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!
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...
Resistance, resilience, and great women–a formula for hope
What if women, in this county and around the world, were to link arms across divides, including color, class, faith, sexual preference, and nationality, to demand a more loving and just world. A "no" to greed, bigotry, and war. A "yes" to compassion, caring, and...
To change our systems, remember the body
A post on racism by Resmaa Menakem jumped out at me last week, so much so that I had to immediately read his book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. I’ve read a lot about trauma and somatics, (the body as we...
A champion for justice who deserves to be known
https://youtu.be/Rxt0tbsWQfU Last week was tough, for me, for many, filled with horrific images and the sadness that my country, the United States, is not living up to its ideals. While being confronted by the harsh realities of systemic discrimination,...
Saying yes to life, even then, even now
In these crazy times, as the world changes in unpredictable ways, where do we turn to find meaning? I don't mean the ultimate capital "M" Meaning, or "The Meaning of Life" a la Monty Python, but a meaning that sounds like a "Yes" within us and adds some purpose to...
Zoomed out? Time to Zoom back in.
Zoom's emerging as a technical hero of the pandemic. Millions of people are connecting in ways no one would have thought possible just three months ago. After bajillions of uses, however, a new expression is popping up: "Zoom fatigue." "There is a special kind of...
Time to think long haul
On the trail Some years ago, on a sunny day hike with a friend in Washington's Cascade Mountains, I started running out of steam. The trail through the cedars was beautiful, but the switchbacks up the mountain seemed endless. As two youngish men in jogging...
Find the heroes you need
The Netflix movie about Michelle Obama has just been released, and I cried watching the trailer. Like millions of others, I miss her presence in the White House. Watching the film's trailer made me realize how hungry I am, starved really, for true heroes with her...
Devotion will change your life
I watched a charming video this week, one of those lift-you-up-in-the-storm pieces, about a man, Stjepan Vokic, in Croatia, who has spent the past two decades taking care of a wounded stork. He fishes for her, builds nests, and cheers when her long time mate returns...
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
