Blog
WRITING
I got catfished by a pair of legs
I like to think I'm smart. That I'm an educated consumer who knows a magic pill when she sees one. I'm not. I'm as gullible as the next person, and it kills me to admit this to you. I've been watching my weight since I was 11. I could blame my mother, who enrolled me...
Your reader is sleeping with the crackpot
Years ago, back when he was practicing law, Walt sat behind the steering wheel of our Subaru, phone to his ear, getting more exasperated by the minute with a client. She was a young woman who'd hired him to win sole custody of her baby. The father was, by all...
Karen, Bob, and Steve walk into your manuscript
A friend called me a few weeks ago with a book problem. He's a coach. Successful, and busy in a way that makes me tired just hearing about it: on stage one weekend, coaching in Toronto the next, Chicago after that, a podcast squeezed into whatever's left. I mean, good...
Getting laid, getting paid, looking fab
Years ago, and I mean yearssssss ago, Walt and I attended a Brendan Bruchard conference. That’s where we recognized that we could create a business out of just about anything we pulled out of our backends. I mean, we met people who were making money doing the most...
READING
Six weeks from now, you’re going to quit. Here’s how you’ll justify it.
Any time you switch up your routine or form new habits–which is pretty much what needs to happen before starting a book project–you’ve got to overcome all sorts of obstacles that spring up in your path. It’s all well and good when you’re pumped up and motivated, when...
My daughter’s fancy school gave me one thing worth keeping
Long ago, the private high school my daughter attended had a wonderful yearly tradition. At the beginning of summer, they'd mail a reading list--a compilation of each teacher's favorite books--to the house. Now, I'm sure the design was to encourage students to read...
My mother has no idea what’s wrong with her (and she’s fine with that)
On Saturday I called my mother to check on her. She's getting up there in age, and she'd been flat on her back for a couple of weeks. Zero appetite. Which, if you know my mother, is the part that should worry you. The woman has never met a casserole she couldn't...
I once tried to hire a Navy Seal to babysit
Decades ago, back when my kids were just edging into adolescence, my best friend was a fellow single mother. She played cello in an orchestra, which meant she worked nights — orchestras don't tend to perform at lunchtime — and I often kept her son at my place when she...
LIFE
I got catfished by a pair of legs
I like to think I'm smart. That I'm an educated consumer who knows a magic pill when she sees one. I'm not. I'm as gullible as the next person, and it kills me to admit this to you. I've been watching my weight since I was 11. I could blame my mother, who enrolled me...
I’m taking confidence lessons from a convicted con artist
I write about the Imposter Syndrome all the time because it's the single biggest issue many of my clients have. It's what keeps them from starting their book, finishing it, then publishing it when it's time to let it go. In fact, I've written about this issue HERE and...
Six weeks from now, you’re going to quit. Here’s how you’ll justify it.
Any time you switch up your routine or form new habits–which is pretty much what needs to happen before starting a book project–you’ve got to overcome all sorts of obstacles that spring up in your path. It’s all well and good when you’re pumped up and motivated, when...
The Gortex thing is a lie
Walt has been telling the story of how we met for twenty-one years, and he has never once gotten it right. His version: he was on Match.com, scrolling, and he came across a woman whose profile claimed she enjoyed a little black dress as much as she enjoyed Gortex....
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