We are haunted. Not by things that go bump in the night, but by the ghosts of people, places, and things that no longer exist, or no longer exist the way they did in the Before Times. A favorite restaurant closed, a previous home razed, streams of work and client relationships vanished. People moved away
It has come to my attention that I live for the future. Since I was a child, my focus was always on a goal, or an experience, or a reward situated in a time yet to come. That Future Thing was what motivated, beckoned, and teased me forward, out of my humdrum or challenging present
I’m one of those people who typically takes stock at the end of the year, looking back over my challenges and goals and seeing where I made progress—or where I stalled or even regressed. Usually I set intentions for the upcoming year, and try to greet the new year with some sort of hope, optimism
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s
I am one of the 2 or 3 people on earth who is not particularly a fan of Springtime. Since my childhood in Vermont, I haven’t liked its fickle “This morning it’s 65! This afternoon it’s snowing!” behavior. I’m not a big fan of the color yellow, daylight after 6 pm, or Easter baskets (what’s
I’ve had red hair for most of my adult life. I was born a blonde, but in my 30s I dyed my hair red on a whim–loved it!–and have kept coloring it some shade of aubergine, burgundy, crimson, or auburn ever since. For over a year, I’d been considering transitioning from red to whatever color
In February 2020, I unknowingly wrote my last blog post during what I now think of as “The Before Times.” In it I wrote, “The old way of living and working is gone. The new way is emerging but has not yet arrived.” Boy, was that an understatement. Three weeks after that post, the whole
In order to make sense of the world, we humans watch for, recognize, and interpret patterns. When there’s a problem, we ask ourselves how today’s problem is like a problem we have previously solved, apply our previous experience, and…voila! Problem solved. The trouble is, many of the problems we are currently facing are unprecedented. No
In my 3 part series on building resilience in a VUCA world, this last installment is about connection. When things are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, many of us sideline connection, choosing avoidance, numbing, or hunkering down instead. Because VUCA environments are swift and often unforgiving, it is perhaps natural to just want to drop
“How are you complicit in creating the conditions of your life that you say you don’t want?” This question, in Jerry Colonna’s recent book, “Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up” leapt off the page and grabbed me by the throat. Its provocation has been with me for weeks now, begging me to think