Most of my life, I thought I was just a garden variety worrier, but I’ve come to discover that I have a general anxiety disorder. My worries are constant and often much more extreme than what “normal” people have. If I have a pain in my side, it’s a tumor, and I only have days to live. If my husband is 30 minutes late coming home, he’s dead in a ditch somewhere. If the phone rings at 3 a.m., someone is dead. …

When the internet is full of stories about how you can’t make a living as an author and the market is flooded with them, why would anyone bother to become a writer?

When parents or other adults ask you what you want to be when you grow up, they hope the answer will be an achievable profession with health insurance. Please God, don’t let him say an artist or he’ll live in my basement for the rest of his life.

Writing can be that somewhat stable profession for some people, copywriters, and journalists can get consistent paychecks and benefits if…

As an entrepreneur and as a human with an internet connection, I am inundated with online course advertising, and more often than not, I have whipped out my credit card to pay for the latest thing that will jumpstart my business, improve my health or help me to achieve inner peace, finally.

Sound familiar?

My confession is that for many classes, I never got past the introduction lesson. For some, I haven’t even signed in to activate my account.

And I’m not alone. Completion and engagement rates in many online courses are shockingly low. …

Calling myself a writer has taken more decades than I would like to admit and truth be told, I’m still not very comfortable with it.

Instead, I called myself a dozen other things in an attempt to be a legitimate, respected and productive member of society. And I hated almost all of them.

I spent hundreds of hours, let’s be honest, days, trying to figure out what my life purpose was. Why am I here? What can I do with this life that I’m lucky enough to live? How can fulfill my destiny?

Big questions that I still don’t know…

“Who am I to write anything that will be published by anyone?”

“My 8th-grade teacher said that I wasn’t creative enough to be a writer; not to mention that I struggle with grammar. Should I use a semicolon there?”

“I should just up give already. No one will read this anyway.”

Can anyone relate? My inner critic is having a field day again.

We all have one.

That voice in your head that points out every flaw and mistake. …

Life makes more sense in hindsight. That’s when you can see the dots connect, as Steve Jobs said.

But, what if you could be more deliberate about the dots now?

Some of life will always be ruled by chance, but while we’re here and have free will, why not make some of those dots or connections more deliberate if we can?

When you reverse engineer for the goal you want, you can see and identify the steps that can get you there.

Imagine what you want to be like at 70 years old.

Where do you want to be?

What…

When you think of metaphors you may start picturing your high school English class and reading Animal Farm or The Great Gatsby, but metaphors can be really valuable tools while navigating your life.

How is that, you ask?

Well, let’s start by defining what a metaphor is as a refresher.

Merriam-Webster defines it as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.”

Dictionary.com says it’s “something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else…

What comes to mind when you think of being creative?

Do you think that it’s frivolous and unnecessary?

Do you think of it as being indulgent or selfish?

Or is it something only for liberal arts majors?

The truth is that creativity is vital to being a successful person in or out of a boardroom. Sure, creativity is linked to different mediums like painting, music, writing, crafts or anything you do with your hands, but creativity plays a vital part in all areas of knowledge and business. …