Laura Hennings TEDx Hartford

 

A Healthy, Wealthy and Wise New Year

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

A popular greeting dating to the 17th Century wishes that you be "Healthy, wealthy and wise."  Benjamin Franklin even included it in his Poor Richard's Almanac.

 

Now, life and business coach Laura Hennings is putting her own spin on how to achieve this health/wealth balance - on your own terms. Speaking at the TEDx Talk Hartford, December 4th, Hennings talked about "approaching wealth creation in a more holistic way." A way that doesn't just focus on making money, but on "achieving success by embracing freedom and passion."

At the start of each new year, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel always look for something positive to highlight. We're especially glad to share Hennings' ideas with you because she is Sunny's niece and we have both watched her evolve into the confident person she's become.

 

Striding onto the conference stage, Laura began her TEDx Talk with a vivid story that embodied her journey to achieve success.

It recounted how a decade ago, while still in college, she was standing alone in Thailand with a giant backpack to carry and no one to rely on other than herself. Hoisting the heavy pack, Laura went on to explore the country as she set out on an adventure far from home that would take her to many other countries and introduce her to people around the world.

 

Putting her International Business degree from CSU, Long Beach, to use, Hennings formed the 9 to Thrive Academy and Own Your Own Wild Collective life coaching programs, helping people to reach their potential. More than money, Hennings encourages people to focus on having fulfilling life experiences which bring about personal growth and can ultimately lead to wealth.

Referring to the Old English definition of wealth, Hennings told the TEDx audience it encompasses not only monetary wealth, but your welfare and wellbeing. Going even farther back, it means a state of good fortune or happiness.  

 

As in Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, rather than doing what everyone else does, sometimes achieving wealth means taking the "road less traveled." It's also important to succeed on your own timeline, Hennings says. Instead of pressuring yourself to reach milestones or goals set by others, allow yourself time to discover and explore the things that appeal to you.  

 

Crediting her mother Rose Singer for encouraging her to take risks and find her own road, Hennings says, "Follow your happy. This is your way to wealth."

 

 

And, whatever roads you take, SurfWriter Girls hope they lead to a healthy, wealthy and wise New Year.        

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Discover A Sea of Gifts

 

Celebrating Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gifts

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

During the holidays when much of the focus is on gifts – what to give and what we’re hoping to receive – the best gifts of all may not be in stores, but waiting for us to discover on the beach.

“The beach is not the place to work, to read, to write or think,” begins Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her much-loved book, written in 1955 – Gift from the Sea.

“Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines…One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea, bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by the tides of all yesterday’s scribbling.”

With “patience,” Lindbergh writes, one will come to experience the “gifts from the sea.” Whether it’s a rare shell or a perfectly-rounded stone, a strong emotion or a new sense of awareness, the gifts will come.

Lindbergh, the wife of famed American aviator Charles Lindbergh, found solace by the sea and shared her musings in her books.  

In keeping with this, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel wish you a Christmas stocking filled with your own gifts from the sea:

Simplicity.  Studying a sea shell found on a walk, Lindbergh observes how simple it is. “One learns first of all in beach living the art of shedding, how little one can get along with, not how much.”

Solitude. “It is a difficult lesson to learn today…to practice the art of solitude,” writes Lindbergh. Yet, alone on the beach, she “watched the gulls…dip and wheel and dive for the scraps I threw them.” And, felt a kinship. “The beauty of earth and sea and air meant more to me. I was in harmony with it, melted into the universe.”

Friendship. Lindbergh savors the gifts of friendship exchanged on the beach, openly and freely. “The pure relationship, how beautiful it is!” she notes. “Strangers smile at you on the beach, come up and offer you a shell. Nothing is demanded of you in payment, no social rite expected.”  

Home. Gazing at the oyster beds, Lindbergh recognizes the importance of home and of “forming ties, roots, a firm base.” She sees each oyster “has its place on the rock to which it has fitted itself perfectly and to which it clings tenaciously.”

Balance. Lindbergh’s closeness to the sea with the ebb and flow of the tides gives her a “balance of physical, intellectual, and spiritual life. Work without pressure. Space for significance and beauty. Time for solitude and sharing.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s love of the sea and her patient explorations of the beach environment enabled her to experience and share its gifts.

At this holiday season SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti wish you these “gifts from the sea”… and more.

Beach salvage mini-sculpture by OC artist Marty Naftel

Happy Holidays!

Patti and Sunny

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

SurfWriter Girls Christmas Books 2022

 

A Lineup of Good Reads

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel 

If you’re looking for the perfect books for the surfers on your Christmas list or something special for yourself, take a look at these books SurfWriter Girls found for you.

 

To share the stoke or have an armchair adventure, these ocean and surf-themed books are just the thing for whiling away a cold, winter day by a warm fireplace.  

Deep Focus (The Deep Series), by Nick Sullivan, is a fun, escapist novel where much of the action takes place in the pristine waters of the Cayman Islands during the ill-fated film shoot of a science fiction movie. When strange incidents and mishaps start happening and the leading lady goes missing, it's up to the dive masters on the production, Boone Fischer and Emily Durand, to figure out what's going on in the troubled waters surrounding this movie before it fades to black.    

 

Five Hundred Summer Stories: A Life in IMAX, by Greg MacGillivray, documentary filmmaker and 70mm IMAX pioneer, tells about his start in Hollywood working on blockbusters The Shining and Speed and his career filming larger-than-life nature movies, from under the sea to the top of Mt. Everest. An Academy Award Nominee for The Living Sea documentary and renowned for his films Mt. Everest, Dolphins, Coral Reef Adventures, The Alps, To the Arctic, MacGillivray's book is a treasure trove of stories and photos.  

The Swell, by Allie Reynolds, is a surfing thriller that critics are calling "Point Break meets Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None." When Kenna Ward goes on a surfing trip to a remote Australian beach, hoping to find some epic waves, she gets more than she bargained for when members of the group she's with start to go missing. The island paradise is more deadly than she imagines and her chances of staying alive will call on Kenna's ability to read people as well as she does the ever-changing tides. 

 

Turn and Go! 50 Years of Surf Writings, by Steve Pezman, is a collection of stories, musings, and reviews from this former longtime editor of Surfer magazine and The Surfer's Journal. Written by a waverider who has been at the epicenter of the surfing revolution since the 1960s, this book tells how the sport has grown from a fad into a way of life and a major industry, about the surfers themselves, and why they keep paddling out to challenge the waves.  

Wayward, by Chris Burkhard, is the latest book by this leading surfing and nature photographer, who gives new meaning to the phrase "off the beaten path." This collection of striking photos and the personal stories behind them, takes you on a wilderness adventure from Russia and Iceland to the Aleutian Islands, to icy fortresses, dazzling Northern Lights-painted skies, and mist-covered beaches. Far from civilization, Burkhard's camera captures the stillness and majesty of places that few people have seen. 

 

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens, is a bestselling novel and new movie that combines the world of nature with a coming-of-age story and a murder mystery. Set in the marsh lands along the North Carolina coast, it's a tale of self-discovery, love and scientific observations in an environment where the marsh itself wraps its aura around everything. Filled with surprises, danger and a main character - Kya, the Marsh Girl - who will win your heart and admiration with her resilience and beauty as she fights for her very survival.      

And, as an extra gift for someone you care about or to yourself, SurfWriter Girls recommend the classic book Gift from the Sea written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1955.

 

Lindbergh, the wife of famed aviator Charles Lindberg, reminds us that the best gifts of all may not come from stores, but be waiting for us to discover on the beach.

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.