I wanted to pull my hair out. Saying goodbye is never easy, but no one should have to say goodbye like this, ever. When your last name is my mom’s maiden name and you live in a small town where politics are alive and well, the mention of a certain name can get people to look the other way. When you have an Irish-Polish last name like ours, certain events just happen. Such is the case of the last thirteen hours of my mom’s life.

My Uncle managed to become mom’s power of attorney. How someone who had been diagnosed…

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I had a call of sorts with someone I hadn’t met in person. I thought I knew the person well until I heard him speak and everything tickled me in all the right places.

If there’s something about an accent that turns you on, you’re not alone.

Worklife says:

“There are some famous names who have done it: Margaret Thatcher swapped her Lincolnshire accent for a posher one, adopting the standard ‘received pronunciation’ (or RP), which at the time was thought to be more in keeping with a position of political power.”

Are you guilty of judging someone by their…

Writing is a combat sport. And when you’ve been using crutches, you haven’t been growing as much as you could be.

Think of it like this. You rely on crutches, props, and they certainly have benefits. They come with drawbacks too. You forgot how to do things on your own. You used them repeatedly. You relied on them too much. In the process, your muscles atrophied. You relied on a short-term fix as a long-term solution, expecting them always to be there.

You went for the easy win, and you stopped healing yourself. You leaned hard into the extra support…

We’ve gotten too cozy again with the ways of how things work on the platform — specifically, the clapping economy and the ego boost of writers. Let’s be honest for a minute; claps tell us something about the way a piece performs. Please allow me to retract that, and say we make judgments about the performance of a piece based on the amount of applause it receives.

To be clear, Ev Williams wasn’t in favor of claps, as we affectionately call them. He was in favor of the idea of applause, as when you attend a performance. …

Can you hear me now? The famous tagline for Verizon from 2002–2011 is possibly the dream of every writer. You want to be heard, to connect in some way. And when you actually connect, I mean really connect, you may wish you hadn’t unless you’ve developed tough skin.

You can’t be a writer and have everyone like you. You know you’re on your way when your writing connects and people respond. They aren’t always nice in their responses though. And when they are mean, you have an opportunity you may not have realized.

“Everything is a content opportunity” — Janet…

People think they are self-aware, but they lie to themselves. In fact, on a good day, people only about 20% aware. Psychologist Tasha Eurich describes concepts from her book Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think:

“Our data reveals that 95 percent of people believe they are self-aware, but the real number is 12 to 15 percent,” she says. “That means, on a good day, about 80 percent of people are lying about themselves — to themselves.”

If you don’t like the stats, maybe the…

Life isn’t quite back to normal. Most of us are still making it up as we go along. You want to go forward and embrace some of the things you used to know and enjoy. But, some things, you’d rather leave behind. You may ache for crowds, travel, mental health, personal growth, and more, but feel uncertainty too. You can stay where you are, or be prepared to move.

As the world continues to wake up, you can’t forget where you’ve been. Where you’ve been shapes where you’re going. This quote, by a Swedish economist, embodies our thinking:

“Never look…