Happy 108th Birthday Nelson Mandela July 18, 1918 - December 5, 2013 An amazing and inspired life.

Happy Birthday Ida Bell Wells-Barnett Jul 16, 1862 – Mar 25, 1931 Investigative journalist, civil rights leader, co-founder the NAACP, Princess of the Press & much more. What do I learn from Ida? The power of having a voice. The power of telling your story. And the power of the Truth. Be an Ida.

Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). At least there are photos of it.

The frame which once held Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633)

Happy Birthday Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn July 15, 1606 - October 4, 1669 This story, if not for the fact that it is TRUE, could easily be an episode of Pink Panther. However, it is not funny.

Somehow this is a fitting expression of everything Small Business. You don't know what you really can do, until you are asked to do the impossible. You find out you can do it. And your skill set expands from there.

Happy Birthday Woody Guthrie Jul 14, 1912 — Oct 3, 1967 His sound was so unique that he was not afraid of competition. In fact, he encouraged people to sing his songs, & esp “This Land is Your Land” because he wanted to motivate his fellow citizens to take responsibility for their citizenship.

Live with an open hand––no clenched fists, no crossed arms. Denying our problems is not good, but so is denying the possibility of solutions. Maybe some of our best days haven't happened yet. Fav Bucky Fuller quote: "There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."

Happy Birthday Henry David Thoreau July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862 "We have to know where we are in order to get where we want to go."

Happy Birthday Buckminster Fuller Jul 12, 1895 - Jul 1, 1983 Designer, inventor, & futurist. "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty, but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. " ~Buckminster Fuller www.bfi.org

The kanisza illusion: this triangle does not exist.

Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla, Genius. Jul 10, 1856 – Jan 7, 1943 Beware whom you call crazy. No backups in Tesla's day. In the early morning of Mar 13, 1895, his lab caught fire. The fire not only set back Tesla's ongoing projects, it destroyed early notes & research material. Speechless.

The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. Did you know some apple varieties have taken 30 YEARS to develop? Good things take time. Just sayin!

This is why you need a graphic designer, because they know how to use color to its best advantage. This optical illusion is almost unbelievable.

If Disney's marketing strategy can fit on one page, so can yours and mine.

Happy Birthday Mark Chagall July 7, 1887 - March 28, 1985 Work that comes from your heart is always better than work that sources only from the intellect. . . Listen to your heart.

Happy Birthday Gustav Mahler July 7, 1860 – May 18, 1911 #mahlerjokes #Maybeyoudontknowhim

Why do I share about creatives & activists & scientists & philosophers on their Birthday's? Because in learning about their courage, I gain courage myself. In learning about their resilience, I gain resilience myself. Do these stories help you too? Or am I shouting in the wind?

Viva la Vida, 1954, (Long Live Life) known to be the last painting Frida Kahlo ever did.

And I missed the Birthday of Frida Kahlo Jul 6, 1907 – Jul 13, 1954 Andre Breton called her "a ribbon around a bomb". Many consider her a surrealist. She said, “They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” Self Portrait, 1940

Happy Birthday Mark Chagall July 7, 1887 - March 28,1985 Tip for today: Work from the heart.

Lady Liberty Selfie We know what her image means. Hear what she says: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, Tempest-tossed to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door! #America250

It was on this day, ten years ago, that we lost the voice of Elie Wiesel. We still need his voice today: "Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future." tinyurl.com/ykwut9as

Happy Birthday Thurgood Marshall July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993 The 96th, and first African-American Supreme Court Justice. One obituary read, “We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, but every day we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall.”

Happy Birthday Medgar Wiley Evers July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963 Upon the decision to remake the State Flag of MS, Myrlie Evers, widow of slain civil rights leader said, “I can’t believe it. I am so emotional. Medgar’s wings must be clapping.” What powerful words:

Seems like something from the dark ages—so obvious it need not B said. And yet it did need 2B said. We have yet 2 see the end of this effort. There is very much work left to do. “OTD in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson formally signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” teachdemocracy.org/online-lesso...

Happy Birthday Gottfried Leibniz Jul 1, 1646 – Nov 14, 1716 German polymath and philosopher, who conceived the ideas of differential and integral calculus simultaneously with Newton. Famous for the phrases "the best of all possible worlds", and "why is there something rather than nothing".

You know what? It's just as dysfunctional to deny the possibility of a solution, as it is to deny the problem. Think about it.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry