DanyelleLittle.com

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Ego.

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ego: the opinion that you have about yourself.

An ego can be a tricky thing. It can have you feeling yourself even when it isn’t warranted. It can have you believing that you are the bomb dot org, net, com, info, tv, etc.—which can be a good thing, because if you don’t believe it, who will? But the ego can also have you wrapped up in mistruths about yourself that you go on believing for years only to find out that in reality, it’s not true.

The ego can be a gift and a curse.

When you do what I do, you’ve got to have a strong ego. You are constantly selling yourself. Come to my website, read my content, come to hear me speak, download my book, follow me online, recommend me to others, listen to my podcast—all of this requires that you have a positive opinion about who you are. And it is that very feeling that can get you caught up into believing your own hype and playing into our delusions on grandeur.

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A hard head makes a soft …

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A hard head makes a soft (a… shut your mouth).

My dad used to say this to me upon certain occasions as I was growing up. I didn’t fully understand what he meant until recently. I mean, I got the point he was trying to make with his crass and sometimes foul mouth and tone, but I didn’t comprehend the actuality that he was doing his best to express when I was younger. Now that I have been doing a lot of reflecting and soul-searching as of late (I think it’s because I am approaching 40 and stuff and this is the type of behavior that you indulge in as you step closer to middle age), I’ve found myself thinking about this old school saying and wondering to myself, why? What does this all mean?

We’ve all heard the saying, supposedly spoken by Albert Einstein (Benjamin Franklin and Unknown has been attributed to this quote as well): “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Of course, insanity in its medical definition is hardly that easy to describe. But I do get the meaning behind the madness. If you keep repeating behaviors that don’t get you anywhere (or least, don’t get you where you want to be), why repeat them? Why not try something new? Why not charge it to the game and move on to hopefully greener and more fruitful pastures?

Because, as humans, I think we like pain. I think we like the whole whoa is me scenario when it benefits us. And when it doesn’t, why many of us just cry foul.

I am one of those many people.

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A Life Or Death Situation…

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We were on our way to the Social Fabric Conference being held in Rogers, Arkansas near the home of Walmart. The weather was less than stellar, as we had been driving on the road for over two hours in constant rain. The new decked out Kia Soul we were loaned was full of technological advances, so we are listening to tunes on Spotify via iPhone being sent through the car’s speakers with a techy wire. Everything seemed great; two close friends taking a road trip together to get some learning and networking done. Then all of a sudden, things took a turn…

We hit a slick spot on the road while going about 55 miles per hour during a steady rain. The car begins to spin as you feel like you are losing control of the vehicle. We are spinning and spinning—you don’t hear anything. It’s pitch black—no lights, no nothing, just darkness. There’s no noise other than the music coming from the speakers. My friend was mostly silent with an occasional grunt or moan. No screams, no yells of help. The road is black and desolate. And we are spinning and spinning  and spinning out of control. It seems like an eternity and you just want the car to make impact if it’s going to. We both are bracing for it because, at any second, we going to hit something. Or a car coming our way is going to hit us.

More spinning. You try not to panic but you know it’s not looking good. You can’t think straight because this may be the end of your life.

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Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the Joy of Classic Movies

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Here’s a little known fact about me—I LOVE old movies.

If it’s shot in Technicolor, begins with a Overture, and is shown on Turner Classic Movies, then chances are, I am a fan of it. I have loved old movies ever since I can remember. It all started with the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s which I first saw when I was fifteen years old. Holly Golightly and her tale of being a woman of the night living in New York City intrigued me. It was then that I began watching old movies, especially those starring Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, and Doris Day.

Thanks to my DVR, I have tons of old movies that I can watch at my disposal. My favorite remains Peyton Place, the soap opera like tale of a small New England town during the brink of World War II. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this film, and pretty much know the script by heart. I also love Splendor in the Grass, A Summer Place, Carmen Jones, and the gold standard of old movies, Gone With the Wind. I adore that movie so much that when I was in Georgia earlier this year, I dragged my friends to Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mead’s house on Peachtree Street. It’s the house where she wrote the epic novel which was turned into a award winning film, and it was not too far from that house where she died a few years later after being hit by a drunk driver.

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What Do Your Friends Look Like?

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I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I feel like I have  a lot of friends. Good friends. Who would like, loan me money if I was in a pinch, or let me stay with them if I lost my home. Real true blue friends who are down for me and vice versa. I feel so blessed to have these wonderful people in my life. But what I love most about my friends is that they are varied—my confidants look like the United Nations—white, black, Asian, Latina, Indian—I am friends with them all. For a long time, I thought that this was how everyone was, having friends of different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities, but I found out during the last year or so that that isn’t the case.

So I ask the question: What do your friends look like?

When I say friends, I am not talking about people who you chat with online or in passing at an event. I am talking about people you put in time with—people that have been over to your house and vice versa. People you have traveled with, cried with. There are so many people I know that have friends, but ones that look just like them—no variety. Not that you have to have that in your life, but why wouldn’t you want to?

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