Archive
Archive for April, 2010
almost at the tip of Breezy Point
If I tell myself I am going to run a half marathon, this is what will happen:
- I will not get out of bed
- I will torment myself with guilt for clutching my pillow over my head and not dragging myself to the beach
- I will be upset running my usual 5 miles, pffft! like, oh, why even bother.
If I walk with Seth along the boardwalk to get the paper - in my running clothes – and we muddle through the crossword puzzle over coffee, I will eventually make my way down to the beach and start running. Just 5 miles, I say to myself, but the morning is beautiful and cool, and the sand feels wonderful on my bare feet. Soon I am running past my 5 mile mark, running to the lighthouse at the tip of Breezy Point and heading back to my beach block and all I am doing is putting one foot ahead of another.
That, dear friends, is the real secret to success.
Someone once said that success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If you want to achieve anything in life, this is the formula for you. And simply working at it one day at a time, one step at a time is how you build your success. Big goals are made up of smaller goals. As I was running, each step was a goal towards my 14 mile goal. And each step merged into another step as I got into a rhythm. Soon, 5 miles merged into 10 miles and suddenly, here I was closing in on the last quarter mile.
I have to trick myself into doing these longer runs and doing larger projects as well. Breaking the big goal into lots of smaller goals always works for me. Once I am in, I am in for the long run.
What do you do to get yourself in the running for success?
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
Hoong Yee and Hoong Wei running along Boston Harbor
My sister Hoong Wei passed away late Monday after a four year battle with lung cancer. It’s hard to believe….Hoong Wei was brilliant, beautiful, caring but most of all so silly; she made me laugh into convulsions.
Hoong Wei leaves a beautiful family and so many friends.
She will be missed and in our thoughts forever.
I love you Hoong Wei.
my beautiful shoes
At first I came in as a gladiator. I dreamed of leather textured like polished steel, medallions and metal details. I saw myself striding through my day changing the world one stiletto at a time.
Llorraine’s pale blue eyes gazed thoughtfully at my sketch and then at me.
“You need to listen more closely to your foot, Hoong Yee.”
My inner warlord was startled. Llorraine started drawing a sketch of a shoe and said,
“The power you seek is not in the look of armor or weapons of a warrior but in the style and elegance that your shoe will give you. Think more concubine, courtesan…”
Got it.
Now I am the descendant daughter of a concubine and a family history with women who had bound feet.
“That is a fabulous story. Just imagine the journey that brought you from the time when women were made powerless because of their bound feet to today. This is what your shoe is longing to be, a celebration of beauty and power.”
Four days, two television crews later, I am holding my almost finished shoes in my hands and I am listening.
I know I cannot rush this process. My shoes still have to tell me what the finishing details will be. What I do know is that I am going to paint the soles of my shoes that wonderful electric blue color with the eye of a peacock feather glued on the arch of my shoe. Imagine what that will look like as I walk. Now that is some killer walk around Wow!
The true lesson
What do you think I learned in this shoemaking workshop? How to design a pattern? Wrap a heel? Create a toebox? These are skills that I know possess and use when I make my next pair of shoes.
The unexpected learning was the joy in letting go and letting something deeper and creatively soulful transform my inner stories, desires and dreams into a perfect shoe.
Get grounded
If you cannot find what you are searching for, here’s what I suggest:
Stop
Take a deep breath
Close your eyes
Listen to your feet
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
photo by emilybean
I recently read a post by Fred Wilson that got me thinking about how the ability to operate in lean and agile ways makes it possible for an enterprise, business or nonprofit to scale. He describes the growth Tumblr, of one of his portfolio companies that is one of only 57 web properties that serve over a billion pageviews worldwide each month.
A billion pageviews a month? Two billion eyeballs? That boggles my mind. And what is truly impressive is that Tumblr was able to do this on a $5mm capital investment.
How? Tumblr figured out how do more with less – always an appealing skill. They are a small but good team that works very hard on maintaining high service quality and developing new features that are easy to use. I set up a Tumblog last year and it was surprisingly easy to do.
Here’s what I got from all of this:
Scaling is strategic growth of a good team
The new big is less, not more
Service plus pleasant user experience equals a billion pageviews
Scale is based on a package that embraces all of the above as well as a few other components such as empowered and engaged communities, creative technology support, slow and concentric impact and growth. We who work in the arts have always done more with less. It will be interesting to see how our field scales to a billion pageviews.
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
Chris, our ArtXphone engineer @ In Ya Ear Studios in Long Island City
Here’s what I want to tell you about today.
I have worked with a great group of people all year on a project called the Queens Art Express. Now in its second year, you can check out fabulous performances, exhibitions, art events and great places to eat in the unique cultural communities along the route of the No. 7 train in this upcoming spring festival (Thursday, June 10th-Sunday, June 13th).
“(Queens Art Express)…showcases the coming of age of Queens as a hotbed of art – especially along the No. 7 line.” New York Times
Can you tell that I’m just a little excited about this? Actually, what I want to tell you about are the really cool communities of artists along the # 7 line and throughout Queens.
Creative Community
I have lived in Rockaway Beach for a very long time but people still call me “the new girl”. My goal is to become just another body surfing local in this beach town. I am proud to be from Rockaway. I am proud to be from Queens.
There’s a bunch of artists out here that call themselves the Rockaway Artists Alliance.
They have made their home in some former army buildings tucked away in an urban national park that spills out onto the ocean shoreline. There is also a local theater company, soccer and little league fields, and if you’re like me and you like running on the beach, you can go barefoot for miles into Breezy Point surrounded by the sound of the ocean.
sunrise on Rockaway Beach
All of this has subtly infused the community with art on the beach.
Today, someone told me that Sunnyside was rated as one of the top neighborhoods to live in. After living outside of New York for several years, she and her husband are thrilled to moving back where they can catch some great performances at the Thalia Spanish Theatre.
“I love Queens.” she said with a smile. “It’s so great to be back!”
I spend a lot of time in Long Island City where there is endless creative activity. This energetic artist community sprawls into Hunters Point, Astoria and winks across the bridge to Brooklyn. Here you will find the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Green Space, Dorsky Gallery and so many others that consider themselves very much Long Island City artists.
So what happens is, every time I ask the question, “Are you from Queens?” the answer will be,
“I’m from Corona.”
“I’m from Jackson Heights.”
“I’m from Maspeth.”
This is what I want to happen: People riding the #7 train as commuters transform into cultural visitors. Artists from one end of the line ride the train to see what is going on in creative communities on the other end of the line. Everyone, the artists, the 30 arts venues, the 80 businesses, the nexus of neighborhoods clustered throughout the path of the train and beyond, smiles and says, “Hi, welcome to Queens!”
And you know what? I’m practicing my best nonchalant surfer girl pose so when someone asks me where I’m from, I can say, “I’m a Queens girl and I live in Rockaway Beach. “
Locals rule.
In Queens, we get even more local than anywhere else. So come out and see us. Hop on the Queens Art Express for great art, great food and great deals – just like a local.
I love shaking the sand out of my shoes everyday, just like any new girl.
Get more Wow!
If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:
Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good
Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit
Style Notes from me, your artspy
Hoong Yee
