Franklin Taggart's Unconventional Life Blog

Thanks for the supportive notes and calls after my video the other day talking about seasonal depression. I was telling a friend that one of the things that is hard when I'm feeling that way is that other people see it as a problem to solve or something broken to fix. That usually just makes it feel worse. Those of you who were able to just let me have the time I needed and my own process to work it out are appreciated beyond words. I've mentioned these people before:  Sydney Banks - The blue-collar Scotsman who spontaneously awakened and realized the relationship between thought and emotional experience. Lester Levenson - The skeptical physicist who dove into relentless self-inquiry after his second heart attack at age 42, discovering a way to release emotional resistance and experience incredible freedom. Esther Hicks - A spiritual seeker and experimenter who became an open channel for another realm as she learned to meditate. I've learned something from each of them abou...

We have a rule in our house that whoever doesn't cook the meal does the dishes. While it seems fair on the surface, I'm not so sure. I'm a one pot kind of guy, and I tend to clean as I go most of the time, so that by the time I serve, there won't be a sink full of dishes other than the ones we eat from. My wife is a chef. The table is her canvas, and the kitchen her palette. We own three generations worth of cooking utensils of every variety, and I'm pretty sure that she uses most of them whenever she cooks. Now the bellywaddin' that I cook is comforting and filling. It won't show up on any Food Network shows, but for a hungry family it'll do just fine. Monica's meals are much more of a craft. She never uses recipes, except to bake, and she follows her whims and inspiration until there is a hearty, world class meal on the table. She's Italian, so most of the time it's Mangia! time around our house, which means that when she cooks, I do the di...

When I look at the list of clients that I have worked with over the years, the most remarkable thing to see that they all have in common is that they all possess tremendous courage. Whether they are teachers, authors, artists, poets, designers, musicians, dancers, entrepreneurs, or any others of the hundreds of people I've worked with, their lives are shaped by the courage within them that won't settle for anything less than a path that they carve out for themselves. It is humbling to be in their presence. To them it doesn't feel all that significant; it's just something they are doing. They get embarrassed if I imply at all that they are in the least bit courageous. Courage in their minds is reserved for firefighters and skydivers, extreme skiers and daredevils. What they don't realize is that their courage sets them apart from a large majority of the rest of the world. The author who writes every day despite not knowing in the least whether what he's writing...