Category Archives: reinvention

Put It in the Books

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I have continued setting goals that stretch, and force me outside of my comfort zone. This is all part of continuing down the road that runs through reinvention and beyond. Some of these recent goals have really pushed me physically. Others involve continuing growing as a writer, another goal I set for myself a decade ago.

On Sunday, I completed my first Olympic triathlon. That’s something I had planned to accomplish last year, but a bike accident in early August derailed my plans. My wife, Mary, was even more amazing—she rocked her first half Rev—doubling my distances on the bike and in the run, and going .3 miles further on the swim.

The number tattoos have been applied--Rev3 2014.

The number tattoos have been applied–Rev3 2014.

Training began for me back in February. I remember my first tentative run at the Bath Y. I was happy that I ran 21 minutes on the indoor track without pain, as I was trying to push beyond a time in the fall when I couldn’t run at all due to excruciating left hip pain. Continue reading →

Your Bumper Stickers Won’t Save You

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As much as I’d like to sit home and blog, life sometimes intervenes. This morning, it was getting out of the house at 5:30 for my twice-weekly swim. I have a spring triathlon on the horizon. I woke up an hour earlier intending to bang out something for the sake of making my Tuesday blogging deadline, but as soon as I opened my laptop and tried logging on, I realized that I had no Internet connection–I’m not sure why.

I was also unclear about what to write about.

Lately, the things that I find important are either things I’ve written about before (reinvention, writing, fitness), or things I no longer find appealing (politics). Granted, there’s no shortage of things to write about relative to the latter, but more and more, I don’t find politics bringing forth any new solutions to some of the pressing issues of our time. In fact, the politician that many people imbued with so much hope has become very much like the leaders that came before him. Of course that never stops Americans from wearing their binary ideology on their sleeves, or the back bumpers of their cars.

Your bumper stickers won't save you.

Your bumper stickers won’t save you.

So here I sit, drinking corporate coffee and accessing an available Wi-Fi connection, blogging a few thoughts and ideas that crossed my mind while making my way up and down my pool lane this morning. Continue reading →

Record Stores and Reinvention

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Long before I had aspirations to take my writing to the next level, I was merely a writer hiding his writing under a bushel. Back then, records and record stores kept me going. Actually, it was less about record stores, and more about the music that record stores carried.

In the late 1980s, I returned with my young family to the place where my roots were the deepest, which also happened to be close enough to the WBOR radio tower to pull-in its meager radio signal, which emanated out from Brunswick for a 15-20 mile radius, barely reaching Durham, where we were living with my in-laws. The signal was slightly stronger on the Lisbon Falls side of the river where we moved waiting for our house to be built, occupying the downtown side of a duplex at 16 ½ Oak Street, one of Marcel Doyon’s many rental properties in my former hometown. This connected me to late 1980s college rock and the likes of They Might Be Giants, Lois Maffeo, The Fall, and The Replacements. A few years later, I became deeply affected by something called alt-country and the band Uncle Tupelo, as well as a host of bands on the long defunct Faye Records label out of another college town, Columbia, Missouri.
Continue reading →

Self Improving

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Every time that you think you have it figured out, the universe comes along and teaches you that there are a few more lessons and tricks to learn. Being content with the status quo doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did.

I became aware again this week about the overwhelming volume of negative messaging emanating from people fully immersed in a culture perpetuating the status quo. Government is an easy scapegoat here, and if they were the only institution with this problem, then we might simply dismiss them and their antagonistic talking points. Continue reading →

Things I’m Working On

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How often can we start over again? Two times? Five times?  Fifty? I don’t know if there’s a definitive number.

Being able to begin anew is a skill we’re all going to have to cultivate. It’s not natural and works against the instincts and the cultural prescriptions that most of us have imbibed. Those messages framing our personal stories began in school and probably before; often, they are working against our own best interests. Continue reading →

Paying It Forward

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Reinvention is my brand. There is a wealth of writing and advice out there about establishing your personal brand. There are even some contrarian positions on the concept including a recent post by someone with a pretty amazing personal brand (please, Laurie, say it ain’t so). Continue reading →

Don’t Let the Posers Win

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I believe that honesty, hard work, and being genuine will ultimately win out in just about everything we do that has any lasting value. That said, there will be times when no matter how hard you try, and regardless of the efficacy of your cause, someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart will string you along and then, squash you like a bug. What’s worse, these people have managed to dupe their little band of followers and sycophants that aren’t aware of their disingenuous qualities, or maybe they are, but for whatever reason, they continue telling the emperor that their clothes look great. Continue reading →

The University of Autodidactica

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Ben Franklin was an autodidact.

Ben Franklin was an autodidact.

An autodidact is someone who is self-taught. In today’s parlance we might call them a “self-directed learner.”

Autodidacts were common in Colonial America. Many of our founding fathers were autodidacts as well as polymaths. Ben Franklin might be one of our nation’s most famous autodidacts. Franklin abandoned formal education at age 10 and we all know how that turned out. Continue reading →

Roll with it

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The world we live in, or better, the world of work that we inhabit has shifted. The shift is a seismic one, but not everyone’s been affected by it, yet. For those of us that have embraced this “new way,” we’re a step ahead and building our portfolio with each subsequent day spent scrambling and with each new project completed. Continue reading →