In the writing community it is a shared sentiment that every first draft is embarrassing. No one wants people to ever see their first draft because we all know that it is a painful, yet incredibly important, part of the writing process. When we embrace the idea of the first draft as writers, it allows us to get past perfectionism and just put thoughts to paper.

This week I pulled up to my house after 30 hours of driving and 42 days away from home. When we pulled up, we kept our car outside the garage and loaded everything in. We took off the roof box and rails and put them inside as well. The next day we had the car cleaned and it looks beautiful inside and out. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about my house.

This week I watched Andrew learn how to snowboard for the first time. He took a few lessons at Hoedown Hill - a small learning hill near our air BNB in Windsor - and then we took on Vail Mountain. I am impressed, not by how quickly Andrew picked up snowboarding, but by his willingness to even try. There are many people who reach a certain age and they become set in their ways; they embrace an “old dogs can’t learn new tricks” attitude and then that’s it, they stop learning, they stop changing, and they stop growing.

This morning, I ran a 4-mile race in Colorado snow. The race started with just some light flurries and then about halfway through the snow really started to come down; serendipitously that’s when the song “one foot” by Walk the Moon came on my playlist. It was the perfect reminder that the best way to make progress is to just focus on putting one foot in front of the other; this is especially true in the middle of a snowstorm running on an ice-covered path.

Whenever I am out exercising, it is impossible to not compare myself to the people that pass me by. Just now, I finished a good run. I sprinted to the end of the road and as I rounded the corner I slowed down to a very satisfying walk. I took deep breaths and felt very proud of myself for getting out and exercising on this cold winter day. Then, just a moment later, another runner approached me.

I walk by the same line of trees several times a week. It was just an empty patch of dirt until a few years ago, when the owners planted a long row of 2 ft. tall arborvitae. I remember laughing at how tiny they were and how long it would take for them to provide the screening the owners were hoping for. As time went by, the trees grew. Of course, I didn't really notice the growth at first as I was focused on the two trees that didn’t make it…

Exactly two hundred and one weeks ago, I started a weekly email called the Sunday Starter. The first post was called How to Start When Starting is Hard. I find myself thinking about it in this first post of 2025, three and a half years later, because I am thinking about creating an audio version of these posts. I have been thinking about it for a while, but like any new thing that we want to start, it feels daunting. How do I know this is the right move? How can I be sure that it will be worth the effort The image of the Roman god Janus I think is very fitting when it comes to setting goals…

Today, is my 200th Sunday Starter. That’s 3.5 years of consistently sending something out on Sunday mornings. Now, if you’ve been reading this entire time, then you know that some weeks were better than others. Some weeks, I was barely crawling (Crawling). Some weeks, I took breaks (Rest) or ran reruns (Vacation Mode). And some weeks, I wrote something I was very proud of (The History of Pink). I love that the 200th happens to coincide with the New Year. It is a time when many people are setting resolutions and the reason most people don’t follow through on those resolutions is because they forget to factor in consistency.

Lately, when people ask me that common question strangers ask, so what do you do? I’ve been trying to shift my mindset from saying what I did/do I work with change management in IT product migrations, to what I do/want to be doing more of, which is I am an author and speaker. The reason I am intentionally trying to make this mental shift is because I know the importance of Identity when it comes to achieving our goals.

You know those little libraries some people put outside their homes? Well, the last time I was in upstate New York at the family home in Hannawa Falls, I put my book into two different libraries. When I was up last week for our third annual trip for Thanksgiving, I was excited to check them to see if someone had taken it.

In SCRUM project management methodology, there is something known as the Definition of Done (DOD). The purpose is to align the entire team and the stakeholders with their vision of success. Without the DOD it is all too easy for one person to think they have reached the end, when others think there is still work to be done. When you have budgets, timelines, and resources to work with, this can have drastic impacts to a project. Defining done makes it clear what success looks like. In our lives we might not always have a specific goal or project that ever reaches a done state, but we do have expectations for ourselves on what success looks like. Recently, I realized that my definition had been drastically off.

Recently I started running on a track again. While I usually prefer the twists and turns of winding aimlessly through the streets of my town, the soft rubber surface of the flat track was a nice change of pace. I had intended just to finish up my three-mile run but as I finished mile three, I decided to run some intervals. Intervals are when you run a chosen distance at an increased pace, and then slow down for a chosen distance at a decreased pace. Then you do it again. And again. And again...

Many of us involved in this AI wave find ourselves using the phrase “it’s not the magic bullet.” This is because the expectations of stakeholders who invest in bringing AI tools to their organizations find themselves disappointed with the current capabilities. In my experience the products themselves, while they are new and filled with room for improvement, are still rather remarkable. The disappointment doesn’t come from the product but in the expectation of the product. People wanted a magic bullet, and they didn’t get it.

Today is the first day in a while that I am sitting down to write. It's been almost two months of being my own boss and yet all the time I thought I would now have has quickly gone to other things; even with a more flexible schedule the task of writing is one that still remains difficult for me to start. I used to think it was that I didn't have enough hours in the day but now I can clearly see that time is not the problem but rather instant gratification...

Have you ever paid of a lot of money for a fancy dinner and then been disappointed in the outcome? The steak was good, but was it $50 good? If we never have to eat there again then we'll feel a little annoyed that we wasted our money, but we'll move on; we learn from the bad experience and eat some place different next time. But what about decisions that last longer than a meal?

I’ve been at the airport for a few hours now, stuck at Newark because of a storm. With my headphones on and lightning streaking across the sky, I have found the most perfect flow; that moment when you become so fixed on what you’re doing that everything around you fades away, a feeling of bliss descends, and you know you could do what you’re doing forever...

A while back, I went to a two-day conference to develop my public speaking skills. One of the owners and leaders of the event, Michael Port, wrote a book called The Referable Speaker. In the book he gives guidance to people like me who have gotten to a place in their career where...

I'm not feeling inspired…  I said these words to Andrew in the United lounge of Newark Airport. A busy airport with lots of frustrated people waiting around from delayed flights was - surprise, surprise - not exactly a fertile environment where I am primed for success...

Just do it. That’s it. That’s the advice summed up in three words. Just. Do it. For the past year I’ve been wanting to start an LLC for my writing, book, and other consulting dreams, and for the past year I did just about everything I could do except starting an LLC. I met with lawyer friends to ask their advice, I googled “how to start an LLC”, I posted on Facebook asking for help, I wrote a Sunday Starter about starting an LLC; I did everything except go to the website and fill out the form. 

On January 1, 2023 a good friend of mine and I poured some sparkling water and sat at her kitchen table brainstorming New Year’s resolutions. Once we had a list ready of our goals, we went to the store and bought a bunch of bottles of champagne. Most of the bottles were pretty cheap but they were a way of celebrating various achievements throughout the year. As we strolled through the champagne aisle, I decided to splurge; if I made it through the whole year and reached every goal, I would pop a bottle of Dom Pérignon…

On April 15, 1931, Plennie Wingo set out from Santa Monica California to break a world record; 8,000 miles and over a year later he would become the person to walk the furthest around the world… backwards. As I sat in the car listening to a podcast tell the story of Mr. Wingo, I was inspired to write a Sunday Starter about it so I pulled out my OneNote on my phone and jotted down a few notes.  

There are some things in my life I am excelling at, while there are others I am failing miserably. It is frustrating for me because the things I am struggling with are actually things I am very good at. I shouldn’t be doing poorly, yet I am. It made me think of a story I once read about Ruth Bader Ginsberg…

This week someone handed me a book that he had just published. I had already known this, of course, as I cheered him on through the process and celebrated when it finally arrived. There’s something special that connects people that experience the same thing.

As you embark on a New Year and think about the "new you" that you want to be, remember that goals aren't about changing who you are; goals are about finding who you are and that process begins on day one. When you set your eyes on a target, and start making a plan for how to reach it, you should be thinking about two things: rituals and habits.  

For those of you alive in the 1970s, you may remember the Ford Pinto. Debuted in 1970, this small car was cheap to buy and the first of its kind from the Ford Motor Company. It appeared to be successful by all reports until about 1972 when the deaths started piling up. Upon investigation it appeared that the car was prone to catching fire when hit from behind, even in low-speed crashes. What’s very disturbing is that this wasn’t something accidental that occurred; Ford failed numerous safety inspections and knew that the car was likely to catch fire.

As I write this, I am sitting in Bryant Park. The sun is peeking through the clouds, I'm in eye shot of the Empire State Building and arms reach of way too many pigeons. In a few minutes, I'll walk the half mile uptown to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. While I've lived outside New York most of my life, I have yet to visit the great museums the city has to offer. It's something I've always wanted to do, but could never seem to muster the motivation to make a plan. So what got me here today?  A few weeks ago…

Remember last week, when I wrote about writing at the Office? Well, I had such a great experience the first time, I decided to come back here again. When I arrived, I sat down and immediately found my flow. After two hours, with a huge smile on my face, I got up to take a quick break and use the bathroom. I came back not 3 minutes later and there was a gentleman standing very close to where my stuff was. He seemed to be just ordering a drink and I assumed maybe he would take it to another seat - after all, the entire bar was open. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Finish your dinner or you don't get dessert… Clean your room and you'll get 30 more minutes of screen time… Be good in the store and we'll pick out a toy… If you have ever been around children for any extended period of time, you have probably said some version of those statements. While I do not have children myself, I have worked with kids of varying ages as a Children's Director for 6 years and have an additional 4 years under my belt as a middle school teacher. So I totally get it when you find yourself in a moment when you just want to punish or reward. I also totally get it if you read my post last week and were a little annoyed or defensive, so let me add a little more to the story…

In 2010, I was working as a Middle School Science teacher at a small school in Ecuador. Unlike my time at an American School, when teachers showed up early to prep and ready their classrooms, most Ecuadorian teachers arrived on the busses with the students. As a result, it became a common trend for all the teachers to be arriving with the students right at 8am, giving everyone just a few minutes to get situated before the first bell. The head of the school, an American, tried to change this habit by implementing a sign-in system. When we arrived at the school, we had to…

When I set out to drive the 348 miles from New Jersey to upstate New York, what I planned to do was only stop for gas. What I ended up doing was hike 3 mountains. That feels like quite a leap, but a few basic truths about behavior change can explain how I got there.