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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 […]

Are mistakes okay? Answer with your gut, not the motivational speaker’s response to “fail your way to success.” Is it okay to make mistakes? In my culture, both the broader culture and the subculture that was my extended family, mistakes were super, really totally not okay. They meant you f’ed up and should have planned […]

My teenage kids make me laugh almost every day we’re together. One day my creative, somewhat sarcastic younger child made up a game: “In college, I majored in _____ and minored in _____.” In his example, he would use curiously paired examples like “majored in forensics accounting and minored in interpretive dance.” We had fun […]

I adore my sweet dog, Bailey. Adore her. She is one of my favorite companions.  She prefers to be in the same room that I’m in and is a regular podcast producer and coaching support. Her very favorite thing in this whole world is to go for a walk. She does not walk, though. She […]

Do you love other people’s strongly worded opinions that are the opposite of your opinions? People have a wide spectrum of reactions to other people’s opinions. Some people are completely immune to the ideas of others. They could care less about what other people think, whether in general, about the world, about politics or even […]

I am completely charmed by the song “When I’m Sixty-Four” written by Paul McCartney when he was 14.  I am quite a bit closer to being 64 now than when I first fell in love with this tune in my teen years. When I first heard it, I liked this idea of a full yet […]

Where are you right now? Physically. Logistically. Financially. Socially. This article is not about accepting who you are but where you are. I coach people from their 20s to their 70s. I hear the spectrum of discontent from “I should know where I’m going” to “I should have taken another path.” Or…“I need to make […]

As students, we are taught to use questions as part of learning the skill of research and analysis. In fact, there’s even a Wikipedia page on the “Five Ws.” Most of us are familiar with these questions, in a certain order: who, what, where, when, why…and how. Outside of our studies/work, however, most of us […]

“O.M.G. There’s so much dramaaaaaaaaaaahhhhaaaaa….” I hear the word drama often, both in my personal and professional spheres. However, when I’m coaching clients, it’s one of my “yellow light” words. This word arrives for two reasons. My client thinks they are being “dramatic” or that someone in their life is causing “drama.” When it comes […]

Do you like when things are a mess? Most of the people I work with in my practice like things to be tidy. In their minds. In their work. In their families. In their environment. Tidy, tidy, tidy! (Listen, consider me a member of the tidy club. I even have a favorite hashtag I use […]

Do you know how to change your life? I believe that you do. After all, your life likely looks very different than when you were 4 years old or 14 years old. Yet confidence in your ability to change can seem elusive when you are pursuing goals that stretch you into a new self-concept. It […]

Reflect on how you feel about the journey home from vacation/holiday. People seem to enjoy the ride to get to vacation whether by air, car, or train. There’s the sense of excitement and possibility, at least, and some enjoy the experience of going in itself. And…what about the ride home? Most of us feel tired. […]