About the author:

I’ve had a long life of doing what I’ve loved. As a Peace Corps volunteer, teacher, National Park ranger, founding principal of my own consulting and training practice, and leader coach. For over 30 years, I trained and coached secretaries and salespeople, managers and leaders in the Washington, DC area.

My specialty, no matter the topic under consideration, was less the teaching of “how-tos” and more the posing of questions. I supported people as they listened to and honored their own best answers to some very basic questions.

Questions such as:

• Where do you want to go …? What do you want to do…?

• How do you want to ”be”…? What’s the hesitation?

What’s your next move?

With the personal clarity these questions tend to elicit, and the willingness to grapple honestly with the perceived obstacles, everything in life becomes easier to accomplish. In addition, life becomes even more graceful when the answers to those questions are infused with passion, and enriched by natural talents.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am now 71, nearly 72. My primary author “credentials” are not the usual, but I think you need to know. I’m listing five. First, my own passion for being with, learning from, and admiring those who already do what they love; second, my belief that there is a way that every one of us can actually do more of it– either full time or part time; and third, my love of, and long term experience with, supporting, and cheering on those courageous enough to do so.

Perhaps more important, is a fourth: I had a need to leave a kind of personal legacy––sharing observations and experiences that have made sense to me over my professional years. And certainly to do so in the current national context where health and well-being are being challenged on all fronts. This book was the fulfillment of my need to make a small case for right livelihood, sanity, and wellbeing in our personal lives.

And finally, a fifth: Give an unwelcome diagnosis, I could not work as usual. I endured a forced time-out due to illness–where I had plenty of time to think. I found myself grappling seriously with a question I never, ever, thought I would face, “How will I be useful on this earth with this new physical disability?”

My diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and the personal and professional losses cascading from that, represented a major turning point in my life, inviting me to seriously recalibrate my remaining years, reclaim my purpose, and reevaluate my gifts. Ultimately grateful for this time, I began looking out at the world for the people who were living their lives, by luck or by plan, doing what they loved. It is the lives of those wonderful models, combined with my long term professional interest in the process of gaining personal and conscious mastery for choosing one’s own path, that constitute this book. The ultimate publication has been an encouragement for me. I hope it will encourage you to reflect on your life, what you love, and how you can do more of it.