Start a Project, Change Your Life

Going on adventures—big and small— helps inspire me. It's not just being in a new environment, it's also participating in the experience of it, that helps me feel connected to myself, to the flow of ideas, to other people, and to the world.

Sometimes, I find these experiences in a great retail store, or in nature. I hope to find them again through travel soon enough.

This week, I was reminded of a small, close to home adventure that I went on pre-pandemic. I treated a special group of my clients, all women entrepreneurs, to a surprise evening. I gave them the address and we met at the home of Nan Yimcharoen. At the time, Nan had started up a side project that she was in LOVE with. She opened her home to 6-8 people at a time, and served a phenomenal meal that was either Japanese chirashi or little-known Thai recipes inherited from her family. We sat at her oversized kitchen island while she cooked and plated and presented her beautiful food to us, old Thai music playing in the background that reminded her of her grandmother. It was so clear that Nan was in her element and it was such a delight to be in her environment.

A few days ago, Food & Wine magazine wrote up Nan's project, calling her an underground sensation for celebrities and in-the-know-food-lovers. It's not the first press she's received over the past few months as her project has grown and gained momentum.

I have long been sharing the transformational power of personal projects, (it's even the title for the TEDx talk I gave in Bali many years ago).

If you are feeling stuck or stagnant in work or in life, I encourage you to begin a project. Not as a new business venture. Not as a new hobby. But simply as something you'd genuinely love to spend a little time doing. It could be an hour, it could be a month. What matters most is to reconnect with your own creative flow. To play, to experiment, to see. And even if a particular project runs its course for you, being in this creative energy will always lead you to something else, something that's next. And this is what can break us out of complacency and make us feel alive. It doesn't have to require so much thinking or planning. Simply starting with the question, "What would be fun to do next?" is enough.

And—if you're in LA and would like to experience Nan's brilliance for yourself, you can treat yourself to a take-out box https://www.instagram.com/kinkanla/

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