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The sun was just peeking out from behind the San Gabriel Mountains as I sipped my coffee in the pre-dawn light. It’s my favorite time of day. I was re-reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, specifically in search of a reference I had remembered from my first reading of the book, related to an idea I was simmering.

I never did find the reference I was looking for. Instead, as the sun rose that morning, book in hand, I was hit squarely in the noggin with the mental equivalent of a 2x4.

In his discussion on behavior change, Clear outlines three layers: Outcomes (outer layer), Processes (middle layer), and Identity (core layer). He argues that the third, Identity, is the deepest and ultimately where long-term successful habit forming happens. All three matter, but what’s most important is the direction of change. From Outcomes-in, we are chasing results as an external dependency that we hope will ultimately shift our identity. (e.g. “When I lose x pounds, make x dollars, I will consider myself healthy, wealthy,” etc.) As anyone who’s tried to create a new habit knows, progress almost never happens overnight. Outside-in, we are more likely to get derailed in the absence of immediate results or at least demonstrable progress toward those outcomes.

Shift the direction to inside-out and suddenly it’s a different animal. “Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits,” he writes. “The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.” Boom. Lasting habits, lasting change, happen from the inside out.

Who are we? Who do we wish to become?

Over the course of my eclectic career, I have worn many hats, embraced many identities. Opera singer. Public speaker. Running coach. Voice coach. Environmentalist. Corporate finance. Abstract painter. Leadership and personal development coach. Publisher. Entrepreneur. Daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother. I have loved and still love them all. And one more.

Writer.

Over the years I have used writing to puzzle things out that baffled or enraged me, to inspire hope and solutions-oriented thinking in others when the world seemed to be going haywire. I’ve written essays, long-form social media posts, chapters of yet-unpublished books that simmer in the recesses of my mind in every waking moment.

But I have never thought of myself as a writer. In fact, I’ve pushed pretty hard against it when others have suggested I am. I don’t know the cause of that deep resistance. That I come from a family of writers, scholars, librarians, and am a publisher myself may be contributing factors. My father published enough books to be able to stack his against his father’s books and come out on top of a self-imposed competition with his father’s ghost. Hm.

When confronted on the pages of a book I had read before with the inescapable question: who do I wish to become?, for some reason, on that sunny early morning, looking out at the San Gabriel Mountains, “writer” tumbled out of my consciousness before I had the chance to yank it by the arm and reel it back in.

I am a writer. I am becoming a writer. I am many other things too, but “writer” is no longer an exiled part of who I am.

Busted by my own unedited mind, staring down the inescapable straight-talk-logic of Clear’s book (could he have a more perfect name?), I was reminded that “behind every system of actions is a belief.” The converse is also true: behind every belief is a system, or pattern, of actions. Action reinforces belief. Belief forms identity.

A writer writes.

Three friends in the last five days, independent of one another, suggested I start a Substack. I’ve learned to pay attention to things happening in threes. So here I am.

My writings will be centered on three themes:

Work: how we create livelihood that sustains us and those we love, especially in the AI era;

Life: how we spend the unknowably finite hours of our “one wild and precious” time here (thank you, Mary Oliver); and

Meaning: how we find or make it, even when things in our life, our world, make absolutely no sense and we’re not even sure what’s real.

Some will be long-form, teasing out ideas I’m curious about and seeing where they go. Others will be short nuggets, possibly inspired by some great thinker I am reading at the time. Sometimes I’ll write in prose, other times it might be poetry. I’ll be here every week, on Tuesdays.

I can’t promise earth-shattering insights or world-changing epistemologies. I can’t (really, won’t) offer easy answers or pithy platitudes. Rather, on these digital pages, I promise to be as brave and transparent as my stoic New England Yankee self will allow, perhaps warmed and stretched by the California sunshine in which I’m now blessed to live. Growing up in Vermont, I was raised on little light (thank you, Noah Kahan) and am making up for it.

I can promise to keep it real, and hope that by doing so, it brings something of value into your world. You are making time to be here. I promise to strive to make it worth your time. I won’t do it perfectly, and I hope that’s ok. A test kitchen for ideas means some experiments will be delicious; others might turn out inedible. It’s apparently how we writers roll. Heartfelt thanks to James Clear, for making it so…clear.

Let’s begin.
S