Exhale. Pause. Trust. Those were the watchwords that saw me, and my voice, through an intensive week of leading corporate workshops while fighting a cold. “Exhale” came from my bodyworker, Roy, who observed at our last appointment that my breathing seemed tight. “Focus on exhaling,” he said. “The inhaling will take care of itself.” (He’s [...]

One of the things that frustrates me most about writing—or creating anything, really—is the way that you—I—never get it right the first time. Not-getting-it-right is built into the process: whatever I’m working on is continuously wrong, or gradually-and-marginally-less-wrong, until finally, near the very end, it’s right (enough), and therefore Done! NEXT! I like being right. [...]

How’s the Early Bedtime Project going? Spotty. But positive even so. The inconsistency is not a surprise—I acknowledged that late-night work sessions are a longstanding habit, maybe even part of my identity. As expected (I even built it into the plan), I reverted to working into the night under deadline pressure. Now that I’m not [...]

I’m a night owl, as you may have deduced from the time stamps on my blog posts. I actually like mornings, I do!, but for years I’ve been in the habit of doing my creative work (and often my less creative work too) late, late at night. Nothing wrong with that. Being free to stay [...]

I was working on a proposal for a new-to-me potential client, and it wasn’t going well at all. The proposal was for a workshop in a new subject area—a topic I wasn’t sure I wanted to develop. I’d gone over the pros and cons and decided it was worth trying for. (Pros: It’s good to [...]