – in full stereoscopic 3D of the real world.

BAM!  Ton of bricks, meet Cole.

Standing there in my emotional cocktail of disbelief/elation/befuddlement/awe, I realized that even Starbucks couldn’t brew such a potion of instant-alertness.  In that moment I had two instances of clarity:

• I had never loved my wife Casey more
• I had never felt more unprepared

Now that is a beautiful mommy-to-be

It seemed odd.  I had been waiting for this moment, yet when it came I felt shook to my very core.  What was it?

Dad.

I had not truly seen myself as a Dad.

I sometimes still don’t.  It can be a challenge to intentionally remind myself of the inevitability of my child’s arrival when lost in the day to day minutia of life.  In fact, much could still be the same right now if I would let it.

But I know my child is in there in it’s own little world, just inches from mine.  Soon, little Baby Burn, we shall meet.  Until then I will take great joy in preparing the way.  I can’t wait to be your dad.

How did you react when you found out you were having a baby?  Funny stories?  Insights? Scared you were going to be like you parents?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Avoid Equinsu Ocha at all costs!

Nutritional White Devil #1 – Sugar

I’ve written in depth about the consequences of sugar before (see Sugar, Cholesterol, and Plaque Explained).  Sugar can be harmful to your organs, lowers your energy, rots your teeth, and makes you gain weight when it is present in your food on a regular basis.

We know that too much sugar is bad for us, but people desire sugar so greatly that land and laboratory have been scoured for substitutes that have all the taste and no negative consequences.  Guess what?  That doesn’t exist.  These chemicals – saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, sorbitol, maltodextrin, dextrose, splenda – are so dangerous that if a sugar substitute is added to a product, manufactueres must put a warning label on the package!

Bottom Line: If the only sugar you are getting is from fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables then you are doing great.  Fruits and vegetables deliver a small amount of natural sugar along with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and water.  That is a huge win in your eating lifestyle.  If you need to use a sweetener, your best bet is raw local honey.

Nutritional White Devil #2 – White Flour

Flour is bleached.  Dead.  It is an empty food stripped of all nutrition where only compressed sugar remains.  Flour does nothing for your health.  No vitamins or minerals, just loads of empty calories.  Still want to know why it’s bad for you?  Go back and read White Devil #1.

The problem with sugar and white flour is that they are both incredibly calorie dense, nutrient deficient, and easy to eat a lot of.  They are present in anything you buy in the middle of the grocery store (the outsides of a grocery store are produce, deli, meat, and frozen – shop the outside and you are off to a great start).

Refined carbohydrates like sugar and flour also increase the oxidative stress level in your body, which increases overall inflammation (if you haven’t read Sugar, Cholesterol, and Plaque Explained, now really is the time).   Over time this leads to obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease.

Bottom Line: When you see flour, think compressed sugar.

Nutritional White Devil #3 – Milk

More specifically, pasteurized and homogenized milk.  Here are two very interesting facts

1. Humans are the only animal that drinks another animal’s milk.
2. A calf cannot survive on pasteurized milk.

Make you think?  Good.  Let’s go deeper.  All foods have purpose, the purpose of human breast milk is to add a couple dozen pounds to a child over a relatively short period of time.  The purpose of cow’s milk is to add several hundred pounds to a calf in the same period of time!  What’s the difference?  Human milk has a much lower concentration of proteins that are smaller in size than that of cow milk.  It’s no wonder dairy products are a leading cause of allergic reactions and immune problems, it isn’t made for humans!

Due to pasteurization, the calcium in milk and dairy cannot be used by humans for bone growth.  In fact, consuming it does just the opposite!  Milk depletes calcium from bones and increases fracture risk while creating an acidic environment inside your body.  Read more here, here, and here.

Bottom Line:  Stay away from milk, especially if it’s pasteurized.  Almond milk and Coconut milk are great alternatives.

Do you have anything to add to the conversation?  Did I leave out any White Devils?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Bonus Tip: If you see this guy coming your way, he’s scared of bats.  Especially large white ones.