I’ve been at this about three years. “This” being writing about things I notice while moving through the world as a coach. I thought it would be cool to mark the occasion by organizing a collection of these essays into a book. Check! Trees Don’t Get Mad At Rivers is now available.

It’s the first day of fall. The season reminds me of a favorite childhood activity. This memory popped into my head on a walk yesterday, probably triggered by the emerging fall colors and smells. It made me think about the knowings that live inside us.

I can’t remember when I first heard the term “multi-hyphenate” but I do remember feeling seen. If you’re unfamiliar, a multi-hyphenate is someone who pursues multiple career paths at the same time. I’ve found it useful to expand the definition beyond work.

Two weeks ago, I got injured playing pickleball. The details are irrelevant other than to say it was bad enough that I had to get a piggyback ride from a stranger because I couldn’t walk from the court to the car. Laid up at home, I was determined to stick to the R.I.C.E. protocol

Don’t you love crossing things off your to-do list? Checking a box? Marking something “done”? So what about the things that are never done? There’s no end to taking care of your relationships, health, finances, or to raising your kids, exploring your creativity, or understanding yourself.

A couple months ago, I started playing pickleball again. This was in mid-April, almost exactly one year after I wrote an essay about how I was over pickleball. The experience of enjoying pickleball again has been a reminder of how fleeting our preferences can be.

We’re at the halfway point of the year. It’s a great time to reset the atmosphere. On 2026. On a habit. On your perspective. In my case, literally. I recently walked through my new house waving a burning sage stick. I wanted to neutralize the environment so I can create my home from a blank slate.

There are hard things. And harder things. And then there are IKEA cabinets. Whoever decided that assembling these is an easy job for the average person is confused. I attempted it this past weekend and can report a multilayered experience that did not include ease.

I can’t stop listening to podcasts about how A.I. is coming for our jobs. No one knows for sure about the future impact of A.I. on the economy or our livelihoods. And yet I feel compelled to follow the recycled commentary surrounding this topic.

There’s that Ram Dass quote: “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” I have a new one: If you think you’re enlightened, go buy a house. That’s what I did earlier this year. Not because I thought I was enlightened but…

It’s been a frigid winter in the northeastern U.S. After a few minutes of walking outside, my dog starts methodically lifting one paw at a time, seeking relief from the cold. When I call her inside, she won’t move. She’s frozen in place. It reminds me of how us humans approach transitions.

Imagine you’re having a conversation with someone who is full of interesting insights about a situation you’re navigating. While you’re doing the talking, they’re glancing around the room, checking their phone, or looking to interject. This doesn’t feel good, no matter how “right” their words are.

Swamps and rivers have water in common—and that’s about it. They’re fundamentally different systems. Swamps linger and collect, circulating the same material. Rivers move and release, reorganizing around whatever flows through. Nature can be so clarifying.

Certain conversations feel hard to have. It’s vulnerable to share what you really think and feel. It’s uncomfortable not knowing how the other person will respond or what the consequences will be on the other side. This biases us toward avoidance.

To celebrate my 48th birthday last week, I had dinner with a friend I’ve known since I was 14. We went to an Italian place famous for the pizza. We didn’t order the pizza. It wasn’t the first time we didn’t get the pizza on my birthday. The first time Beth and I didn’t get the pizza was in 1992.

Recently, devotion came up in a coaching conversation. Then my algorithm started showing me a bunch of content about devotion. Then, in a conversation with a friend, she said to me, “It sounds like you’re pretty devoted.” It got me wondering: What actually is devotion?

Holidays can awakening parts of us that lie dormant the rest of the year. All the skills we learned from therapy, meditation, and personal-development books seem to vanish when confronted with just the right (and oh-so-wrong) comment from a certain family member.

Adaptability is so important right now. Conversations about politics, artificial intelligence, and the economy often find their way to a burning question: With everything changing so rapidly and potentially drastically, how do we prepare for the unpredictable?

On Saturday, I took a masterclass on transition. The instructor was my dog. We were walking in the park. It was a crisp fall day and the grass was covered in multicolored leaves. This was a seasonal first, following high winds the night before. For my dog, it was a first ever.

My family celebrated Thanksgiving early this year. Holiday dates are really just ideas we’ve collectively bought into. They’re unspoken rules that have become so ingrained in the culture that we’ve stopped questioning them. This gets more interesting when you look beyond holidays.