Outi Crannell - How to Make Money While Traveling
Outi Crannell has always been passionate about traveling, visiting, and experiencing cultures different than her own. It is one of the reasons she lives in New York, because of how diverse the culture is within the state’s borders. Ever since she was able to travel on her own, she has been able to make money while doing so. She started documenting her adventures in nature via photography, and has gained quite a fan base over the years. She has always believed that her photography skills have only existed to support her love for travel, but she has come to find that she loves photography just as much.
Traveling is something that everyone loves to do, but not a lot of people are willing to do what it takes to make their hobby a career. Outi Crannell has embraced her love for world travel through documenting her adventures in photography. People enjoy reading and learning about other peoples’ experiences around the world, and if you can tell a story through a medium such as photography, chances are people will want to learn about your adventures. Through her photography career, she has visited places like Lapland, Yellowstone National Park and more to get that perfect shot.
Outi Crannell owes her ability to travel, in part, to her talents in photography. She has been able to visit places that would have been possible otherwise. She has come to appreciate the power in telling stories through photograph to a worldly audience.
Outi Crannell - The Difference Between Yoga and Pilates
Outi Crannell uses yoga and Pilates as ways to keep in shape, however many people often do not know the differences between the two. While they share several similarities, yoga and Pilates are very different in their own respects. Below is a breakdown of what makes these two popular forms of exercise different to the extent where they are practiced in separate rooms or even studios.
Yoga, for starters, has a very spiritual element rooted in its practice. Those who do yoga, much like those who meditate, learn to tune out the world and all their daily distractions and focus solely on the task at hand. Yoga promotes tranquility through relaxation and focus, allowing the practitioner to then focus on the physical aspect of yoga. The poses in yoga then help to build muscles, flexibility, motion and balance as the practitioner remains in a calm, relaxed state.
Pilates, on the other hand, has much more of a focus on stamina, which requires more of a fitness mind-set than a spiritual one. Pilates can be performed on a mat, much like yoga, but it can also be performed on special equipment. In Pilates, coordination of movement is more important than repetition or strain, which once again lines up with yoga’s value of posture.
So while the two have many similarities, yoga and Pilates have an equal amount of distinctions, which is why Outi Crannell participates in both to keep her mind and body in good shape.
Outi Crannell - Art Enthusiast
Outi Crannell loves art, and she has devoted the past five years of her life to helping adults and children find their passions and talents through facilitated programs. For Crannell, her personal passion for art can be divided into three main categories, which are shared below.
Watercolors
When it comes to painting, watercolors are the method of choice for Outi Crannell. Watercolors can be fun to paint on canvas and other dry surfaces because the colors are so easy to mix, layer and experiment with different brush strokes on. Whenever a painter makes a mistake on watercolor, it can also be easily remedied so that the artist can continue on his or her piece without rendering it a failure.
Visiting Art Museums
An art museum is one of Outi Crannell’s favorite places to go, because it allows her to be surrounded by the works of famous modern and historic artists who have changed the landscape of art with their brilliance and creativity. These works provide a source of inspiration for Crannell, who is always experimenting on new styles and techniques of her own.
Nature Photography
Outi Crannell loves to take photographs, and she loves to be in nature, so nature photography is a form of art that is right up her alley. Some of her favorite subjects include the Aurora Borealis, Lapland and more. She has also explored many American landscapes and taken candid shots of all the breathtaking scenery.
Outi Crannell - The Benefits of Meditation
Outi Crannell has been meditating for years. She has studied Deepak Chopra's methods and has been implementing them in her own routine in order to get the most out of her meditation sessions. Below are some of the ways that daily meditation can have a positive impact on the health and well being of practitioners.
Relaxation
One of the main reasons people take interest in meditation is to find an alternative form of relaxation. Meditation is believed to be an effective method for reducing stress and allowing a person to relax and build a refreshing perspective on daily stresses.
Restores Energy
Meditation is used by many as a method to restore their energy for the day. Some have even found ways to meditate that have served as a replacement for sleep, although that topic is still subject to lots of speculation. Certain studies have shown though, that brain activity during certain types of meditation can mimic that of deep sleep.
Rejuvenated Mind
After a good meditation session, practitioners often feel refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to take on the day’s challenges with a clear mind and positive attitude. Those who meditate get a sense of enlightenment throughout the day that many others do not get to experience, which puts those who meditate at an advantage to see the bigger perspective in daily life.
Outi Crannell receives these benefits and more every time she enjoys a meditation session, which is why she does it so often.
Outi Crannell Shares Her Passion for Cooking
As a former fitness professional, Outi Crannell enjoys refueling her body with healthy food. She loves to cook healthy homemade meals. Ever since she was a child, Crannell enjoyed cooking. She would watch her mom prepare dinner every night with local ingredients and would help out whenever she could. Her mother taught her many traditional Finnish recipes. Now that she is in the United States, she still tries to make great dishes using the same Finnish recipes as well as tasty international and American dishes.
One of the benefits of home cooking is that Crannell knows where her food comes from; she knows this because she has a small vegetable garden and grows her own vegetables. This is important to her because she can ensure the quality of her ingredients. She can control when the vegetables are picked for maximum flavor. Crannell thinks that everyone should have a small garden so they can grow their own vegetables. If having an own garden is not an option, she urges people to shop at farmers markets and to speak with their local farmers and find out more about their food. This helps bring a community close in Crannell’s opinion. Using her homegrown vegetables Crannell enjoys cooking for both family and friends.
No matter how busy she is, Crannell will always make time to cook. She believes in dinner as a time for families to get together and share the day's events. Outi Crannell will continue to use fresh local ingredients in her cooking and use the opportunity of sharing a meal to connect with her family.
Outi Crannell Discusses the Joy of Meditation
Ever since she was a little girl, Outi Crannell was into fitness, but when she came over to the United States from Finland, she started to practice yoga and meditation. It was meditation that Crannell enjoyed because it made her feel good and focused. It was Deepak Chopra’s teaching that started off her journey with meditation. A friend recommended the book to her. After reading the book, she found out that her and Chopra have a lot in common in terms of their outlook on the world.
Crannell learned a lot from meditation in Chopra’s book. First, she learned how to focus. Crannell was balancing a freelance photography career, a family, and her work with charities. Meditation helped her be able to focus her energy on one task at a time. Second, meditation helped to elevate her mood. After meditation, Crannell felt like she would be ready to conquer the world. Third, after meditation she would have high energy levels. Crannell found that this helped her on her frequent outdoor hikes through nature.
Compared to her earlier activities of swimming, yoga, and Pilates, Crannell likes the mental aspect of meditation. She has always believed that the mind is just as important as the body. She is thankful that she discovered meditation and is surprised that she did not start practicing it earlier in her life. Outi Crannell believes that meditation helps her mentally prepare for her interests in life and helps raise her energy levels. She plans on continuing this practice for the foreseeable future.
Outi Crannell's Role as a Fitness Professional
Ever since she was a child, Outi Crannell has been interested in fitness. In college, she studied for her education degree while in Finland. For thirty years, Crannell combined her two passions and was a fitness professional.
Her primary role in the fitness community was teaching swimming for children and adult non-swimmers. She liked teaching swimming because she thought it was a skill that everyone should know and it was a great way for people to work out and stay in shape. She enjoyed teaching the children because of their joy they brought to the class every day and the smile they put on Crannell’s face.
When Outi Crannell moved to the United States, she did not continue her role as a fitness professional. However, she did continue to keep working out on her own. When she was in Finland, she used to hike in the Laplands, a region in the Arctic shared by Norway, Sweden and, Finland. When she moved to the United States, she continued to get outdoors and hike when she could.
In addition to hiking, she began to practice Pilates, yoga, and meditation. What Crannell enjoyed about meditation and yoga is the focus she had after completing a session. She also felt more energetic after yoga as well. Yoga has had a profound effect on Crannell’s life, and she is debating whether she wants to become certified in teaching yoga classes. For thirty years Outi Crannell was a fitness expert, and will take that experience into her new fitness activities.
Outi Crannell on Raising Awareness for Blood Donation
It was through the tragedy of her daughter’s diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia that Outi Crannell realized the importance of donating blood. The reason she discovered this is because after each chemotherapy treatment for her daughter, her daughter would often become anemic. This would necessitate Crannell’s daughter to receive a blood transfusion, which would give her the energy to make it to another chemotherapy session.
After talking to her daughter’s doctors she learned that the chemotherapy would weaken her blood cells, causing them to die faster than a healthy person’s. Also the nature of the cancer in her bone marrow prevented effective red blood cell creation.
After learning about why her daughter needed blood, Crannell tried to raise awareness in her community about the needs of cancer patients and the use of frequent blood transfusions. She held rallies and started publicity campaigns. Through her hard work, Crannell was able to raise awareness and help to replenish her hospital's blood bank.
Unfortunately, her daughter died of osteosarcoma, a complication from her frequent chemotherapy treatment and radiation therapy. Now Crannell uses her daughter's fight as a reason to continue to raise awareness for the donation of blood and blood products.
Crannell does not want other cancer patients to be denied transfusions due to lack of blood. She knows how important this unit of blood is for a patient between chemotherapy sessions. Outi Crannell will continue to raise awareness for the importance of blood donations in her local community and help patients get the blood they desperately need.
Outi Crannell: Former Teacher at the Finnish School of New York
Outi Crannell is from Helsinki, Finland. She moved to upstate New York in 1990 and began teaching at the Finnish School of New York in 1992. Her work there put her in touch with many expatriates from Finland. Today, she continues to support the school and several other Finnish community programs in upstate New York.
The Finnish School of New York offers Finnish culture and language education to Finnish speaking children in New York. Students there are divided into groups based on age and mastery of the Finnish language. Age groups meet together every other Saturday. The Finnish school had over 50 students of all ages enrolled in 2014. The Finnish School is heavily involved in the communities it serves. It offers parents the opportunity to keep tuition rates down by volunteering at the school to help children learn in their native language. The Finnish School is recognized as a cultural beacon for the Finnish community in New York and continues to provide excellent education and language skills to all Finnish families in the area. The instructors at the Finnish School emphasize Finnish language and culture courses designed to help children adapt to their new environment in America while learning about where they came from.
Outi Crannell worked at the Finnish School of New York for eighteen years before retiring from teaching. She now works as a freelance artist and photographer in Somers, New York. She continues to teach in a limited fashion at an artist workshop in Somers, helping aspiring artists develop better skills.
Outi Crannell - Contributing to Cancer Research
Outi Crannell contributes to cancer research, especially cancer in children because of her daughter’s battle with cancer from the time she was diagnosed with childhood leukemia at the age of two until her death at the age of sixteen. Outi’s daughter Eeva received a marrow transplant at the age of six from a generous donor in Tennessee, but it wasn’t enough to avoid complications from a lifetime of harsh treatment. Crannell hopes that her work with The Children’s Cancer Foundation (CCF) can contribute in a meaningful way to the worldwide crusade for finding a cure for cancer.
CCF awards huge grants to the best researchers in the United States. With pediatric oncology lagging behind normal cancer research by most experts’ accounts, the need has never been greater for further research into the prevention and treatment of cancer in children. Many researchers have begun their careers with help from the CCF providing early research funds to help test the efficacy of their theories without having to compete for scarce Nation Institute of Health funding.
In addition to providing researchers with much-needed funds to carry out their important work, CCF also provides funding for new and improved pediatric oncology units and facilities at local hospitals in Northern Virginia, the Washington DC metro area, Baltimore, and beyond.
Outi Crannell has worked hard in her adoptive community of Somers, New York since she moved there from Helsinki, Finland. After her daughter’s death, she has realized the full extent of where pediatric research needs to go in order to prevent sickness and death in millions of children throughout the world who may come to be affected by childhood cancer.
Outi Crannell - Using the Secrets of Reiki to Help People
Outi Crannell is a Level II Reiki practitioner, using the art of channeling Qi, the universal life force all around us, to heal people with her skilled touch. She believes that the practice, which has largely been ignored by the medical community, helps people dealing with deadly and painful diseases and conditions. She learned how to practice this art because of her daughter Eeva. Eeva was diagnosed with a common child leukemia at the age of two. Eeva fought the disease her whole life, and at age sixteen, died from complications from a lifetime of medical treatment. During this time, Crannell comforted her daughter up until her tragic end with the practice of Reiki. She believes that it can help many people in pain.
Reiki was first practiced by the Japanese Buddhist monk Mikao Usui. Usui taught his followers that the key to spiritual and physical healing is Qi, the universal and infinite life force surrounding everything. By going through an attunement process led by a Reiki master, anyone can gain access to this energy and use it to heal others. Usui also taught that when a Reiki master’s hands are close to a patient, Qi flows from the master to the patient, seeking and healing all maladies throughout the body. The medical community recognizes Reiki as an alternative medicine, and several experts and researchers have said that the use of Reiki can help ease a patient’s state of mind while they’re sick or injured.
Outi Crannell has helped many people with her use of Reiki over the years.
Outi Crannell - Finding Success in any Freelancing Profession
Many people choose to be freelancers because they feel they can offer their skills to clients on a regular basis while working for themselves and creating their own schedules and client lists. Outi Crannell is a passionate painter and former fitness instructor who took her skills to the streets in Somers, New York, where she moved in the 1990’s from Helsinki, Finland. Here’s how she succeeded as a freelance artist:
- She had a plan. Many freelancers see all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of being a freelancer when they first start. Yes, you can be your own boss, but being your own boss means you have to assume the responsibility of a boss. This means drawing up a business plan to keep you on track towards your business goals.
- She learned to say “No.” Sometimes, in order to avoid wasting your time on certain projects proposed by clients, you just have to say “no.” Consider all of your projects carefully and take as many as you can that you think will earn you a paycheck. If a project doesn’t check out or you don’t feel you can do an excellent job on it, just say “no.”
- She didn’t rush perfection. Always put your best work in for your clients. Crannell took her time and worked with long deadlines so that she could do her best work on a project for a client. Never rush anything unless absolutely necessary.
Outi Crannell has been a freelancer since 2010 and she finds the work extremely rewarding.
