A couple weeks ago, Davina Haisell from the Shades of Crimson blog, a blog about personal development honoured me with the Kreativ Blogger Award. At the time, I was a bit overwhelmed with other stuff including my 90 Day Free Hugs Challenge Project but was very flattered.

Kreativ Blogger Award

So, what is the Kreative Blogger award? Basically, it’s a way of sharing gratitude with bloggers that make a difference in your life. The blogs you visit frequently, twitter with often, make comments and feel a connection with. It’s kinda like chain mail but without the guilt and strings attached. It gives each blogger a chance to reflect on what matters and take the time to look at why. It truly is a pay it forward type of thing.

Here’s how it works

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award
2. Copy the logo to your blog (that’s it, no link or anything)
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers
6. Post Links to the 7 Blogs you nominate
7. Leave a comment on each of the 7 blogs letting them know you nominated them

That’s it. Simple right! Hmm. Well, as many of you know, I don’t like to do anything halfway, so it has taken a bit of time to reflect and choose my nominations. It was certainly a good review of the websites I visit. It gave me time to think about the reasons why I am blogging. It also took a bit of time to think about 7 things I could share about myself and how to share them.

7 Interesting Facts About Simply Stephen

1. I maintain a strong relationship with my daughter from 6500 km’s away. I’ve been divorced for 10 years and my daughter lives in England. Canada is my home and other true love, my support group is here, it makes me happy to be here and more useful to my daughter in this capacity. I do everything and more that a regular father does – comfort, talk, teach, assist, share and mostly love. We talk almost every week and during this time have learned to write stories, read stories, play music, sing, discuss life, play games and share our lives.
2. Discovered my adoptive family when I was 26. Though the timing has not been perfect as we are going through our own trials and tribulations, we have a bond. I have an older sister that was also adopted and lives only 50 km’s away – we grew up in different families and yet are like two peas in a pod. My birth mother lives in Moncton, New Brunswick with her family and I have two siblings with her, a brother and sister. I learnt more about myself from witnessing the interactions and habits of these family members – now I understand and it has helped me with my daughter too. I keep in touch with all of them, casual as it may be.
3. Trained over 200 dogs when I ran my own dog walking, training and pet sitting company. I had worked for a decade in the animal industry before I started computer and writing work. Some of the roles included management of a small pet supply firm and Director of a large store.
4. Once lived out of my car for 6 months. This was partly a survival tactic and partly to defend and raise awareness on “affordable living”, something that eludes many people in the western world and larger quantities in the rest.
5. I am not a “sheep” – I follow my own path and in a good year generate big ideas and visions at an incredible rate (sometimes dozens daily). I integrate these ideas on a regular basis into my daily life and refine them so I can share the results, ideas and methods in the future (or present).
6. I once played with an orchestra in front of 5000 people when I was 14. What an experience. I was lead Viola for a two hour concert at Massey Hall in Toronto.
7. One year when I was driving from Toronto, Ontario to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory I was driven off the road by a Moose. My car, a little green Toyota Tercel, 4 speed manual was “righted” – I put the keys in the ignition and drove off to complete the trip, another 5000 km. The trip and that event inspired the song “Yukon Bound” here’s a few lines:

Well, I turned round the bend with a moose on the side

And I swerved down the road to avoid the collide

The car ended up on it’s side in a ditch

And the moose walked away without even a twitch.

Well, that was fun!

My 7 Kreative Bloggers (links included)

1. Nancy Castillo at The Zen Birdfeeder, focuses on “the birds and other nature we find in our own yards and the zen principles of attention, acceptance and responsibility.” A loyal Twitter follower, who practices green living and loving nature and mankind alike. Her messages are always uplifting.
2. Vlad Dolezal at Fun Life Development, who encourages you to be a happy more productive person. In his words “he’s on a mission to help people learn much more efficiently by explaining a few simple but profound principles of how the human mind learns stuff”“.
3. Tess Marshall at The Bold Life, who “challenges you to be more, give more, live fearlessly, take more chances and show up in the world unstoppable, daring and bold“.
4. Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity, who “battles conventional beliefs, demonstrating how to change the world by achieving significant, personal goals while helping others at the same time“.
5. Stacey Hoffer Weckstein at Create A Balance, who assists moms “to lead a more authentic, happy, energized, and balanced life” (no I’m not a Mom, but her stuff is poignant and relevant to everyone)
6. Colin Beaven at No Impact Man, who demonstrates “what each of us can do to end our environmental crisis, make a better place to live for ourselves and everyone else, and hopefully come up with a happier way of life along the way“.
7. Michelle Adams at Michelle Adams coincedently, one of the few internet marketers I follow and communicate with on a personal level. She teaches us how to earn “online money minus the BS” – but she makes you think about it along the way in an ethical, responsive, customer focused, sincere and pleasant manner.

There you have it. That was tough. I had to eliminate so many good bloggers that I enjoy on a regular basis. But that made me think. We are all about community here. What do communities do? They help each other, they promote each other, they pitch in. So, on a regular basis, perhaps once a week (I haven’t decided yet), I’m going to do a Spotlight on Simplicity and choose a favourite Twitter Follower or Fellow Blogger and highlight them with a positive review (along with constructive feedback of what would be nice to see).