A preview
What to expect STARTING TOMORROW
It is always exciting when you get ready to reveal new creations. People following me for a while will have already received a preview of what to expect, but in case you have been under a rock the last few months (like I feel I have been)…
January 1 (ish…I write in JST, So I am not sure what the publication time will be in other time zones.) Tasting Joy will debut.
I am creating Tasting Joy, a photo journal to celebrate unique food experiences. I love food, the creativity of local producers, and trying things that only locals are exposed to. I offer this to others so they can learn about some of these opportunities, so they can live through my experiences, and because it is a way of sharing what I love.
This Journal is my response to a Call to Action made last year. The call was to flood social media with stories about what each of us loves and is passionate about. The idea is to wrest back social media from those who are filling the channels with hate, fear, and anxiety.
In a battle, Love beats hate.
Every time.
It is fun to write about the things we love, it is fun to read someone sharing about their loves. That is my goal.
Expect a special Edition focused on the food of New Years in Japan (御節料理).
-Imperial Palace Outer Gardens Nanko Resthouse
Supervised by Executive Chef Abe Hoshun Individual Meal for 2 Guests
Regular editions will come out weekly.
Then starting on Friday 1/3, on a weekly basis, I am going to start dropping chapter summaries of my next book Breathing Slowly
As an author, I have always wanted to involve my readers in the development process. I am excited to share these early glimpses of my upcoming book, Breathing Slowly.
Substack is an engaging platform that allows authors to separate paying and free subscribers. It has been found that with paying subscribers, you can expect increased participation.
To be responsive to this audience, I will start by providing chapter sketches for all subscribers. At that point, I will open the door for paid Subscribers. When Paid Subscriptions reach a critical mass (around 30-50 people), I will publish full chapters for paid subscribers only.
These payments will cover some of the publishing costs. Researchers, developmental editors, and illustrators all cost money.
The eventual published book will look different from what you see here. In these previews, I will share my thoughts. I may include quotes that will not be used in the final version, which I am using to guide my writing. Readers should consider this a work in progress.
While I will publish a chapter a week, they may be out of sequence. Some chapters take longer to write. I look forward to input from readers, which is one of the things I hope for.
Book Synopsis
I shared my journey in my first book, The Joy Cycle: The Surprising Science Behind Living a More Fulfilling Life. At the beginning of this journey, I was living on the road most traveled, doing all the expected things, and living a good life—good but not great.
A series of events opened my eyes to what was missing. My life had been focused on happiness, but I learned that happiness is, at best, temporary. Like any emotion, happiness comes and goes based on many factors. It is like being in a small boat in the ocean, thrown up and down by waves. Many have studied happiness and shown how misunderstood it is. People’s thoughts about happiness are broken, leading us away from long-term fulfillment.
Through this journey, I realized that Joy is more powerful than happiness. Instead of feeling happy, we can become joyful. Joy is a state of being that transcends all emotional ups and downs. The most potent realization was the source of Joy. Joy is a state that we develop within ourselves. You cannot purchase Joy, and others cannot make you joyful. It is something we find inside ourselves. The root of Joy is gratitude.
The Joy Cycle recognizes that we all get to choose the lens through which we view the world. It acknowledges that every emotion, at its core, expresses love. We may feel anger when our love is threatened or nervous, leading to anger and fear if we cannot protect our love. These negative emotions alone are just a part of life. Where they become toxic or metastasize is when we try to push them away, hide them, or deny their presence in our lives.
Perhaps the most vivid expression of this was at a funeral I attended. The Son of the recently deceased individual was speaking and shared that.
The antidote to grief is not forgetting; it is gratitude. The way we keep him alive in our memory is to feel gratitude every day.
Gratitude can be tricky; it is easy to feel in the heat of the moment that there isn’t time for it. It can feel like an unnecessary luxury. The Joy Cycle made the case that GRATITUDE is the superpower that creates the life we are meant to live.
While the response to The Joy Cycle has been positive, the refrain I hear repeatedly is, ‘WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT?’
This is where Breathing Slowly will pick up the thread.
Breathing Slowly will start with my personal experience of living a frantic life and its costs. It seldom leads where we hope.
It will look at this through two different frameworks.
1) Becoming a better person
2) Becoming a better leader
These two are deeply connected.
The focus of Breathing Slowly is not the Need for joy but The Practice of living a Joyful life. This includes simple techniques for creating time even with the busiest schedules.
Recognizing that where concepts like this often fail is they require you to learn a new toolbox of skills and integrate them into an already over-packed life, breathing slowly focuses on eliminating old habits. It focuses on creating time through simplifying your life and redefining success.
Chapter summaries start on 1/3 and will be offered weekly.