Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…

In This Issue:

If this was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here:
http://projectsimplify.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=2
Unsubscribe instructions can be found at the bottom of the newsletter.
Check out our newsletter archive page for back issues.
Visit Project Simplify’s website at www.projectsimplify.com.

1. A Note From Shawn

Strategies and perspectives towards simplifying our lives and businesses may vary, but the underlying themes seem to be fairly universal. Reading about others’ real life approaches to creating solutions is straight-up motivating. In that spirit, we are embarking upon an interview series. We’ll seek out interesting stories that illustrate how simplifying is an integral part of success. Our goal is to present one interview per month, here in The Simplifier.

In addition to sharing inspiring stories with you, the series also serves to simplify our life as well. You can imagine that publishing the newsletter every other week is a significant commitment for our dynamic duo team. As we begin our third year (yowza and yeehaw!!!), Lance and I appreciate having the editorial power to explore changes to the format—and yes, make the process a little easier for ourselves as well. Now that’s a win-win-win  situation! (Three wins? Yup: 1. great stories for you, 2. easier for us, and 3. wonderful person being recognized for their simplifying efforts.)

I hope you like this new element to our simplifying journey; it sure was fun to put together!

Enjoy,

Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier, Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

 

 

 

 

2. Our Featured Quote

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

-St. Francis de Sales

 

 

3. Interview:  Louis Buchetto—Visualizing an Artful Life

By Shawn Tuttle

The following is an interview with artist Louis Buchetto. He’s the owner of A Loving Home Gallery in Nevada City, California. There he collaborates with his spunky 8-year old daughter Tirza. This inspiring father/daughter project creates art that is playful, colorful, vibrant, and tugs at the heart strings. Louis has only been in Nevada County for 14 months, but he jumps right into his surroundings. In fact, we met through our work in the local downtown association. 

He’s had incredible things happen in his business, and he gives credit to the power of visualizing. With visualization being one of the core concepts of Project Simplify, Buchetto provides an inspiring example of how it works for the small business. Remembering that you are in the driver’s seat in ways not commonly talked about in business books is an incredibly powerful growth tool. “Experiencing” a situation before it happens, all the way down to minute details, actually increases the possibility of it happening—in a way that can seem like magic.

---

ST: You’ve told me that amazing things have happened from the power of visualizing. How did it start?

Buchetto: I was in a sedentary job as a chauffeur in New York City. I started listening to tapes by Nightingale Conan. I had always been really athletic but I’d gained 20 pounds in this job. I’d listen to the tapes and do my meditations and visualization all day long. I was on fire with the energy I was unleashing from the specific images of what I wanted to look like. I went from 205 to 175 pounds and was totally “ripped”.  I was exercising about 20 hours a week. It was insane but it showed me the power.

Seven years later, I was doing art in Flagstaff, Arizona; I had given up my house-painting business and I wanted to live my ideals. I was always on the edge financially and was tired of it. So I started imagining an astute-type gentleman coming to one of my art shows, falling in love with the art, buying all the pieces there, commissioning me for more work, and then going out and selling it.

I only wanted to be successful if it was in line with my highest ideals. I’ve actually blocked financial opportunities because I knew they’d lead me down a dead-end road and I didn’t want to go there. So I worked that visualization between my frustration and despair for a year. About once every three weeks I’d remind myself what I wanted and I’d just run it through my head.

ST: Tell me more about your process of the visualization. Would you do it in any particular way?

Buchetto: I had a sense of who this person was, an older gentleman and I would watch him come into the gallery and approach me in a very matter of fact way, very astutely. So I’d get a feel of the person and then I’d be me and it would just unfold. And that’s what happened.

The day before I found out I was going to be a dad, I was doing an art show in Sedona, AZ. I was conversing with a Buddhist nun, who was totally dialed in to my highest ideals. She loved what I do and why I do it.  It was great, I was vibrating. A gentleman came in to the room and basically buys $26,000 worth of art. He came to my studio about a week later and commissioned me to do art for the next two years at a minimum $3,000 a month.

If I had known going into that show that I had a daughter on the way, I probably would have been in a panic. Would the situation still have unfolded as it did with the gentleman? Probably. But it reminds me that no matter how challenging the situation or whatever the funk is, keep going!  

ST: What did he do with all the art?

Buchetto: He opened a gallery in Phoenix and all the profits were to go to charity. He was attached to a little village in Mexico that he had visited—he had $ from being a builder and now wanted to get his heart into his life.

PS: When you did the visualizations – what was your experience?

Buchetto: Every time we try to grow, there’s always this struggle. While I’m visualizing, I’m actually certain it’s going to happen but there’s this chatter, this battle of the mind:
“Oh crap, here’s where I’m stuck; how’s this going to happen?”
     ”Shut up Louis and enjoy this vision.”  
“Yeah, right, this is nuts, it’s wasting your time.”
     ”No. It’s going to happen.”

Another example was when I committed to come to Nevada County with my daughter and extended family. I had until December 16 to tell the landlady what I was going to do—keep the gallery in Flagstaff, or give it up. I was totally certain that I was going to be able to sell my gallery in time and avoid having to shut it down. On December 14th, a couple form England came in and bought $1500 worth of art. Just in passing I mentioned the gallery was for sale. They called me back the next day and said they wanted to buy it.

Even after seven months of the gallery being for sale, and having only 24-48 hours till my deadline, I was confident it would sell. I guess it gets inside you, it’s like gravity in a way—you know if you drop something out of your hand it’s going to fall. You begin to know this is going to work.

But the conviction is not always present. The last 6 months here in Nevada City have been a huge challenge to that. I think it’s because I’m out of my element. I’m new to the community. I want to grow and evolve as a person and all my inner challenges are getting in the way of the mystical or invisible abilities. I’m just getting my footing now. And part of that evolution has been giving more to community—serving if you will.

ST: Tell me about creating the visualization. Are you consciously designing the visualization that plays out?  Or are you going into a meditative -type space for visualizing and interpreting what you see and feel there?

Buchetto: What works best for me is that in my everyday reality there has to be a certain amount of preparation. I can’t be living this haphazard, off-the-cuff life and go into my mind to create Nirvana, and expect that it will just happen. I have to be absolutely committed to what I’m doing day to day. When I’m working in my studio I have to feel that I’m reaching my highest degree of integrity—the quality of my art, how I treat customers, getting orders out on time, and so on. I try to work those with a sense of lightness, too. These are things I know I need to master to succeed.

When I do all the basics, I’ll come to a point when I think, “Now it’s time to create something magical out of this.” Then I go inside and ask, “There’s a new direction, what is it?” And then it starts to come to me.

I look at everything in life as artistic—from cooking…really, any job you can think of. If you do it in a way that is thoughtful, efficient and valuing life, as well as your time and energy, then the right things happen at the right time.  

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.

4. Your Simplification Tip

by Shawn Tuttle

Leaving room to breathe

Think about a medicine cabinet that has so much stuff shoved in it that you can barely close the door. You have to reach in very carefully, holding hands steady in order to pull anything out without causing an avalanche of bottles and tubes. Not so easy to use! That medicine cabinet is much easier to handle when you leave space between each item, isn’t it?   You can think about your schedule in a similar way. Allowing varying amounts of cushion between your activities and appointments makes for a much more enjoyable daily experience. Leaving extra space in your schedule makes it easier to weave in unexpected events, spontaneity, 10-15 minutes of quiet time in the afternoon, make-up project time, and good nourishment.

There’s one more benefit to easing up on your schedule in this way: it’s a stress reducer. This means better health, which leads to fewer bottles of stuff in your medicine cabinet!

 

——————————————————————————————————-
Spread simplicity – forward The Simplifier to your friends and colleagues!
——————————————————————————————————-

5. In the News

Compiled by Lance Brown

Separation anxiety (Northwest Herald – Crystal Lake, IL)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/5a5qld   
It can be hard letting go. Just ask my dog Cali, who pitches a fit if I leave the house for more than 10 minutes without him. But you are not a dog, and your stuff is not your overly-loving owner who spoils the crap out of you. So repeat after me: if you don’t use it, need it, or love it – give it up. I think you’ll be glad you did. 

Here’s how to organize a home office  (San Jose Mercury News – San Jose, CA)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/66jamh  
I’ve been trying to create the perfect home office for the past 13 years, in more than 10 different homes. I finally began to have success by getting rid of everything I had in my old offices, and starting from something close to scratch. (“Does this need to be on my desk? No. Do those need to be stacked behind me? No. Do I really use my desk drawers? No.”  And so on.) This article has some good suggestions to maybe help save you from a decade or so of home offices that aren’t quite right.

Got clutter? Fun with dumping  (Wicked Local Plymouth – Plymouth, MA)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/5bo6w2         
Being a former smoker of 15 years (now free for 5 years), I have no problem preaching to those who haven’t found the way out yet. They know they need to quit, and I’m living proof that they can in fact do so. Well, guess what? I’m also a reforming clutterbug. I haven’t quite finished the process, though—which means you still have time to clear out your stuff before I preach too hard. (Yes, that’s right, this is me preaching soft. You don’t want to wait around for the other guy.) Start with a closet, says this article’s author. Just totally empty it. Just the sight of that totally empty space can inspire minor greatness. See for yourself!

If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!

 

 

 

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

by Lance Brown

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

As Project Simplify’s web site maestro, I’m often given more credit than I deserve. The truth is, like any good conductor, I’ve simply tapped into an orchestra of talented web programmers—hundreds of them, really—whose years of effort have been combined to make the symphony that is ProjectSimplify.com. The remarkable part is that, without exception, these relatively unknown and underappreciated folks have provided their dulcimer tones of code at no cost! Which means comparing them to virtuoso musicians is not that far off…if someone works on a labor of love for months or years, and then releases it to the world for free, they are the very definition of an artist, in my opinion.

So here’s to the web artists who have created the bits and parts that collectively allow the Project Simplify web site to do what it does. We quite literally could not have done it without them!

The WordPress website/blog software provides the core support structure for our site. About 95% of the pages on our site are served up to our visitors by WordPress, which I would recommend with few reservations to anyone trying to set up their own website. The number of hours that have been put into creating WordPress (which has been around for more than 5 years) couldn’t be calculated, but there are dozens of people who have dedicated a serious chunk of their lives to the project, allowing tens of thousands of people to create flexible and robust web sites for free. 

There are hundreds more people who have put in smaller amounts of time improving WordPress, either helping with the overall project, or creating one of the gazillion “plugins” (which add features to the core software) or “themes” (which provide a visual and structural template for the site). There are almost too many free plugins and themes for WordPress—one could spend hours or even days “window-shopping” through the various sites where they are compiled (for free, of course). And it’s easy to over-consume, adding feature after feature to build a crazed (but really just misunderstood) Frankensite. (Which you then have to burn down along with the other angry villagers.)

Even with our relatively frills-free site, we use a whole bunch of WordPress plugins, including the following: 

deUncategorize Get-a-Post Google Sitemaps Feedburner Feed Replacement In Series JS Toggle Boxes Khanh’s Instant Notepad Latest From Each Category My Link Order Related Posts Search Meter Search Reloaded

Spam Karma 2 WordPress Database Backup WP-AddQuicktag WP-Amazon WP-ContactForm WP-DBManager WP-EMail WP-Print WPG2 Zap_NewWindow

Of the 5% of our site that’s not run by WordPress, about 3% is run by another free software, Gallery. Gallery runs (surprise!) our image galleries, most particularly our Simplicity in Nature photo gallery. Really, we’re only using a tiny amount of Gallery’s capabilities. It’s a double-decker bus of software that we’re using as a commuter car. But we hope to expand to having user-generated galleries (among other things), and Gallery can go as far as we need it to go. (It also has a wide pool of user-contributed addons.)

Another 1% of the site is our “PS Store“, which is run on the very simple (and pretty much obsolete) MicroShop by Owen Winkler.

(The remaining 1% of the site is made up of PDFs and other goodies that Shawn has created – most of which can be found on our Freebies page.)

Last but not least, the visual style of ProjectSimplify.com is based on the foundation provided by Marcos Sader‘s equiX theme for WordPress. We’ve strayed pretty far from that foundation, but we thank Marcos for giving us somewhere to start from.

Thanks to all the amazing web programmers out there, helping Project Simplify (and many, many others) put our vision out into the world!

 

 

 

7. Keep Smiling

Introduced by Lance Brown

Selections from “A Loving Home”

Here are a few choice images created by the father/daughter team of Louis  and Tirza Buchetto of A Loving Home Gallery:

“When you’re acting like a dragon cook some marshmallows with your fire”

“When you’re moving slow try to remember it’s ok because there’s really no place to go”

“When you see only the dark know the Light will soon return”

These pictures and many others are available for purchase in a variety of formats at A Loving Home Gallery’s website.

And for the kiddies (or the kiddie in you), A Loving Home offers Free Printable Coloring Book Pages!

Thanks to Louis and Tirza for providing this issue’s reason to keep smiling. :-)

 

 

 

——-

Thanks for reading!

Publication Information
————————————————————————–
The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: newsletter@projectsimplify.com