Just Sit There

Self-care reminders to self: 1. Routines 2. Grace 3. Hobbies 4. Connections 5. Boundaries

I've never knocked on the door of a childhood home. I've driven past them. Slowed down. Sat in my car long enough that I probably looked suspicious. I've stared at the windows and tried to remember what was on the other side of them. is.gd/Pn1JJY

The best parenting advice I ever got also turned out to be the best coaching advice I ever got. Clear constraints. Genuine choices. Consistent follow-through. Enough calm in the system for the other person to find their own regulation. is.gd/DVPEtJ

My brother claimed he knew a shortcut. Within three minutes, we were completely lost in the Maine woods. Then we heard rustling. "Bears?" one of us whispered. “Mom!!!???” the other yelled. "Yes?" came my mother's voice from the is.gd/BPwVQq

A stranger knocked on my front door. Not the back — where friends and family came. The front. Which nobody used. She had a radiant smile and the slightly apologetic look of someone about to ask an unusual favor. She explained she'd is.gd/Pn1JJY

At 8 AM, two hours before my California DMV appointment, I discovered my Massachusetts registration was suspended. I'd been riding an illegal Vespa for two weeks without knowing it. What happened next involved three customer service reps is.gd/Y6GK9G

A child psychiatrist once told us the problem wasn’t our daughter. It was a capability mismatch. Her intellect was running years ahead of her emotional regulation. The fix wasn’t more pressure, more reasoning, or more consequences. is.gd/DVPEtJ

At 98, my father couldn't remember I'd visited a few days before. But ask about that cabin in Maine from 1969? "Gus's place. Lake Megunticook." Crystal clear. That summer I was nine. Got lost in the woods (mom was 50 yards away). Kicked is.gd/BPwVQq

My mother-in-law gave us a housewarming gift I've never forgotten. She tracked down the property deeds going back to 1777 and had them bound into a book. Two hundred years of names and dates — James and Elizabeth Pool. George Brunner. is.gd/Pn1JJY

The best parenting advice I ever got also turned out to be the best coaching advice I ever got. Clear constraints. Genuine choices. Consistent follow-through. Enough calm in the system for the other person to find their own regulation. is.gd/DVPEtJ

With five concurrent tasks, you lose 80% of your capacity to context switching alone. Only 20% goes to actual productive work. This isn't about discipline. It's about how human cognition works. Your brain can't instantly swap between is.gd/R1ag7G

My brother claimed he knew a shortcut. Within three minutes, we were completely lost in the Maine woods. Then we heard rustling. "Bears?" one of us whispered. “Mom!!!???” the other yelled. "Yes?" came my mother's voice from the is.gd/BPwVQq

Shia from Progressive spent 15 minutes explaining interstate insurance database protocols I had no idea existed. Pablo from the DMV got on his hands and knees to verify my engine number. Lisa made the California DMV feel almost... human. In is.gd/Y6GK9G

At 98, my father couldn't remember I'd visited a few days before. But ask about that cabin in Maine from 1969? "Gus's place. Lake Megunticook." Crystal clear. That summer I was nine. Got lost in the woods (mom was 50 yards away). Kicked is.gd/BPwVQq

When I renovated the barn, I found scribbles on the studs beneath the old paneling. Darkroom sink hookup. Stat machine power. I didn't know what they meant. I filed them away as curiosities and kept working — running my graphic is.gd/Pn1JJY

A child psychiatrist once told us the problem wasn’t our daughter. It was a capability mismatch. Her intellect was running years ahead of her emotional regulation. The fix wasn’t more pressure, more reasoning, or more consequences. is.gd/DVPEtJ

Your brain rewards busy-ness with dopamine hits. Every email answered, every box checked triggers "I did something." It doesn't matter if the work was valuable. You feel productive when you're busy—even when that busy-ness is destroying is.gd/R1ag7G

Moved cross-country. Said no to my publishing schedule. Said yes to settling into life. That personal boundary revealed something crucial: the same patterns that drive individual overcommitment scale up to sabotage entire teams. Meet the is.gd/zMoiDw

After 15 years as an agile coach, I thought I understood navigating complex systems. Then I tried to transfer my Vespa registration from Massachusetts to California. 'I'll just wing it at the DMV,' I thought. 'Talk my way through.' That is.gd/Y6GK9G

My brother claimed he knew a shortcut. Within three minutes, we were completely lost in the Maine woods. Then we heard rustling. "Bears?" one of us whispered. “Mom!!!???” the other yelled. "Yes?" came my mother's voice from the is.gd/BPwVQq

We nurture the seeds of today for tomorrow's blooms. In our achievement-oriented culture, this requires patience and faith in processes that unfold over seasons we can't rush. The conversations we have today with struggling team members is.gd/P4ltRM