In our work lives, we sometimes find ourselves in a kind of wilderness. Perhaps we don’t know why we’re still doing what we’re doing, or we’re just exhausted with it, or more potently – we just can’t care anymore and have no more f***s to give. This can be because of an untenable work situation or culture, a bad boss, an accumulation of compromises we’ve made that topple of their own weight, or a blinding realization that we are really not making a difference.   In my recruit

Caryn's grandmother Ettie on the line here Once poetry took hold in my life, I thought "that's all she wrote," but sometimes another calling comes in through the backdoor. When I started teaching English 101 at the University of Kansas, a gig to support my poetry habit, I had no idea that teaching was it for me as much as poetry. That's how it is with callings: they almost always aren't just one thing, and what's more, they evolve over time. Teaching 18-year-olds how to find

"The gift must always move," I read in an article by Lewis Hyde over 40 years ago. I was in my early 20s and only knew that I had to write poetry and also find a way to pay the rent and go out for occasional enchiladas. Until I read those lines, I didn't connect the truth of seeing a calling -- something we feel born to do or something that emerges with such clarity that it just about takes our breath away -- as a gift I needed to pay forward. I only knew Hyde was saying som

In 2017, Rep. Maxine Waters mesmerized us in a congressional hearing with her repeated and confident statement, “Mr. Chair, I’m reclaiming my time.” This occurred in the course of her questioning U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who kept avoiding her questions with extended, gratuitous praise of her to run out the clock. Allowed just 5 minutes in the hearing, Waters advocated for herself thusly: “We don’t want to take up my time with how great I am.” She persisted, cons

"Where do you find your people?" is a question I hear a lot. As someone who has been offering writing workshops, coaching, and consulting for many years, I find that the people who sign up come from directions I could never predict. In the last year, I've worked with a woman who was a student of mine over 20 years ago, a doctor who treated my sinus infections about ten years ago, and a woman who I joked with as we watched our kids perform in high school band concerts way-back

I had a gorgeous friend during my college years, and she even had a colorful name – Hester. She was a woman of bold and impetuous action, the one of our crew who proposed the wildest adventures, and then proceeded to launch herself into them. I was in awe of how Hester purposefully reached for what she really wanted. She seemed at home on the planet, willing to just decide and go. In contrast, I was more cautious and sometimes a non-starter. Always an information-gatherer by

We all have our callings: the work we're alive to do; yet for most of us, the path is not linear but a tangle that runs through mosquito-filled forests, swampy grasslands, and even along the sea bottom before being tossing us back onto the shore. That's why Kathryn Lorenzen and I created the Big Picture Retreat, a chance to connect with our callings, and in the process, bring alive the work -- whether for livelihood, art, service, or purpose -- that fulfills us. This relaxin

Sorting through my sister’s garage recently, I stumbled across something I recognized immediately – my mother’s leather portfolio full of maps, all still nestled in there. It’s burgundy, with the scrapes and scratches of time, and zippered pockets full of maps – city maps, state maps, national park maps. And inside it still smells like our old house, and her. My mother taught elementary school briefly before she began having children, and I remember her telling me that she re

As the last 25 years of my life have been largely focused on people’s relationships with their work, I’ve always held a special place in my heart for Labor Day. It was established in the late 1800s in recognition of the struggles for workers’ rights, and while those legitimate struggles continue into the present day, the growth of labor unions and the middle class in the 20th century allowed many of us the privilege of thinking of our labor in terms of what it means to us. In

Periodically, I get frozen in the midst of a project because I can’t see from here to the end. A great example of this is our basement, which in recent years became the final destination of both the random and precious belongings of family members who have passed on. Some days I wonder, “Is this my life’s work?” It’s a project, all right: daunting and deserving of a Scope of Work document, some days feeling so enormous that the weight of it seems an anchor. I get into this “f

There's a whole lot of travel going on this summer, perhaps some even involving you and a slew of planes, trains, and automobiles. Yet for many of us, such travel is rarely about stopping out of the whirl of motion to catch up with yourself. Particularly when it comes to getting clearer about your life's work playing out in real time, many of us need a true retreat to step back, listen to what we're truly called to at this time, and discover the next best path to take. That's

As spring approaches, there’s a natural uptick in energy for many folks. This can be so much fun to have the sensation of a fresh start! And yet, some of my coaching clients have recently told me they just feel stalled out and can’t seem to get their motors started. During the second year of the pandemic, there was a feeling most of us had, a pervasive sense of joylessness and inertia. Adam Grant published an article in The New York Times that named that feeling for us as “l

Several years ago, I played rhythm guitar with a wonderful local rockabilly band, Miss Major and Her Minor Mood Swings. We built a nice fan base, won a local battle-of-the-bands, and one holiday season we got to open a show for Wanda Jackson, an icon known as “the Queen of Rockabilly.” As we were setting up for our sound check at Knucklehead’s, I strapped on my ’67 Telecaster, plugged in, and began to tune up. A couple of young men were sitting near the stage, and one stage-w

I didn't know I was a poet until Judy Rance-Roney, my sophomore high school English teacher, told me so. Although I'd been writing poetry at fast clip in my notebook for over a year, something I felt compelled to do out of the need for words to explain my life to me, it wasn't until Ms. Rance-Raney pulled out me out of the classroom one day, my newly-written sonnet in her hand, and said, "You're a poet!" that something clicked into place. Our paths in life are like that: they

I was fifteen years ago and miserable when I first went to a youth group Havdalah service one winter evening. I was living with my very difficult father in a big house, so much bigger now that my mother and siblings had moved out, and I was the loneliest I had ever been, having lost most of my extended family. Now I was gathered with other teens for the short end-of-sabbath service (Sabbath begins at sundown Friday night and ends at sundown Saturday night). We held each other

My dad was the pure embodiment of “I work, therefore I am.” Far from being a Type A, he brought pure joy to work, and he equally enjoyed...

I love my work but I have a tendency, to paraphrase the Oklahoma song, to be a gal who can't say no. Yet when our mouths get us into trouble, the rest of our bodies can right the wrong, and that's what happened to me. I would take on way too much work, all of it gleaming with promise when I said yes, but by the time I was driving six hours west to do a low-paying gig or staying up late doing a rushed editing project, the shine was gone, and I was exhausted. I was also sick o

I’m surprised at how often I hear this. Since 2002 I’ve been coaching people in career development and job search, and there’s been a considerable uptick in the frequency of this sentiment in the past two years. My daily involvement as a coach with how people wrestle with these issues is exactly why I was so excited to say “yes!” when Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg invited me to co-lead Your Right Livelihood with her. To guide people in an experience of finding and developing their

When my mother was diagnosed with fast-moving macular degeneration in her 80s, she knew she might not have her vision much longer. Mom was never interested in using a computer, as my dad was, but her life was full of books, magazines, and newspapers. She was the most well-informed person any of us in our family ever knew, an advisor and campaign treasurer for our U.S. Congressional Representative, a local and regional leader in the League of Women Voters, and a participant in

At some point in our lives, many of us arrive at a reckoning. The scenarios are different, but some version of a question can show up: What happened to that thing I used to love to do? My friend Catherine and my client Tina have both returned to painting after decades in commercial graphic design and teaching. Their paths and creative personalities are wildly different, but both heard “the voice” at a certain point, first quiet and then loud and persistent. Catherine's desire