Ideas Inspire Innovation

How vegetable gardening is like business Each morning this week, as I’ve surveyed the leaves of my vegetable garden, I’ve noticed a different caterpillar. First it was my baby tomatillo plant. I found the green bulbous body hanging on to the stem of one of the sprouts. I think I shrieked. It was my first encounter and, clearly, this was the culprit who ate holes out of the leaves while we were on vacation. I extracted him onto my garden shears and marched him straight down to the waste bin. I brushed my hands off and thought, “Good riddance. You won’t make a mess out of my plants again!” Then, yesterday afternoon it was my romaine lettuce. A thick green slimy belly weaved his way between my plants.  He looked similar to the tomatillo terrorist but he was even bigger (like 2 inches long)! After researching caterpillars, I believe that he and his friends are some sort of moth caterpillars. A moth had to have found my greenery so pleasant that it felt the need to leave

Today, I'm working on the third edition of my newsletter, The Aha Moment. Last month, someone commented that publishing this newsletter takes guts. I wholeheartedly agree. Developing an email newsletter can be a daunting task and I am not immune to the vulnerability that seeps in as soon as I hit the SEND button each month I saw a cartoon the other day that sums it up pretty well. You think you have a good idea, you get inspired, and so you create. You create, and then you share/publish/show your creation to the world. Immediately, self-doubt sets in. You think about how immature, irrelevant, unprofessional, and/or unworthy your creation is compared to the thousands of others out there. Why would anyone find your creation to be of interest? That is the vulnerability I'm talking about. But thankfully, my guts, in the middle of the swarm of butterflies, say, "What's the worst that could happen? If someone unsubscribes it's okay. It's feedback. It means you