-
The Year I Needed A Navigator
Six months into asking how can this be easy, I found out where that question actually comes from In December, I wrote about the phrase I was taking into 2026: How can this be easy? I borrowed it from my business coach Krista Smith, and I loved it immediately. Not because I was…
-
When Perfectionism Looks Like Analysis Paralysis: Is The Perfect Answer Really Hiding In the Numbers
I’m learning to have the courage to say I have enough information to move forward. It sounds simple. It’s not, at least not for me. I can geek out on analytics related to my business (an artifact of tracking diabetes-related data since I was 10). Weekly data reviews, tracking what…
-
Prepared in the wrong ways
Freshman year, 1985. San Marcos High School newspaper. That’s me in the polka dots, interviewing President Reagan’s press secretary, Larry Speakes. I was terrified. It was the nicest outfit I could pull together at the moment, and maybe it matched exactly how unprepared I felt. Fourteen years old, holding a…
-
What Are You Actually Afraid Of?
I’ve been thinking about fear a lot lately. My own, mostly. The kind that shows up when you’re doing something new — stepping into work that feels bigger, or different, or more visible than what you’ve done before. The kind that keeps asking: what if this doesn’t work? And I’ve been…
-
When the Packing List is On Point, but the Universe Has Other Plans
I just got back from an epic trip to Central Europe with my husband, including a Danube River Cruise from Budapest to Prague — and I packed a carry-on. That’s it. I am a minimalist packer by conviction and also by stubbornness. I know what I need. I know what…
-
The Part of You They’re Allowed to See
Portrait mode: on You know that photo someone else takes of you at a party, the one taken with no warning, a bad angle, and zero filter? Contrast that with the one you took yourself with the right light and 37 retakes? Perfectionism is the gap between those two photos.…
-
When Perfectionism Puts On A Blazer
I don’t know if you feel this way when you create, but I tend to do one of two things: I either get it out fast (a nod to my years as a public information officer and emergency management communicator), or I get stuck in creative revision. Now that I’m…
-
If You Feel Behind, Read This
One feeling keeps coming up for so many women I know, and I’ve felt it myself: behind. Not behind in a dramatic way. Behind in the circumspect, capable-woman way. Behind on the timeline. Behind on what life is “supposed” to look like by now. The Script I Was Following For…
-
This Is Not for Everyone (and That’s Okay)
I’m not AI-generated. My hair is gray and curly. My eyes need correction, and my wrinkles are becoming more prominent. I know who I am, what I need to do most days, and—just as importantly—what I don’t know yet. I try not to imply expertise where I don’t have it.…
-
Not Everything Has to Be New
On familiar routines, losing your way, and remembering how to come home A few weeks ago, I took my dog on a walk, like I do every morning. Same leash. Same gate. Same loop around the dirt path while she sniffs, wanders, and does her very important dog business. When…
