Blog
WRITING
If you don’t know me, this will sum me up
Several years back, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Denise Brown for a column she writes in the North Star Monthly, a New Hampshire publication. I thought I might share an excerpt of it with you here. It’ll give you some of my philosophy and background,...
72 slides and a roomful of glazed eyes
I was 36 when I discovered that people fear public speaking more than death. Let that sink in for a minute. People would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy. This revelation came during my stint as a sales rep for MacDermid, a chemical manufacturing...
Chum in the water
I'm guessing we've all heard the business adage: "People do business with people they know, like, and trust." It's practically tattooed on the foreheads of networking gurus and business coaches everywhere. But, after years of coaching writers and developing content...
Step Away From Your Dissertation
I was at a writers' conference one weekend when a bright-eyed woman approached me during cocktail hour. "I've just finished my PhD in organizational psychology," she told me, "and I think it would make a terrific book." (Back in the day, she would have been clutching...
READING
What to read on vacation
It's the holiday week. Business has all but shut down. And I know precisely how I'm going to spend much of my time. I have a stack of books I've been dying to read, so, baby, here I come. Which got me thinking...which books might I recommend for your reading...
The Sane Food Solution
Tuesday, December 10, 2024; that's the day The Sane Food Solution:Transform Your Relationship with Food and Change Your Life hits the market. This book, Summit Press Publishers' latest release, captures Theresa Wright's nearly 40 years of experience treating food...
Momento Mori
I was doom scrolling on Instagram when I came across a Ryan Holiday post about his 2022 book, Discipline Is Destiny. In it he writes, “To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to...
Why now is the best time to write your book
Years ago, Walt and I hosted a three-day event in Ireland. We got a bunch of folks interested in building a solid coaching practice to cross the pond and listen to us expound upon the framework we use to do just that. We also introduced our audience members to some...
LIFE
The typical death march
One Saturday several years ago, Walt and I decided to hike the Grand Canyon. We went down the South Kaibab trail to the bottom, meandered along the banks of the Colorado River, then headed back up to the top along the Bright Angel trail. It’s a pretty big day: roughly...
One of my inspirations for writing
When I first started writing, and we’re talking twenty plus years ago, I wasn’t the least bit interested in establishing myself as any kind of expert or to attract ideal clients. I simply wanted to better understand a complicated chapter in my life. To figure out what...
Game recognize game
We once had a dog named Edgar whose whole raison d’ etre was to kick cat ass. Unfortunately, we also had two cats: Peanut Butter and Mozart. Peanut Butter was a cat-hater’s cat. He had all the swagger of John Wayne, and the cool detachment of Humphrey Bogart. Tail up,...
Disregard that travel advisory!
It is said--by whom, I haven't bothered to track down--that we humans learn from shared stories of success, and from stories of failure. Me? I'm pretty obsessed with stories of failure because I've learned more from MY mistakes than from my successes. Most of my...
Check out my book
Straight-talking, funny and brutally honest, How To Eat The Elephant will give you–yes, you–the push you need to haul your ass off the sofa and position it in front of your computer long enough to produce a real, live book.
Subscribe to my newsletter
Want to know my deal? Well, these are some of my stories. This is my take on life, writing, and reading.