Housework is my guilty secret. I find it deeply satisfying keeping my house in order. A clean house feels reassuring. But I’ve been thinking about the balance between keeping my house clean and getting anything else done. Housework is a lot like email was in my corporate jobs. Never ending. You could spend all your time on it. Never get to the strategic, high priority, hard stuff, and wonder what you did with your day. With your life. For a …
Old Excuses
I bumped into a favorite coaching client of mine yesterday. He exclaimed, “Guess where I’ve been!” I hadn’t a clue. I was feeling a little down, a little self defeated. My last day with Amazon is today and maybe I was feeling a little shaky about what I was walking away from. My client said, “I just got back from the gym!” He looked so happy, so sparkling. Gorgeous. And my clouds lifted. This client and I had talked during …
Following My Dream
I started writing this blog after I made the decision to walk away from my career in corporate America. This was not a decision I made lightly: I had invested a great deal into that career. But it was time to focus on my coaching practice. And I wanted to spend more time with my small children. It was time to live my life more closely aligned with my values. I started this blog to chronicle that transition. My hope is …
Rattlesnake Premonition
I went for a trail run in rattlesnake country and almost died. A friend and I ran through the meadow at the top of this photo and up into the valley beyond. This is way out in Eastern Washington. Where it’s hot and sunny, if you can imagine. We saw a dead rattlesnake on the road as we were jogging to the trail. That should have been a clue. Forty minutes in, we got to a good turnaround spot with …
Accountability
I’ve been thinking about accountability. I have three coaching clients who talk to me about their weight. Possibly with some help from me, they are making significant changes in their lives. Awesome changes to their habits and self image and priorities. I then go home and eat (organic!) oreos and feel fat. I hadn’t talked about it with anyone (like my own coach, for instance) because I didn’t want to be accountable to anyone else. I know how accountability works: …
A Favorite Day
I had a birthday this week. Birthdays used to be more exciting somehow. But well-wishers hoped that I would do something special. So I decided to make it a favorite day. Highlights included writing in my favorite café, running with my daughter on her bike in the sunshine, and making pancakes with the kids for dinner. Lowlights included freezing my ass off at the playground and getting the kids to clean the playroom. It was the best day ever. The …
The Dungeon of Spit
“Oh we don’t need stakes. It’s not going to rain.” Rookie mistake. The sound of rain pattering on the tent is a lovely sound; the sound of rain pattering inside the tent not so much. We went on our first camping trip of the summer last weekend. I’ve always wanted to go to the Dungeness Spit, a 300-foot wide spit of sand, logs and birds stretching five miles out into the Straits of Juan de Fuca. My 5-year-old thought it …
Getting Back Up
I got knocked down recently. And now I’m getting back up. A month ago an anonymous visitor left several comments here. The comments seemed mean spirited and personal. And the benevolent place where I was casting these writings changed into something creepy and critical. That’s not a place I enjoy visiting. It’s a barren place, an enervating place. The magic of creating something out of nothing – of writing – doesn’t survive there. Or at least mine doesn’t. So I haven’t written …
A Kid Named Doc
I read with a first grader at my kids’ school last week. He told me he has the same name as his grandpa. And that both his father and his grandfather are in heaven. We read a book about a kid whose father works in an automobile factory. As we read, the boy confidently identified the different makes of cars. “That’s a Ford,” he said, “That’s a Honda.” On the last page of the book, the protagonist talks about how proud …
Personal Trainer Love
I worked out with a personal trainer. And felt like an athlete again. Let me explain: I am so not a personal trainer kind of person. I’m a run-barefoot-in-the-woods-and-be-free kind of person. But Tim and I are trading sessions: I life coach him, he personal trains me. And I was curious. What does a personal trainer do? I guess I expected to get yelled out, to be told to gut it out, to be shamed somehow. What I didn’t expect was …