Dear Friend,
For the last three weeks I have had the sheer joy of having my six-year-old goddaughter living next door to me. Her parents are some of our dearest friends; we've known them for more than a decade and think of them as family. They live in Shanghai now but make the trip back for an extended stay every summer. In case you haven't spent much time with a six-year-old lately, let me say that it is, in a word, heaven. There is something special and unbridled about the way a six-year-old looks at the world. For example, she proclaimed that "camping," which was actually sleeping in our back yard, to be "the most awesomest thing in the world" right before she went to sleep. On another occasion, she was extremely excited about hiking, simply because she got to wear pants that could zip off into shorts. And my personal favorite came while she was tending a lemonade stand and said, "This is one of my dreams of a lifetime." I ask you, can you get much cuter than that? Or better yet, can you get any more real and unselfconscious and true to yourself? I think not. Being around her so often has gotten me thinking about my own outlook. How often in my day-to-day life do I think, "This is the most awesomest thing in the world"? (How often do you?) The answer is certainly not as much as I should. The obvious next question is, "Why not?" Because in every single day there is so much to be cherished and grateful for. Our society spends so much time encouraging youngsters to find themselves or be themselves, but then as we get older, we tend to do so much less, if at all. Often we are already living that "most awesomest" life and we just haven't stepped back to see it. Summer is brief in Seattle and almost over. I'll keep this newsletter short, sweet and to the point. Get out there. Find "the most awesomest thing in the world" to dwell in today. Maybe The Real You is waiting there right in your own back yard. Enjoy! See you this fall! | 
