Blog

This is the second entry in a short blog series describing my current thinking about meaning. (Phew, tricky sentence!)  These blogs might help you select a meaning to guide your life. Or fake meaning if you’re in an “in between” period, like me. Or not.  Yet I wrote these to share my thoughts with you, […]

This year, I’ve been reflecting on the idea of “meaning.”  I’ve read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, as have many who are interested in what makes humans tick, and I reread it again a few months ago.  During this reflective period, I’ve been feeling terribly unsettled by what felt like a missing meaning.  […]

Recently, a person I work with regularly asked how I can seem so calm in the face of high demands.  The answer is nuanced yet simple:  My life. My mind. My body.  My inner weather.  One of the challenges I see in these modern times is the tendency to match intensity.  Relationship conversation getting tense? […]

It’s such a joy writing my blogs/articles.  Yet I’ve felt like I’m supposed to make sure it’s useful and constructive.  However, I’ve decided that I want to be a little more informal and playful and, yup, personal.  Why the heck not? I write these for me +1. I am just tickled when people come up […]

The other day I took myself out to lunch. They were playing 70s country music.  This is not everyone’s favorite.  But it’s the music I grew up listening to.  My dad loved Waylon Jennings and Barbara Mandrell. I developed a lifelong love for Don Williams and Kenny Rogers. I met Kenny Rogers when I was […]

The other day, I went to pick up a photo order. You know…photos on glossy paper like ye olden times.  I encountered 2 people while I was there: 1 helpful person and 1 person who didn’t seem at all happy to be at work that day.  The helpful person greeted me in the store and […]

Where am I? Same place I’ve always been – offline & in real time. But I want to tell a story before I drift further away from most of my social media accounts.  I was a reluctant convert to the Book of Faces.  Yet, before long, I enjoyed feeling connected with people from my past […]

Matthew McConaughey has been promoting his new online course “Roadtrip – The Highway to More.” I watched him in a conversation with Marie Forleo. Their conversation has inspired so much deep reflection about my life. He said something that really touched my heart (minute 39):  “If I cannot do what it is that I want […]

I recently watched an amazing conversation between Marie Forleo and Matthew McConaughey. (It’s so good. Watch it here.) Marie shared one of her favorite phrases, “simply to amplify.”  Now, where have I been all my life that I haven’t heard one of my favorite concepts said with such rhyme? I’ve also heard and love the […]

My oldest son turned 18 recently.  When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be a mom. I was the oldest in an abusive family and I didn’t want to pass on dysfunction. I was opposed to the idea of being a mother and even asked my doctor about sterilization in my early 20s.  […]

Are you happy with the pace of your life? More specifically, what do you think about the pace of your goal achievement? One of the communities that I’m in talks a lot about goals. Results. Making things happen. The strong cultural focus on outcomes makes it inevitable that there would be comparisons, whether intentionally or […]

Where is your focus and attention in any given week or month? I closed out the end of last year doing a dive into where I think I spend my time compared to how I actually spend not only my time but my mental attention. I asked myself to focus on one goal (change initiative). […]

Love can be very, very playful. Isn’t that love at its best, really? Today I offer you 4 playful challenges or invitations to activate more love and joy in your life this month. #1: Tell 5 people why you love them or their work. The first challenge is to tell 5 people that you don’t […]

I told myself: “Don’t answer that email yet. It really can wait. Take a minute to listen, please.” One of my coworkers was lashing out at team members when they were offering to help solve a problem. I could feel my blood pressure rising. “This is unfair! I’m not doing her ‘homework’ again!” I paused. […]

Years ago, I discovered a blog post titled “The Tail End” from “Wait But Why” by Tim Urban. It visually lays out the remaining experiences of a 34 year old assuming they live to the age of 90. It has diagrams for how many winters remain or pizzas will be eaten, that sort of thing. […]

Who did you spend the most time with in the past 11-12 months? Yourself, of course. You are the only person you spend time with around the clock. And you likely have a satellite of people who are in your life regularly. Evaluating who you spend time with – and why – can be a […]

It’s hard to believe another calendar year is coming to a close. Has it been what you expected? What did you accomplish? I’ve become a believer in the art and delight of celebration. Part of celebrating means “reverse engineering” what worked well and why. As part of reflecting on your previous 11-12 months, I invite […]

The year is coming to a close. Many of us are pondering the year. What we’ve created. What we want to create. Most people use January as a starting line for new (or renewed) dreams. So let’s use December to connect to desire. Often, we think about what we want to do and who we […]

How do you experience the concept of “gratitude”? What about “appreciation”? Do they feel differently to you? We are often encouraged to develop a gratitude practice. This might include starting the day with a gratitude list or ending with one, perhaps even in a journal. This is an amazing idea.  And I have another one […]

Do you take your vacation days? Do you use them to be “off”? I’ve noticed a new phrase in the past couple of years: “real PTO.” (PTO = paid time off) As in, “I’m trying to take a real PTO this year…” which is code for “I don’t plan to attend meetings, answer email, or […]

There are shelves in bookstores and pages in college catalogs devoted to leadership. There are advanced degrees, seminars, groups and organizations devoted to the topic.  But I think the concept of “leadership” is remarkably simple: Knowing who you are, what you value and why Showing up in full integrity for who you are and what […]

One of the strategies I use as a coach to understand my client’s primary mindset is to ask: “How’s the relationship with your future self?” This question is, admittedly, fairly open ended. My client’s reactions are useful information. Do they ask for clarification? And, if they understand the concept of future self, what is their […]

When you are feeling stressed out, where is your mind? For some, stress keeps us in short-term worries. We sometimes can’t see a long-term future that is different from the stress we are experiencing now, and that clouds our ability to show up solving problems. I am overwhelmed at work…and I can’t see a time […]

Sometimes I think our modern life has too many good things. And a surprising side effect of having many attractive choices is stress. These days, we probably all know the meaning of the acronyms FOMO and JOMO.** We have a wealth of entertainment options. Career options. Even dating options. I think about what my grandmother’s […]

Are you a low stress friend? I was inspired to write this because I’ve been exploring how I show up as a friend and areas where I’m not showing up. I did a podcast episode on friendship and it really changed my perspective. For one thing, I found out that researchers have studied friendship styles, […]

Yes, I’m a life coach. What that really means, though, is that I’m a thought analyzer. My clients have tens of thousands of thoughts each day. Me, too, and so do you. The human mind is a thought generating machine! This is a wonderful thing, the human mind’s capacity for thinking. For creating. For plain […]