Oh, Happy, Happy Wednesday!

And Happy First Day of Spring!! Yes, it is today. No matter where you are or what the weather is like, winter is officially over. Legit fact!

What could be better than the glorious month of March? When both spring and basketball madness arrive at the same time. And this year an added bonus — my mom! She’s arriving for a nice visit on Friday and to celebrate her birthday here in LA this weekend. Yay!

In her honor, friends are gathering at my home for a clothing swap. This is the greatest event, and if you don’t do these, please consider it. An enormous percent of the world’s landfills are full of fabric, and “fast fashion” means even more clothes are created and disposed of every day. Stop the madness!

Women are always changing sizes in one direction or another anyway, so gather everything that doesn’t serve you, invite a dozen or so friends to join you, bring snacks (we’re women, after all…) and everybody go “shopping.” I am amazed at the gorgeous new pieces I get each time, and always thrilled when someone falls in love with something that I know I’ll no longer wear. And all of the leftovers go to a local women’s shelter — so it’s a win-win-win.

Speaking of winning…it’s March Madness! You can take the girl out of Indiana, but you can’t take the college basketball obsession out of the girl. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you must live under a rock. (Or outside the U.S., which is awesome, too. In fact, I love having you in this community…) That said —

it’s March Madness, y’all! If you want to have a rooting interest, create a bracket. There are plenty of places to do it for free, and some even with cash prizes. I do mine here. No gambling involved and it’s all good fun. And in three weeks, I’ll come back and share how I did. It’s usually pretty dismal. Still – I love it!

One thing I can share with you that’s making me very happy right now is that my TED Talk, How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias, is finally starting to find an audience. As you may remember, it had to be taken down and reposted to change the title.

Why that took 13 months will forever be a mystery to me, but now that it’s been back up for a while, people are finding it. Yay!

If you’ve never seen it, please check it out and share it with many, many, many people. I’d love for this message to reach everyone who needs to realize that: (a) we are ALL bias, (b) it’s not your fault — blame evolution, but (c) we have the ability to overcome our bias, so it’s time to start changing the world. The insidious thing about unconscious bias isn’t the bias part — it’s the unconscious part. We can outsmart that!

So that’s my happiness video for this week — one I would truly be grateful for you to pass along. Thank you!

To summarize:
Happy Spring!
Recycled and “up-cycled” clothes are amazing.
The college hoops tourney is super fun.
Valerie would be so happy if you shared her video.

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