Blog
Your Story Matters: leading and living your creative best
Welcome—so glad you’re here. Do you, like me, want to work more creatively, lead lightly, be productive, and design the life you want to live? Are you curious about how storytelling can help you can engage others and shape meaning? If so, I hope you enjoy these posts and I look forward to hearing from you!
How loss can make us grateful
Thanksgiving was different this year. My husband and I ate alone for the first time in thirty-plus years. Of course, being the Martha Stewart look-alike that I am, I treated it like any other Thanksgiving. I meticulously cleaned the house, decorated with the requisite...
Feeling safe
A lot of people aren’t feeling safe these days. Three million people in the US keep open-carry weapons with them at all times. Self-proclaimed-militias stalk US State houses. The global home security industry is expected to reach $78.9 billion by 2025. Between...
Stay calm–and vigilant
Last Saturday, as elections results were finally announced. I celebrated. Relaxed. Cried. Then I looked up and knew, "It ain't over yet." I thought back to my time competing my horse at cross-country events. I'd gallop my horse across fields, charge through water,...
Time for trust
We hoped it would be over. It's not over. Maybe over was just a fantasy. The same forces that existed before the elections, some dating back hundreds of years, continue. My friend John Perkins once gave me a wake-up phrase that I treasure. John, an African-American...
As we move through countdown
Are you on countdown this week? I keep ticking away days as if life is being divided into BE (before elections) and AE. I know this is historically myopic. The crow, the hawk, and the falcon are not counting down. They will keep flying regardless. As their kin have...
What if the animals were our partners?
If you need a break from election-mania, here's something different. (I voted Saturday!) I watched the video below about a scientist, Nan Hauser, who was saved by a humpback whale. Her story is not unique. If you search the Internet, as I did, you can find loads of...
What’s in your emergency joy kit?
The poet David Whyte has offered a series of soul-nourishing talks during the pandemic. After the most recent, he offered a question we could use as part of our practices: "What do you like to do where the doing itself, no matter how awkwardly done, is its own...
This revolution will require love
Is it OK to rage when we're committed to practicing love? How do we love someone whose words and actions have lead to deaths and needless suffering for millions? And when their credo of selfishness taints and threatens to destroy this county? If love is a tender,...
Is your head stuck in the sand? (Hint: neither is the ostrich’s)
How much news can one take? My working answer is simple: it depends. My friend Dan used to work as a crime reporter. Armed with his journalistic lens of objectivity, he saw horrible stuff, yet he was able to distill it into readable print. He likes keeping up with the...
Pray for justice but not from fear
This week was struck by the first line from Wicked Game, Chris Issak's iconic mega-hit from the early 90s. "The world was on fire and no one could save me but you." Last week, the word fire caught my attention as the West Coast burned and many us huddled indoors,...
Fuel the fire within
Here on the U.S. West Coast, we've had a tough week. Fires raging, and the whole coast socked in smoke. With hazardous air quality outside, my life has gone from stay-at-home to stay-inside-the-home. Even some favorite strategies for de-stressing, like long walks in...
Tinker Bell needs us: let’s clap for the light
I've been in rich conversations recently about how life has been changed by the pandemic. The question, "How am I doing?" is almost impossible to answer. Much of the time, I feel so radically alive, and creative, gobsmacked by wonder walking around the farm and...
What comes after a “staycation?”
When we were told to shelter-at-home at the beginning of the pandemic, I heard many friends talking about our new lives like a "staycation."* We cut air travel and all but the most essential trips outside the home. We had more time. (*I realize this wasn't true for...
Celebrate the messy ordinary
I just finished Nina RIgg's uncommonly beautiful and ultimately uplifting memoir of the last year of her life, The Bright Hour. Nina, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, weaves reflections on Emerson and Michel de Montaigne into this tale of...
Saying “yes/and” to dementia.
Saying "joy" and "dementia" in one sentence could sound like an oxymoron. Like many, I have a fear that I might someday lose part of my mind. Dementia's not a far fetched concern: the stats on its occurrence rise significantly for every year we pass eighty. Being with...
Taking time on higher ground: John Lewis
In the Pacific Northwest, I love to go up into the mountains, the Cascades or the Olympics, where I can breathe cool, clean air, and be inspired by spectacular views. Standing on high ground gives me a chance to put life into perspective. I need that perspective. So...
Are you feeling exhausted?
A second pandemic is sweeping the nation. I don't know how contagious it is, but I know it's spreading. Exhaustion. You recognize the symptoms. The big sigh after you hear that the pandemic may be going on for more months. Random thoughts like: "I'm tired," or "It...
Do you know these (mostly) new words?
Words create worlds. Words in turn have lives of their own. I used to think that the words in the dictionary had been there forever. Like "binge-watch." (Added by the Oxford Dictionary in 2018.) I also thought that words stayed forever, but it appears to be a case of...
Fuel your creativity with silence
As part of my stretch-my-creativity-during-the-pandemic campaign, I'm taking an online course about voice called "Express the Music of Your Soul" from Chloë Goodchild, a teacher in England. She coaches students from around the globe on how they can access their...
A deep breath, a moment of pause
https://youtu.be/rgvadprJFRc We've been through a lot recently–no need to remind you of that. You deserve to take a deep pause to breathe and a second one to just enjoy. You might take in a whiff of spring, so alive right now in my garden. If you missed recent...
Your blog is an ongoing tonic for the soul, and a reminder of what’s possible.
Stephen SilhaWow! You keep writing the most pertinent, passionate, and clear articles I have the pleasure to read. Bravo!
Doug LipmanAs always, Sally, I am dazzled and inspired by the elegance, eloquence and relevance of your writing…
BIll Veltrop
Meet Sally
She’s an inspiring communicator, an original thinker, she weaves big ideas and practical examples together to help her clients take their next big step forward. She teaches leadership presence by modeling it.
She is visionary and practical, vulnerable and solid, accessible and real. A perpetual learner herself, she’s not afraid to take risks to develop the talents of her clients.
Engaging Presence
