What a joy to have Eric Portelance in front of a microphone again. We used to host Attention Surplus together and I was so excited to learn about his latest epic leap. We discuss what it feels like to announce our purpose to the world, how people respond and finding the courage to find and pursue our craft.

Please note that there is some swearing in today's show.

Show Notes

Eric Portelance References

Halo Brewery

Other Mentions

Paul Isakson

Jon Wilkening

The Music!

I loved the passionate fusion of world and contemporary grooves from California-based To Life! You can find them on iTunes, Magnatune, and on their awesome website.

You heard:
Tasabasaba by To Life! from the Tasabasaba album.
Calling of the Tribes by To Life! from the Tasabasaba album.

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Help change the world for less than a coffee a month!

Taking the Leap! podcast by Sean Howard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I have been quite scarce in the digital realm of late. My podcast is past due. The blog hasn't been updated. I'm drowning in a high tide of to-be-done tasks.

Just over a week ago, my computer failed. It had been acting up and I was attempting to track down the problem when it decided it was game over. I could have dealt with this in stride. After all, a new computer can be exciting. It was when my RAID drive that houses over 57,000 of my photos also decided to melt down that I knew I was in trouble.

I am just now getting back to the tasks at hand. I'm a bit behind but relieved that I didn't lose any client files. There was a moment when I wondered if the unthinkable had happened and I would have to tell a client their files were gone. My heart goes cold even contemplating this.

I'd like to point out that I have a pretty intense, even super-crazy-awesome, backup strategy. And yet, I almost lost data that couldn't be replaced. So I've revised my backup plan moving into 2015 and I thought I would share my new and revised Fort Knox backup plan with anyone who was interested.

So this goes out to all the geeks or anyone that wants to protect their reputation as a professional.

UPDATE: I had a great conversation on Twitter with the man behind SuperDuper, Dave Nanian (@dnanian). Not all RAIDs are equal. Beware of striping (RAID 0). It is a method of increasing performance from your disks that actually puts you MORE at risk of data loss in the event of a drive failure. PC World has an article titled RAID Made Easy for anyone wanting to learn more.

Now on to my story below!

I've been following Deb's podcast for some time. She speaks of the things that matter to our hearts, our soul and our planet. Since this recording, I was able to spend a day with her and her two dogs laughing, walking and exploring these topics even more. I can't thank Deb enough for all that she has shared. We're speaking about her new manifesto, pain as a gateway to our purpose and living in love not fear.

Note: there is an instance of swearing in today's show.

Show Notes

Deb Ozarko References

www.debozarko.com – Everything Deb Ozarko can be found. Cookbooks, manifestos, podcast episodes and more!

The Status Quo Crusher Revolution: A Call to Arms for Humanity 2.0 – the life provoking manifesto we speak about in this podcast.

The Unplug Podcast – Deb's wonderful podcast about inspired living for critical thinkers with compassionate hearts.

Other Mentions

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan.

Music to Move Your Soul

Another shout out to Magnatune for the find on this lovely musician. I was actually worried about what music was going to be a good fit for Deb's intensity and soulful approach. Then I stumbled across Shed Your Skin and I couldn't stop listening to it. I actually had it playing in the background while I edited this episode. Brilliant stuff.

One Witness, Ray Montford from the Shed Your Skin album
Spirit, Ray Montford from the Shed Your Skin album.

Please consider becoming a supporter of the show via Patreon!

Help change the world for less than a coffee a month!

Taking the Leap! podcast by Sean Howard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I had a blast today with Blair Francey (Art Direction), Lisa Vella (MUA extraordinaire), Jennifer Green (@TorontoArts) and a long list of stunning artists.

I can't share too much yet but here is a sneak peak of just 4 of the amazing artists we worked with today. See if you can name a few of them!

I thought I would share a few of my favourite doses of inspiration that I receive on a daily or weekly basis. I couldn't pick which ones to share, so this will be an ongoing series of posts.

Fred of FredCharlesArt posts an offbeat and often humourous sticky note sketch to brighten each of my days. One of my favourite Instagram feeds. It's also an AWESOME idea for how an artist can create content every day, build an audience and improve their craft all in one go!

Hands down the most inspiring and insightful newsletter on the Internet. Insane quotations, deep insights and more. If there is one problem with Maria Popova's Brain Pickings it's that my Amazon wish list is now out of control! Every email sees me scrambling to add more books to my list.

Jon Wilkening's Monday Morning Dispatches make my week. If I had any complaint with his newsletter, it was that he doesn't include a link to the stunning music that he posts with each dispatch on his website. So be sure to check out the Creative Journal page on his website every Monday. The links and the music inspire me to attack my week with vigor and attitude.

What inspires you every week? Please share with me!