My name is AJ Cosmo and I teach imagination and heart to children. My books and illustrations are crafted to educate, solve problems, and entertain in unique and interesting ways.

But don't take my word for it, with over a thousand five star reviews across more than thirty books, there's no doubt that your family will find something to love in the world of A.J. Cosmo.

Whether it's overcoming first day of school jitters, getting past a fear of monsters, or dealing with a bully, these books teach important life lessons in a fun way.

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Show notes

Website  

The Monster that Ate my Socks

 Poop

Blog Post on Spectrum Inspired

In this Episode I am sharing some of my thoughts about choosing to take a stand for something even if it means that no one will understand or like what you are doing.  

I share a couple of personal somewhat embarrasing stories of what its been like to be mostly a passenger in my life and why I think its important for me now to step into the role of the driver.  

Brian Bauman is a playwright and founder of Perfect Disgrace Theater, and has been producing experimental queer plays since 2006. Bauman's writing has a cult following and is known as a "playwright's playwright." Suzan-Lori Parks says "Brian Bauman's writing is thrilling, sexy, political and rude. He's making provocative, in-your-face theatre - not for the timid, or, perhaps, just what the timid need." His work has been presented at HERE Arts Center, LaMama Galleria, The Wild Project and Collective Unconscious in NY; The Broad Art Center @ UCLA, Company of Angels Theater, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibtions L.A.C.E., Los Angeles Theater Center, Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles; CounterPULSE, Poets Theatre Jamboree at California College of Art and the RADAR Reading Series in San Francisco; and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the Dairy Art Center in Colorado. He is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a resident of the Radar Lab in Akumal Mexico, and holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.

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My guest today is Leah Dieterich

Copywriter, Creative Director, author of Thx Thx Thx and is currently writing her memoir about open marriage, desire, identity, and trying to find oneself through a concept called Vanishing Twins.

Show Notes:

www.leahdieterich.com

www.thxthxthx.com

www.instagram.com/andthetidewaswayout

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We now have a facebook group you can join here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1702792516401071/?ref=bookmarks

or follow along on instagram where I spend most of my time @www.instagram.com/maringhiga

And as always you if like what you have heard so far please leave a quick rate and review here, it would mean the world to me!  

I’m Thinking about Hustle vs Flow and Is it possible to avoid Burnout and have flow and Ease in the beginning or do we need to hustle and grind in the beginning in order to then get to the ease and flow of things?

Tha’ts what I want talk about in today’s Messy Middle Minisode

I’ve been searching for different ways that we get clues with how to live more in flow with our lives.  Its been a personal quest of mine to find more efficient, feminine ways to achieve my goals in creative work as well as business.   

In this episode I talk abut:

The prescriptive advice when it comes to starting a business

Stories of Burnout

Alternate Stories of Flow and Alignment

Feminine Energy

Our Menstrual Cycles and how they guide us

My hypothesis: Burnout is Avoidable

Jennifer Lee, CPCC, PCC, MA is the founder of Artizen Coaching®. Before pursuing her own passions full-time, she consulted for ten years for Fortune 500 companies such as Gap Inc., Accenture, and HP, helping leaders and organizations manage change. As a director of executive development for Gap Inc., she led onboarding and coaching programs for those at the level of vice president and up. She grew her coaching business in her spare time, and in 2006 Jennifer made the courageous leap from corporate America to living the life of her dreams.

She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Entrepreneur, Whole Living, Family Circle, and Cloth Paper Scissors Studios, numerous radio shows, and on ABC7 TV. She partnered with Levenger to develop the Right-Brain Business Plan® Circa® Notebook.

Jennifer Lee received her coaching certification and leadership training through the prestigious Coaches Training Institute. She’s also a certified yoga instructor, a certified Expressive Arts Facilitator, a certified meditation instructor, and hold a B.A. in Communication Studies from UCLA and an M.A. in Communication Management from USC. Jennifer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her creative, rather left-brain husband and their sweet husky-Lab mix.

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In this Episode

This was such a treat for me to interview Jen who I originally found via Instagram because of her beautiful art work. I later found too many ways that our lives were similar and knew I wanted to have her on the show.  

In this interview we talk about incorporating ease and flow into her current business model and also I also pose the question Is hustle is avoidable in the beginning?

We also talked about how her intuition has served her in her business as well as using art as a way more intimately relate to it.

I think you will really enjoy this episode I had with Jen.

If you want to stay up to date on new episodes you can subscribe in iTunes or you can also sign up for my newsletter where I give a monthly recap of past episodes along with other Messy Middle Musings :)

There is now a Messy Middle Facebook group where I’ll post new episodes and updates!

Cynthia Morris is a creativity coach, the author of the novel Chasing Sylvia Beach, Create your Writers Life and The Graceful return.   She is also one of the few coaches for Jonathan Fields Good Life Project.  She has both a depth and playfulness about her that I love.  We share a love of creative journey and watercolor, and she is working on creating her first illustration book.

I absolutely loved getting to talk with Cynthia who shared so much with me about her own messy middle spaces, overcoming them, stepping into them and why she thinks they are so important.  

There are some people you immeditely have  a connection with and Cynthia immediately put me in a place of ease as if we’ve known each other for years. 

Show Notes:

Original Impulse: Who are you and how does that express itself.

What are your original gifts that are satisfying to you.

Creativity is on our heirarchy of needs.

Seeking to help people come to a good relationship with their creativity.

How can we not be at battle with their creativity.

Sticking with writing a book that took her 13 years. Talk about being in the middle space and the power of seeing something through

Commitment points: where you recommit, am I still in it? And why?

There are gifts in the process, but often you don’t get them until you finish.

Celebrating Big Moments

www.originalimpulse.com

instagram @ cynthia morris

Chasing Sylvia Beach 

A friend once told me, that whoever has the most certainty wins.  So how can we gain more certainty in uncertain waters?  This is a short episode where I'm talking about some embarrasing moments I've had around certainty, and an atidote I believe will be helpful for you in embarking on uncertain path.

I had the pleasure of interviewing psychotherpist Abby Bird on the show and we tackled some big things that come up in the middle space.  I asked her about the imposter syndrome, comparison trap, and self doubt.  She offered some practical tips and creative exercises that she does with her clients.  She also talked about how she views her own practice as a form of creative expression, which I found insightful.  Creativity truly can arise from anywhere.  

Really excited to be sharing this episode I did with Coleen Hodges.  She shares her personal story of how she went after her dream of being a photographer, and the challenges that came up in her relationship during the process.  Coleen tell an amazing story of when she shared her personal story with other budding photographers and the overwhelming response 900 emails of other women who were feeling the the same exact thing.  I knew that I wanted to have her back on the show to talk about this behind the scenes story that rarely gets talked about.

If you haven't listened to Coleeen's episode season 2, definetly go back and check that one out.  She runs an amazing organization called Spectrum Inspired a non profit dedicated destygmatizing autism through photography and art.