play | Ashton.Gustafson

Jun 06 2018

art, Awareness, Business, Change The World, Creativity, Discipline, Focus, Imagination, Leadership

Generous hands

A few blocks from where I live there’s a refrigerator in one’s driveway.

Snaking out of the garage is an extension cord so the refrigerator has power.

Every morning one to three fresh flower arrangements from the yard of this property are placed in this refrigerator and an adjacent handwritten sign reads ‘Flowers $3.00 – Please return vases’.

I have never met the one who does this.

I’ve never seen them either.

But they have made it very clear who they are and what they’re about through their generous hands.

What will they say about us?

All of our lives are like refrigerators in driveways.

Hopefully, you’re picking flowers, arranging them in your unique flair and voice, and placing them in your front yard refrigerator for the world to enjoy.

Tagged Ashton Gustafson, generous hands, life, play, work

May 09 2017

1 Comment

Awareness, Change The World, Creativity, Discipline, Focus, Imagination, Leadership, success

Little things helping me these days…

Smiling while driving. This simple practice pulls me immediately out of dualistic thinking and into wonder and awe of the world around me. If I can do this in the most average city in America, you can too! Give it a whirl.
Hand over my heart while speaking. The thoughts of the mind can feel like the pinballs in the noisy chaos of a pinball machine at times. Anytime I place my hand over my heart I’m reminded of the steady, always constant, and universal good that is moving through my veins and ushering in the moment…without my doing by the way. This is the place I want to live from and speak from.
“If I knew the backstory.” This subtle statement has immediately changed my posture in conversations, conflict, and relationships. Deepak Chopra has been quoted before saying, “It helps to remember that people are doing the best that they can from their own level of consciousness.” I’m confident that this is true and can help us all if we can be present enough to recall, recollect, and remember such wisdom. “If I knew the backstory” points my compass due north towards a place of compassion.
Take a toleration tally. Last week I blogged about this and I’ve found it quite liberating. What needs to go?
Read…and share. Everyone wins when you do this. You get to repeat the beautiful insight you’ve been given and the receiver of this information gets the potential to be outfitted with a pair of renewed eyes.