Tiny Buddha – The Book, Interview with Lori Deschene

A couple of years ago, an interesting Twitter handle caught my attention. It was something called @tinybuddha and it aimed at delivering “simple wisdom for complex lives”. This handle grew over the last years to become one of the most popular self-help Twitter accounts. At the moment of writing this, it has more than 200.000 followers, which, to be honest with you, it’s huge. A few months ago, I had the pleasure to be introduced to the person behind this Twitter account. Yes, there is a person behind this Twitter account, and her name is Lori Deschene. And now I have the honor to introduce you to the same person, by the means of an interview.

Hold on, though. Don’t rush, there’s plenty of time. The reason behind this interview is the launch of the book. Yes, there is a book, and probably one of the most interesting modern self-help books, a unique compilation of Twitter accounts and other interesting bits and pieces of, you got it, simple wisdom for complicated lives. No, you won’t find any tweets by me, and I think this is a good thing, because you may be already bored with what I write here. But you will find plenty of very good stuff, from other fine personal development obsessed freaks like yours truly. So, without any further ado, I will give you now Lori Deschene (look for the end of the interview, though, because there is also a giveaway ).

1. Why Buddha? And why tiny?

Tiny Buddha first started on Twitter, and the stream included just one daily quote—mostly from the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and other Buddhist thinkers. The name seemed fitting, since it was essentially a tiny piece of daily wisdom. (A friend of mine actually came up with it, so I can’t take full credit!)

Since then, Tiny Buddha has expanded to include a community blog and now my book, but the main idea remains the same: It’s about simple daily wisdom to help us live more mindfully, peacefully, and happily in our everyday lives.

Over time, I’ve found the word “tiny” to be appropriate on many levels. Happiness generally boils down to the tiny choices we make every day. Purpose and success are generally the result of many tiny steps in a direction that feels right to us. And mindfulness is about focusing on the tiny things right in front of us, instead of dwelling on the big things that happened in days past, or we fear may happen in days to come.

2. Tell me 3 things nobody knows about you.

I don’t think there’s anything that nobody knows about me! However, there are some lesser known facts:

I wore a scoliosis back brace for almost three years when I was in elementary school—and I got Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block to sign it.

I was in the children’s choir for the Boston run of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond. All the other kids were between 8 and 13; I was a 17-year old with pigtails.

I purposely keep a light schedule and regularly turn down opportunities to earn additional money because I enjoy having time to do nothing in specific. People often start emails to me with, “I know you must be really busy…” but I am blissfully not!

3. How was the book writing experience?

It was simultaneously the most challenging and satisfying experience of my life. For years, I told myself I couldn’t write a book because I was better with shorter works, like magazine articles and blog posts. I think this was my way of avoiding doing something that I was scared to do.

Once I jumped in, I realized I could do it—it just required a lot more effort than anything else I’d ever done, especially since I included nearly 200 tweets. That’s how the whole project started: I asked a number of life’s hardest questions on the @tinybuddha Twitter stream, and then shaped the book around the responses.

It was enlightening and inspiring to see how different people answered these questions, which included: What’s the meaning of life? What does it take to be happy? Can people change—and how?

I included many of my own experiences grappling with life’s big issues, and that was both liberating and cathartic. I feel grateful that I was able to share so much of myself and also highlight varied perspectives for peace, purpose, happiness, and connection.

I also created a contest connected to theme of my book. It’s called the “Life’s Hard Questions” contest, and it runs until January 15, 2012. Anyone can enter by submitting a photo of themselves displaying the hardest question in their life at lifeshardquestions.com.
The winners will be chosen at random, though there will be a special prize for the most creative. The prizes include a Canon DSLR camera, two Kindles, and 10 free copies of my book. It’s just another opportunity for people to get involved and share a little of themselves.

4. Why did you want to write a book in the first place?

I originally started the community blog because I’d caused myself a lot of pain in life, and I wanted to create a space where we can all help each overcome adversity, heal, and thrive.

Over the past two years, I’ve published posts from more than 175 contributors; and many of them have revolved around the same ideas—choosing happiness, letting go of the past, living life to the fullest, and creating positive change, for example.

We all deal with the same universal challenges in life, and we all need to make choices based on what feels right and makes sense to us individually. There are very few one-size-fits-all answers. This means we need to learn to trust ourselves, and identify and utilize the answers that we find most empowering.

That’s not always easy to do, especially in an information-overloaded world where there are always new ideas and suggestions coming our way.

I wrote this book because I wanted to acknowledge our shared humanity—all the different things we all go through and deal with—and then explore some ways to thrive right in this moment, both in spite of and because of those challenges.

5. Who’s your best friend?

I don’t know that I have a best friend, but I have a few people who I’m closer to than anyone else. My boyfriend is one of them. He took me skydiving on our second date, and it’s been an amazing adventure for the last two and a half years—both the extraordinary and ordinary moments. I tried to get him to wear a gold half-heart BFF necklace, but so far, no luck!

6. Name 3 places where people could read your book.

In a park, in a coffee shop, in the bathtub. Those are the places where I read! If you mean where people can purchase the book, they can get it on Amazon, in their local book store, or through a number of independent book sellers.

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Now, here’s a nice picture of the book. To get it from Amazon, just click on it (no affiliate links, so there’s nothing for me in this, I’m promoting it just because I really like it).

If you want to have it in your hands, just leave a comment and I will get in touch with you for the details. Lori was kind enough to give 2 copies of the physical books to two lucky readers of my blog. So, hurry up

Brilliantly Better – The Ebook

Last Friday I launched – in soft mode – my latest ebook, Brilliantly Better. During the last 48 hours anyone interested in getting it had the chance to buy it at a discounted price, 9.99 USD. As of now, the price of the ebook is at the normal level, meaning 16.99 USD.

Also, a few other things have been completed, adding the final touches to the launch. First, I finished a promo movie. I’m really proud about how it came out, more about that in the next paragraphs. Second, a brand new website has been put in place, and that would be, obviously, Brilliantly Better.

The Brilliantly Better Movie

This is my first attempt ever at making a movie. I don’t know anything abut this so I asked a very good friend to help me out. He’s one of the best guys I know at this thing, with thousands of hours of work on the field, and dozens of commercials already aired. His name is Sega and you can find more about what he does by clicking on that link.

We spent the last Saturday shooting in my living room, experimenting with various lenses and gear and settings and props. I never thought that getting a few minutes of valuable filmed material can be that hard. But it was also incredibly fun. We both enjoyed our time and we did that not because we had to, but because we liked it. Huge difference. Meaning we had a blast

I should also mention that the music and the sound on the movie were also supervised by Sega (I’m the one talking, though, obviously). I should also note that we shoot it with my Canon 450D, with two types of lenses, and the music was made on my iPad, using Garage Band. The editing was completed on Sega’s laptop, on Adobe Premiere. The total number of hours spent on this was around 20.

One of the things that really helped us out was the fact that we have a lot of common beliefs. During the last 3 years Sega has been on his own quest too, traveling through India and Asia. Also, he started to write a novel about his spiritual adventures, the book (in Romanian) should be published soon. Also, we’re both fussy and expensive. But, as you can see, we deliver.

As for the movie, you can see it at the end of this post. If you like it, share it. Also, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

What Should You Expect From The Ebook

I’m sure you already clicked on the first link and you read everything on the Brilliantly Better website. I’m writing this for the 1.34% of you who didn’t.

You will get more 70 articles, 500 pages, each and every one of them carefully selected out of more than 700.000 words I’ve written on my blog since I started it, 3 years ago. It’s just the best of what I wrote so far.

And I won’t say a word more than that, because you should really be at the ebook site now. And because I deeply hate those ridiculously long and shallow sales pages, that way of promoting stuff I did just doesn’t click with me.

Enjoy Brilliantly Better – The Ebook!

Brilliantly Better – The Ebook – The Soft Launch

The time has come for me to release another product. This time, it will be a VERY, VERY different launch. Partly because we’re dealing with a very different product, but partly because I want to experiment a bit in this area. So, without further ado, let’s start this.

Brilliantly Better – The Ebook

During the last 5 years, I wrote more than 500 articles on this blog. That’s more than 500.000 words. For these articles, I received around 9.000 comments. I know the numbers are making you dizzy. They make me dizzy too.

But keeping this blog was never a contest. Was a way to improve my life and (potentially) the life of other people. Or, at least to inspire them so they make their life better themselves. Judging by the numbers, it looks like I did it.

But there’s more to life than just numbers. Sometimes, we feel like we’re somehow directed on our path. Like an invisible string will pull us on our journeys. Looking back at my blog, I can almost see that red string. I can identify topics, concepts, ideas, situations that made this blog so popular, and that also shaped my life for the past 5 years.

Those things, that soft core of my every day activity, that precious marrow, well, that’s what you’re going to find in this book. Brilliantly Better is made up of more than 70 articles, packing together more than 100.000 words, all of this spread on more than 500 pages. It’s the best of my writing. And that’s all I have to say about this book.

And the next thing I’ll do is to will let you have an excerpt of it. Namely, the foreword, the table of contents and the first article, which, by the way, it’s an article very close to my heart, called “Playgrounds And Balloons”. If you want to get the entire book, read on. Otherwise, just click the link below to download the free excerpt.

 Brilliantly Better Excerpt (212)

The Soft Launch

For the first time, I won’t use affiliates for this book. Of course I want it to be popular and reviewed. But I want you to do spread the word about this only if you really enjoyed it. That is for sure a first for me, never did that before.

Also, I will use a soft delay until the book will be fully launched. Meaning it will be available today, but only for a close audience: my newsletter subscribers and the readers of this post who really want it. The sale price will be 17.99 USD but until Monday you may get it for 9.99 USD. That’s because you’re smart, you know.

If you want the book at this price, just leave a comment using your real email address and I’ll email the link to you. Yes, it may look cumbersome, but at least I’ll know you really want the book.

That’s it for now. A bigger blog post should follow on Monday, when the normal launch should take place.

3 Ebooks To Read This Summer

When you summon the power to move on, to continue on your path, to just not quit, magic things are happening. Almost 2 years ago I didn’t even imagined that I would come to know so many interesting persons through blogging. Today, I think I have a close blogging friend in every country I would like to travel to. At least. For instance. I personally know all the authors presented in this article. Many of them are blogging buddies, met through social media. Today is a day when I gladly take the time to celebrate some of their achievements.

Upgrade Reality – by Dirk de Bruin (Diggy)

I met Diggy online 2 years ago. Just like me, he just started to blog and I was simply stunned when he told me he was only 23. It certainly didn’t sound like a 23 years old to me. I started to follow his blog and we quickly become friends.

Last week he launched his first ebook, called Upgrade Reality. He also nick-named the ebook: “The no-nonsense guide to overcoming personal obstacles and getting the life of your dreams.” We’re dealing with 122 pages in which he’s talking about: achievement and success, productivity, confidence and self-esteem, business, body and mind, people and relationships. And many more.

The ebook is easy to read but it’s not an easy ebook. This is just a short part that got my attention:

“The point of this book was not so much to give you solutions for specific problems rather than to give you an awareness and a sense of consciousness that it is possible to overcome anything and achieve your goals.”

If I would have to share in a single paragraph what I got from this book, it would go like this: a fresh and honest perspective on self-improvement. I wonder how many of us would write a self-improvement ebook at 25. How many of us would be ready to share their frustrations – and the corresponding breakthroughs based on those frustrations at this age? Even if it would be only for that, I would recommend giving Diggy’s book a try.

It’s available for 27 USD by clicking here.

Follow Diggy on Twitter: @UpgradeReality or visit his blog: http://www.upgradereality.com.

The Personal Excellence Ebook – by Celestine Chua

I met Celes about the same time I met Diggy. To be honest, one of the most intriguing part about those two people was their geographical location: Diggy is from South Africa and Celes from Singapore. And yet, despite this huge distance that separates us (I’m from Romania, by the way) we still found a lot of common ground.

Celes launched her first product too a week ago: The Personal Excellence Book – with a name obviously coming from The Personal Excellence Blog, the brand name of Celestine outlet. It’s not an ebook. It’s a compendium. I think it’s the biggest ebook I have ever seen. More than 800 pages of self-improvement content. Most of this content is based on previously published articles at Celes’ blog, but I don’t see how this could be a problem. On the contrary.

If you just want to get a glimpse of what’s inside, here are the main sections: Purpose and Meanindg, Awareness and Growth, Passion and Dreams, Goals and Success, Emotional Mastery, People and Relationships, Maximizing Productivity. An interesting part is the one that contains inspirational quotes.

Main impression: a very powerful feeling of ambition and persistence. Beyond the regular articles (which are way above the average, rest assured about that), this ebook gave me a very strong vibration of determination. I think the main benefit of this ebook would be exactly this: a personal example of personal power and self-discipline.

The Personal Excellence Ebook is available for 24.95 USD by clicking here.

Follow Celestine Chua on Twitter: @CelestineChua or visit her blog: http://www.personalexcellence.co.

Evernote Essentials – by Brett Kelly

Back in the golden age of GTD, Brett Kelly was one of the distinct voices. I remember that his blog was one of the first I read on the topic. Time passed by and GTD is no longer an option for me. Instead, I created my own productivity system, called Assess – Decide – Do (and in case you wonder, yes, there’s an app for that). But I kept an eye on Brett’s work, keeping in touch via Twitter.

A few weeks ago he launched his first ebook, called Evernote Essentials. If you don’t know what Evernote is, I’ll let you know briefly that Evernote tries to become the Swiss Army knife of productivity. It’s a collecting, processing and storage tool. An all-in-one pack that really works. I’m a constant user myself so I just couldn’t miss Brett’s view on this one.

This would be a completely different read, but hopefully in a very balanced way. If you’re a long time user of Evernote, you will surely find some hidden gems. If you’re using Evernote for the first time, you will spend at least a few full days only exploring the possibilities. All in all, it’s an 80 pages geeky (and relaxing at the same time, in a surprising way) read.

The ebook is available for 25 USD by clicking here.

Follow Brett Kelly on Tiwtter: @inkedmn or visit his blog: http://nerdgap.com.

2 Free Bonuses

I know I told you about 3 ebooks, but I thought to give you some pointers for another 2 additional resources, from 2 of the very well respected bloggers I know. Those 2 are completely free, by the way.

How To Get 10.000 Subscribers To Your Blog – by Steven Aitchison

This is the first attempt of Steven to create a product in direct relationship with his readers expectations. The ebook is the result of a poll Steven ran on his blog, in which he asked his readers what were the topics they want him to write on. He gave at least 7 different choices but apparently the vast majority of people picked this one.

I think the title says it all, so if you’re a blogger, or you just fantasize about how to be a blogger, grab it, read it and don’t forget to breathe. You can thank me later.

The ebook it’s available for free at Steven’s blog: 10000 Subscribers.

Follow Steven on Twitter: @StevenAitchison or read his blog: http://www.StevenAitchison.co.uk/blog.

Binaural Basics – by Carl Harvey

I’m a long term fan of binaural beats, but only recently I started to use them on a constant basis. I also realized I was a little bit behind because there were some newcomers to the party since I didn’t touch base with this area. Iso-chronic files, for instance, were something completely new to me. So, I felt the need to update my background a bit and the most interesting resource that came to my attention was Carl Harvey’s blog binauralbeatsgeek.com.

You can get this ebook completely free if you just sign up for his newsletter (which, to be honest, it’s an incredible resource in itself, if you’re interested about this). Just go to http://www.binauralbeatsgeek.com, find the newsletter form and sign up. You get a 80 pages ebook giving you a very detailed description of various types of brainwave tones, of the scientific research on which they are based and the major differences between different types (iso-chronic versus binaural or monoaural).

Either you plan to deepen you knowledge (or practice, why not) on this fascinating field, Carl’s free ebook is a very useful resource.

Follow Carl Harvey on Twitter: @pdplanet or read his blog: http://www.binauralbeatgeek.com.

How To Network Awesomely – A Book Review

Colin Wright, the author of Network Awesomely, the book I’m going to talk about today, could be easily substituted to my blog post about being a digital nomad. I mean, the guy lives in a different country every two months, blog about his experiences in some of the most remote corners of the world while still maintaining his brains in one piece. If you still don’t believe me, go check out his guest post on my blog.

Now, what’s the thing with this ebook? Why is this important enough to talk about it today? In one simple sentence: because it’s packed with value. And if you want to know more than one simple sentence, relax and sit down, I’ll tell you all about the 4 points this ebook won from my part.

A Networking Ebook Written By Many Authors

The first thing that will really hit you when you’ll read this ebook is that it’s written not by a single author, not by two authors but by more than 20 well established bloggers. Exactly, you will find more than one opinion, from one guy. Which is kinda makes sense since we’re talking about an ebook on networking. Which reminds me that I’m one of those 20 bloggers in the ebook, with a short fragment of what I’ve learned from more than 10 years of doing business (and I’m the shy type, if you’re wondering). There are a lot of other well established bloggers and I will randomly select only 3 names (don’t want to upset anyone) just to give an idea: Johnny B. Truant, Diggy from UpgradeReality.com and Oscar del Ben from Freestyle Mind. That’s the first big point that the ebook wins from yours truly.

Simple, Workable Advice

The second point the ebook wins is on the content layer: a part the content provided by those more than 20 bloggers, what Colin writes is not rocket science. It’s simple, workable advice that can be applied from the next second. If you’re wondering, Colin was also on the “bad with people” side, but he managed to get over it. Don’t expect diagrams or flip charts on this ebook, it’s all about direct interaction and simple things.

Appealing Design

I confess that I was a little bit shocked when I first read the ebook. Because it didn’t look like an ebook at all. It looked like a nice magazine. And then I realized that since Colin is a big advocate of lifestyle design, the ebook should have taken the form of a lifestyle magazine too. So, be prepared for a little bit of visual challenge, on the “nice and appealing” side of the word “challenge”. And that would be the point number 3, of course.

Affordable

I won’t say more. The ebook is 20$ and for a package filled with so much valuable info, from so many sources, I really think Colin did the best he could to come with an affordable price. So, if you’re into the networking game, or just want to go over your social shyness, go grab the ebook now. You can thank me later. By the way, that was the 4th point.