When I first started writing this, it was about dealing with disappointment and moving through it. Today, I had to erase what I originally wrote because of a tragedy in the life of Karen, one of my dearest friends. This morning her five year old grandson, Matthew, died from complications of a bone marrow transplant. His little brother, Andrew, died from the same thing last August. Both children had a genetically transmitted blood disease, very rare--only a few children in the world (as far as I know under twenty) had manifested this particular strain. They were being treated by specialists in Cincinnati who did everything humanly possible to save their lives. Sadly, that didn't happen. I had the honor of getting to know Matthew ...

"Those who are victorious plan effectively, and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course, but adjusts its flow. They have form, but are formless. They are skilled in both planning and adapting, and need not fear the result of a thousand battles: For they win in advance, defeating those who have already lost." — Sun Tzu I am well aware that there is nothing new under the sun, and that most of what I perceive to be 'original' ideas are actually my musings and reinterpretations of what I have read, been taught, talked about with others. This quote, which so powerfully expresses why it is vital to have a vision for one's life, is from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I read over twenty-five years ago. It mad...

"Destiny is not a matter of chance.  It is a matter of choice."  --Oliver Wendell Holmes How many times have we thought we knew what was best for someone, but felt powerless to get them to see it?  I have had that experience many times (as a coach, keeping my mouth shut when it won't help the situation is a consistent challenge!) Yesterday morning the phone rang, and when I saw the name on the caller ID, the first thing that crossed my mind was that it was a family member of an old friend calling to tell me she had passed away. This was a friend whom I hadn't seen in quite a while. She was such a committed alcoholic that I stopped being able to connect with her. Nothing I had said or done with her helped her with her situation....

I recently visited a friend in Florida and felt so grateful that I have people all around the world that I love and appreciate who are genuinely glad to see me and share some of their lives with me.  I hadn't actually seen this friend face to face for four and a half years, but we picked up right where we left off and have spent the last day and a half filling each other in on major events, recounting challenges we've faced, how we've grown through them, what we've learned, where we see ourselves going from here. In some ways our lives have paralleled, in other ways we are very different.  We do have one common thread--in our early sixties, we are both re-evaluating who we are as women, how we show up in the world, and what we want ...