Practice bathing like it is an art. Run a bubble bath. Add rose hip essential oil.
Accept that fresh flowers are a necessity.
Pour a glass of Malbec and get a dark chocolate salted caramel. (Better make that two.)
Say what you’re thinking. Let the pieces fall where they may.
Turn on jazz radio. Let Brubeck serenade you while you slip your clothes off. (To get in the bath, obviously.)
Embrace ease. (Why does everything need to be a struggle anyway?)
Buy the dress.
Dress up. Have no reason. (Realizing you can’t? Go shopping. You don’t have to spend much to feel completely fabulous. All my cutest dresses are local thrift finds. I also adore Twice, an online secondhand retailer. Use this link to get a $10 credit.)
No, really. Dress up.
Play with pin curls.
Wear lipstick and heels.
Go dancing.
Take up salsa. It might just be your body’s way of expressing joy.
Be sensual.
Establish places you love being at where the staff recognizes you and gives you special treatment.
Find a dance partner.
Take a lover.
Hell, take three.
Hmm. Maybe just one. (Decide maybe your plan wasn’t the best one, anyway.)
Stay up all night.
Discover how sexy hands can be.
Surrender. In every sense of the word.
Make love till dawn.
Write.
Write more.
Be more compassionate. (And keeping trying when you fail at it.)
Stand out. Get okay with the discomfort that comes with that.
Take the family out to dinner. Revel in four generations of trying to make due just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.
Change your mind.
Change it again.
Look in the mirror. Accept you’re not the person you used to be – and that’s a beautiful thing.
Show gratitude.
No really, gratitude is a practice. Work on it.
Thank your best friend for the towels.
Thank someone for being honest after a hard conversation.
Leave a thank you note for your neighbor with the beautiful voice.
Be brave.
Laugh more.
Recent + Relevant Posts:
A big ask – and lots to give.
As some of you know, I’ve been staying at my mom’s since August. It’s helped me stabilize my finances some and keep up to date on all those lovely little pieces of debt I’ve been paying off while I was searching for a job. And if you’ve known me long, you know that staying there…
What happened. (Now leave me alone.)
Lately, I’ve been a little, um, emotional. Tapped out. Closer to fight or flight than I want to be. I kicked a foot-shaped dent into the side of some asshole’s Mini Cooper who tried to get me to get into his car. (I’m pro sex work/ers, but I’m real anti old white guys thinking everyone…
Fuck love and light.
Trigger warning: Woo woo bitches with no backbone taken to church below. I am very, very angry. I’ve been working online for the past 7+ years, and let me tell you, I never planned on being a marketer. Once upon a time, I just wrote. I shared the things I was learning in the hopes…
It took me 7 years to find sustainable success. How long will it take you?
I’ve been having a lot of great conversations with my colleagues about what it takes to be successful in business, especially around how long it takes. The common theme I’ve heard from people I respect and have watched grow alongside me is that it takes many of us 7 years. SEVEN YEARS?! I hear you…
Filed Under:
Dusti Arab, Fractional CMO
And the founder of the reinvention co, a marketing consultancy specializing in working with personality-driven companies with small teams.
Intense, fun, and relentlessly practical, Dusti understands the lives of small business owners are deeply intertwined with their businesses, and if their marketing is going to be sustainable, it can't get in the way of why they do what they do. (And honestly? It should be fun so they actually want to do it.)
She is the host of Referral Worthy, a podcast for small business owners ready to go from "best kept secret" to the go-to name in their niche.