Blog

WRITING

The half-life of relevance (and why panicking won’t save you)

Walt and I have this conversation probably once a month. Who was that woman — the one who wore purple and taught people to sell from the stage? Where'd she go? We genuinely cannot remember her name. And here's the thing: a few years ago, she was everywhere. Speaking...

I bought a cottage in Ireland. You can write a damn book

Have you put your book dream on the back burner because you can already think of ten reasons it won't work? I was watching a fox and her two kits bound across the field one morning as Walt and I drank our first cup of coffee. In the upper pasture, a herd of dairy cows...

The Door of Confusion (and why I won’t let you walk away from it)

She walks into our first call with a story that could stop traffic. I'm not going to share the details here because they're hers, but trust me when I say she's lived something that most people only read about — and survived it, came out looking like Wonder Woman after...

READING

That tell-all you’re dying to write? Read this first.

I'd heard about Careless People long before I finally cracked it open in the airport. It had been sitting in my Kindle alongside all the other fantastic books I swore I’d eventually get to. But once I started the memoir, I couldn't put it down. Which was great,...

What I read while waiting for a helicopter in Papua New Guinea

Let’s just say I had an awful lot of time on my hands while on vacation several years ago. That’s what happens when you deliberately leave your computer at home; AND you’ve got nowhere to go, save the local airstrip or the hotel compound; AND your helicopter can’t...

Eight Books, Eight Lessons: Why I’m Not Slowing Down

At my 60th birthday party a couple of years back, something interesting happened. A number of my friends started talking about retirement—counting down the days, making plans to "slow down," fantasizing about endless yoga retreats in Mexico and Netflix binges. They...

LIFE

The half-life of relevance (and why panicking won’t save you)

Walt and I have this conversation probably once a month. Who was that woman — the one who wore purple and taught people to sell from the stage? Where'd she go? We genuinely cannot remember her name. And here's the thing: a few years ago, she was everywhere. Speaking...

I bought a cottage in Ireland. You can write a damn book

Have you put your book dream on the back burner because you can already think of ten reasons it won't work? I was watching a fox and her two kits bound across the field one morning as Walt and I drank our first cup of coffee. In the upper pasture, a herd of dairy cows...

The woodcutter who wouldn’t take my money

When we lived in Ireland, a neighbor advertised his wood-cutting services with a hand-painted sign along the road. He'd bring a cord of wood over, and instead of dumping it on the lawn and driving away like any self-respecting American contractor, he'd stack it in the...

If it were easy, everybody would be doing it

Hey there, A while back, one of my friends questioned my penchant for voluntarily placing myself in situations where I could get hurt, for "manufacturing fear." The world provides enough danger already, why go out looking for more? She was referring to mountain...

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