Mary Anne Radmacher - Live Boldly: Cultivate the Qualities That Can Change Your Life

Live Boldy is an invitation to choose to cultivate qualities which steer our lives in the direction of our dreams. Choose a quality and then practice living it as if no one were judgingor even watching. Mary Anne Radmacher offers an assortment of qualities to choose fromamong them forgiveness, gratitude, endurance, celebration, generosity, compassion, leadership35 in all. Each quality has a story, a quote, plus tool kit suggestions for how to make the quality your own.

Mary Anne has power in her words. Whether you're looking for a refresher course to remind you to stay on the path of doing the right thing, or you're looking for direction on how to take the first step, pick up this book and read it.

Troy McClain, international motivational speaker, award-winning television host, and official spokesperson for the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games

Mary Anne has the ability to communicate true wisdom, practical motivation, and fun in a simple yet profound way. This is her true genius.

Connie Fails

With a patchwork of qualities to embolden your life, Mary Anne Radmacher generously brings her stories and experiences alive on the page. Her words are simple and easy to grasp, woven together in an easy-to-understand way. Read her book for guidance and attention towards a more vivid, colorful, and bold life.

Beth Miller, author of The Woman's Book of Resilience

Whenever the storm clouds of my own world appear overwhelming, I turn to Mary Anne's words for a reminder that everything good is possible in its own way and its own time. I love the way Mary Anne tells a story. Turn to the Compassion chapter of Live Boldly. It drips like honey off her pen: I smell the smells, feel the fear, and smile at the incoherent way life runs us in circles while inscribing the real lessons in a corner of the margin.

Jonathan Huie, facilitator of Collaborative Group Planning

Live Boldly offers the tools we need to move beyond merely surviving each day to living more fully and deliberately.

Christine Witt-Trzcinski, president of Brush Dance, Inc.

I often find myself too busy or too disorganized to know where to start on this exciting life I've imagined. After reading Mary Anne's new book, I believed I could live a full, invigorated life. The book is a breath of fresh air when you most need it.

Gee Gee Rosell, owner of Buxton Village Books

Thirty-five small bits of wisdom. Thirty-five uh-huh-head-noddingmoments. Whether you take it in all at once, or read it in small bites, if you're ready to live boldly this is the book to read!

Sue Opeka, owner of The Present Moment

Beginning with the affirmation that living boldly does not mean living loudly, Mary Anne walks us through a tapestry of life values, managing to simplify the complex while adding nuance to the commonplace. Her toolbox is a palette of sensory approacheswriting, mapping, reflecting, magnifying, even pryingthat ensures anyone who wants to explore what it means to live boldly can find a way to do so.

Ellen Notbohm, author of Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew

Live Boldly comes to us at a time it is needed most. Indeed, it calls upon us to bring out our best and provides the tools to do so. Mary Anne's stories, written with such grace and power, made me laugh, touched my hearteven gave me goosebumps. What more could you ask of a book?

Tony Burroughs, author of The Code: 10 Intentions for a Better World

Like a Christmas tree sparkling with colored lights, Live Boldly offers countless words, phrases, quotations, and stories to further anyone's psycho-spiritual growth, however far they may be along their path.

Frank Andrews, author of The Art and Practice of Loving

First published in 2008 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

500 Third Street, Suite 230

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2008 by Mary Anne Radmacher. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-321-6

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Available upon request

Cover and text design by Maxine Ressler

Typeset in Adobe Garamond

Cover illustration and hand lettering Mary Anne Radmacher

Printed in Canada

FR

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

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To Susan Pfeiffer of Little Rock, Arkansas, who acted upon her vision with clarity blesses me with a legacy of friendship. Susan sent me in during her final seconds in the game.

To Connie Fails, who had the boldness to accept the transfer of position. The whole lot of Singers who let me hum along.

living as if no one is looking

Your fundamental character may be what you do when you think no one is watching. Thomas Jefferson asserted that truth. To live boldly is to create a synthesis between your observed and unobserved life.

I asked everybody in my symbol class to think of themselves dancing. To imagine how they move and what their patterns are in those movements. Then I asked them to draw a line showing that pattern of movement. And a hand raised. Question?

Do you want us to draw our dancing when people are watching us or when we are dancing alone?

I'll thank him again for asking that question. Dance is a mighty fine metaphor for living boldly. Live Boldly is an admonition to allow your desires and illuminating natural character to overshadow your sense of being watched, of standing in the judgment of others. That awareness of scrutiny is less about reputation than it is a fundamental desire for approval. If selfvalidation were our most significant measure, we would give trophies to ourselves, not watch celebrities receive them on TV. I wouldn't have to ask prominent and recognizable people to endorse my books. I wrote it. I will endorse it for you. I would recommend it by virtue of having taken the time to create it and offer it to you.

But what will the neighbors think? is a question that many people ask, almost unconsciously. Many decisions are based upon this inquiry and the concern it represents: What will people say? The strength of public opinion can be important, but the key in living boldly is being able to discern when it doesn't matter a tweak. I love the way Dr. Seuss said it: Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.