I’ve been in a lot of rooms where someone very smart said something nobody understood.

Board rooms. Newsrooms. Union negotiating tables. Conference stages. Executive off-sites where the entire strategy hinged on whether the CEO could explain what the company actually did in a way that made people want to be part of it.

The pattern is always the same. The person with the knowledge assumes the audience shares their context. They don’t simplify — they compress. And compression isn’t clarity. It’s just density with better formatting.

Here’s what I’ve learned after thirty years of being the person who translates:

The gap isn’t complexity. It’s trust.

When an audience can’t follow something, they don’t think “this is hard.” They think “I’m being talked at by someone who doesn’t think I can handle it.” And once that thought lands, you’ve lost them — not because the idea was too complicated, but because the communication broke the relationship before it had a chance to build one.

I learned this most viscerally not in a Fortune 500 boardroom but at the Richmond Symphony, where I was brought in to help leadership and union musicians find a way to work together that wasn’t destroying both sides. The issues were real. The mistrust was decades old. The language each side used to describe the same situation was so different they might as well have been negotiating in different languages.

What fixed it wasn’t a better argument. It was a different story — one that neither side had told yet, that was true for both of them, and that gave people a way to move forward without having to admit they’d been wrong to get there.

Collaboration improved by 80%. Union friction dropped. Not because the problems went away, but because the communication stopped making them worse.

This is what I mean when I say I make complex things human. It’s not about dumbing things down. It’s about building enough trust that the complexity can actually be received.

I’ve done this for tech companies trying to explain AI to journalists. For CEOs trying to explain strategy to skeptical boards. For organizations trying to explain change to people who’ve learned not to trust it.

The skill is the same every time. Find what’s actually true. Find who needs to hear it. Figure out what they need to believe before they can receive it. Then tell the story that gets them there.

It’s not magic. It’s not even especially mysterious. It’s journalism applied to organizations.

And it’s the most useful thing I know how to do.

—

Cathy Brooks is a Medill-trained journalist, executive advisor, and communications strategist with thirty years of experience helping leaders, organizations, and teams make hard things land. She is open to Chief of Staff and Editorial/Content Strategy roles. Connect with her at Cathy@UnleashedLeadershipLLC.com.

The Thing Nobody Tells You was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Wait, Cathy. You have a podcast?”

For anyone who knows me even a little, it’s not the idea that I have a podcast that generates the question. It’s that I don’t talk about it.

It’s not my first rodeo. I produced and hosted a series called “I of Innovation” back in the early 00s for Chris Shipley and Mike Sigal at Guidewire Group.

Sadly the site that hosted them went the way of many sites from the early days. Now those episodes live on an ancient laptop gathering dust.

The world of audio is my home base. My very first J-O-B job was ripping wire copy in the newsroom of one of the most storied all news radio stations in the country. I was 14.

I learned how to clean up messy audio recorded on monaural microphones transmitted to the studio via alligator clips and the receiver of a public payphone.

I learned how to navigate a reel-to-reel machine, “scrubbing” audio, marking errant breaths and verbal tics using wax pencil, and gracefully excising them with a razor blade.

I learned anything heard on a police scanner wasn’t confirmed as “news” until there were at least three separate sources confirming it.

I learned the art of neutral information gathering — pulling details from as many angles as possible, presenting them as neutrally as possible, and empowering the audience to form their own decisions.

I learned that storytelling is an art — and when it comes to an audio-based format storytelling was often best done with raw sound rather than words.

I also learned how to drink black coffee and chain smoke while hammering out copy on a manual typewriter.

Good times.

To this day I love an old school radio — the kind with the manual dial that requires ever-so-gentle movement to capture persnickety sound waves.

Digital tuners don’t do it for me. I love the journey of sliding up and down the dial. Depending on the weather or time of day I’ll discover a random station whose signal slips through the ether into my receiver: the tinny sound of a station broadcasting folk music from Appalachia; a preacher’s Sunday morning morning accompanied by gospel choir; a college station with fledgling DJs talking about music with the kind of effusive joy that comes from doing something for no reason other than the sheer joy of it.

Given this deep love I have for sound, it’s odd I forget to let folks know about Talk, Unleashed.

So yeah, I have a podcast, and pretty much every week since September of 2021 I’ve dropped a new episode. There have been a few gaps here and there. Heck even Edward R. Murrow, Charles Kuralt and Garrison Keillor took breaks from time to time.

It’s evolved over time, morphing from a pure interview series into something of an audio version of a hybrid memoir — largely thanks to the unexpected twists of my life’s journey.

That’s where the Walden Pond reference above comes in.

From the concrete and neon of Las Vegas I landed in a converted hunting cabin in the woods of Central Virginia. There’s no pond. There is a small lake nearby, formed by the damming of a tributary of the James River.

Unlike Thoreau, I didn’t have to build my shelter and I’m delighted to report that in addition to indoor plumbing, electricity, and proper HVAC there’s also lightening fast Internet. Yay.

Perhaps it’s because I’m not wholly cut off from civilization it took a bit longer for some of the lessons to land. Thoreau’s stint was 2 years, 2 months and 2 days. It was at about 19 months when the first light bulb snapped on and I began to write. I’ll close in on 3 years in December. By then the full marquee of lights should be illuminated in full.

Until then, I’ve dusted off a manual typewriter, pulled out my recording gear and stocked up with a pile of old school composition notebooks and my favorite pens.

Let the games begin.

Talk, Unleashed was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My mother says I was raised by wolves.

She’s not wrong.

It’s funny she says that, really. Given that she is a) my mother and b) probably the least wild animal-like person I know. She’s far too controlled, clean edges and everything … always … just … so.

Wolves are messy.

There’s a picture of me, I’m a few months old. It’s not our house. I’m sprawled on a threadbare carpet. There were zero threadbare carpets in our house.

There I am though, laying in a pool of sunlight on this carpet next to the “wolf” that raised me. His name was Pepper — a mixed breed of indeterminate origin. Though he was likely some kind of hound-retriever sort of blend. He was brown … and black … and white. Mostly brown.

In this image he’s stretched out next to me, my infant self splayed in an almost precise reflection of his pose. Both of our heads are thrown back, wide grins.

It looks like we are sharing some secret joke.

We probably were.

Dogs. They’re the alpha (figuratively) to omega of my life. They are the one constant, the pervasive thread woven through the fabric that is me, and Pepper started it all. Ever present and ever watchful, Pepper was always by my side. If I was fussing, he was at attention — nose through the slats of my crib until I noticed. We’d lock eyes, focus, and I’d settle.

My mom says that we’d often just be staring into each other’s eyes. Deeply calm. Fully present.

I’m told I rarely cried as a baby. Only letting out a wail if I was hungry or needed a diaper change — two things Pepper’s lack of opposable thumbs rendered him unable to address.

Dogs. For some people they’re pets, a hobby, a thing to have, an activity. For me, they are oxygen.

What’s remarkable about my memories of Pepper is that they are, largely, from a time when conventional wisdom would indicate memories aren’t a thing. They’re almost entirely from infancy. I can close my eyes and see the view through the side of the crib, the black and white houndstooth check day bed across the way, the whitewashed wood-textured tile on the floor, the Eames rocking chair with its view out the window to the trees.

More memories — me on an orange rug in the den the rich scent of a cigar in the air as my dad watched some sporting event on TV; standing in my playpen as adults perched on the sofa chatting; nestled in a stroller.

Front and center in all the images, a damp black nose and knowing eyes.

There are a few moments as a toddler tucked among those memories. Times when I’d be sitting on the step to the side of the house just outside the kitchen where my mom was cooking. Times were different. In those days kids could play outside only nominally attended.

Thick trees sat alongside our property line some of them stretching so tall you had to lay on your back to see the top. An industrial steel cable clad in some sort of weather proof wrap stretched between two towering oaks flanking the top and bottom of the property line. Pepper was clipped to this line on an 8 foot lead, giving him a 16 foot wide, 100 foot long area to roam.

It also meant leaving me outside was safe, because I was never far off.

The brain is funny. The memories it chooses to hold and the ones it blocks, shielding us from pain.

My memories of Pepper stop for a reason.

I wish I’d been older. That day when my sister left the door open and Pepper dashed out, down the front lawn and into the street. She screamed his name and he stopped in his tracks looking back.

That’s when the truck barreling down the road hit him.

There are no memories of that moment for me. There’s a blank spot.

I’m told what happened next was chaos. The driver stopped, gathered up the crumpled dog and drove to the vet. The family raced behind in our car.

Not that there was anything to be done.

By the time we got inside, it was over. That’s the next memory. The way the light angled through the window, glinting off the stainless steel table just wiped clean of blood. The stench of bleach and harsh disinfectant stinging my nose and eyes. There was an interior wall of exposed brick, glass front cabinets, an old school apocathery.

Mostly what I felt was the gaping hole inside.

I know now what that was because I’ve felt it again.

Each time one of my dogs has passed, that wrenching, ripping sensation that a piece of my heart has not just been broken, it’s been torn, ragged from my chest.

That four-year-old me didn’t know any of that. I just knew that something was very very wrong.

In a room full of family, I was alone.

Raised by Wolves was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“What’s one phrase you’d like to hear right now?”

That was it. That was the prompt.

A beautiful Saturday and I was nestled in with my notebook and pen, a comfortable silence wafting from the group of fellow writers logged in for a workshop.

I stared at the prompts. I felt stuck. Then I looked out the window.

Spider.

Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of spiders?

Actually, scratch that.

I was terrified of them. That was before I landed in a cabin nestled among the trees on a property that sits adjacent to 16,000 acres of rural woodlands.

Kind of like Dorothy, the house landed right where all kinds of creatures live — including a vast array of arachnids.

Funny. We are the interlopers where insects are concerned in nature, yet we seize ownership of the space and immediately endeavor to eradicate anything that lived there before.

Just outside my window there’s a rather large spider. She’s been busy. Her latticework stretches across the window sash. She seems pleased. It looks like she’s dancing. It must be breezy outside. I’d open the window to check but … did I mention there’s a massive spider?

I won’t say that I love spiders now. It’s more like we’ve established detente. They eat bugs and stay outside. I don’t scream when I see them. I also don’t immediately try to whack them with a shoe.

On the occasion where they end up on an interior wall, ceiling or cling on the wall in the shower, I gently capture them and return them outside.

Did I mention I don’t scream?

I call them all Charlotte.

Did you know that spiders have eight eyes. Yes. Eight. They clamber through the world with a 360-degree view. That was something I didn’t need to know, but now it fascinates me.

Given that and our respective sizes, I probably look more terrifying to them than they do to me.

I wonder if they scream when they see me.

Especially on those occasions where I trap them in a tupperware, yank them aloft, and then set them down on the porch. I mean if something reached down and scooped me into a container I’d probably scream.

Did you know that when reflected in light at night spiders’ eyes glint emerald green? Don’t ask me how I learned that.

I’ve learned that spiders are truly industrious. I’ve watched them craft intricate webs for hours, and watched as they then deconstruct them as a storm blows in, only to then rebuild once the storm has passed.

Their webs are like snowflakes. I’ve never seen two that are exactly the same.

Encrusted with dew on an early Spring morning they glisten as if forged from diamonds. Artwork that is both home and hunting ground. Sometimes I spend hours watching them work — weaving, snaring prey, eating, reparing the web, waiting, deconstructing, building again.

I’m not just watching.

I’m waiting. Waiting for the words.

That one day, stretched across a window, or between the branches of tree, I’ll have my Wilbur experience with one of my Charlottes.

“You are enough.”

Waiting for the Words was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

That was my first thought. “My brain hurts.”

We’d just been given a few writing prompts and I watched as folks’ screens dutifully clicked off and a quiet soundtrack rose from my computer screen.

Most of the time it doesn’t take much to catalyze my creativity. I’ve always been that way. Inspiration whacks me upside the head on the regular — the way the light comes through a window, a sound, a scent or in the case of this scenario, a set of writing prompts.

On this day, though, a high-pitched whine filled my ears. My brain felt as if it were a few sizes larger than my cranium — pressing up against my eye sockets from the inside.

Ow.

I’ve learned that trying to force something in this state only makes it worse. Balking at the freeze, pushing against it, only seems to give it strength. Resist and it persists.

The only way out, is through. So I donned some virtual hipwaders and strode right in. Calling it out. Pen to paper.

The first words that came: “My brain hurts.”

It didn’t take more than a few lines of free form complaining about how I felt, that the connection to a prompt arose, flowing as good stream of consciousness ideas usually do.

“Writing just to write feels…”

“Stuck. I feel stuck.”

“20,8181 days, give or take 499,632 hours.”

“Time. I’ve always had a strange relationship with it. It moves so slowly and also it races.”

“My brain hurts today. There’s a high-pitched whine. When I’m feeling stuck everything feels like an eternity.”

“My relationship with time.”

“My brain feels like molasses.”

And just like that … connection.

One of the prompts leaping off the page.

What takes too long?

“It’s moving slower than molasses in winter.”

I’m not sure where I first heard it. There’s a folksy Garrison Keillor-esque voice in my head saying it. The drawl and snail creep pacing of words reflecting some sort of rural, overall-wearing-chewing-tobacco situation.

My neighbor’s horse gets meds with her morning grain every day. I’ve taken to tending them since moving in. The horses, I mean. Not my neighbor. There are three (horses). Erin, one of the mares, has Cushings Disease so she gets pills.

When he first gave me the breakdown on horse-care, I imagined wrapping the pills in a big wad of peanut butter. I mean, how else do you get a pill down a horse’s throat? I suppose you could jam it into a wedge of apple or into a marshmallow but how do you make sure it gets swallowed? I’m sure as sh*t not putting my hand into the horse’s mouth to check. And aren’t horse pills supposed to be huge?

Turns out the pills are normal size and there is a much easier way to get them down. Just toss them onto the top of a grain-filled bucket and cover them with a dollop of molasses.

Easy. Until it’s 30 degrees outside.

I love going to the barn at any time, but especially on a crisp, winter morning. The crunch of frost under foot and how the rich aroma of oats, cedar shaving and hay warm warm my nose despite the cold. That cold, though, created a bit of a challenge.

Turns out, molasses doesn’t move slowly in the cold. It doesn’t move at all.

After getting all the horses’ breakfasts measured out, I tossed Erin’s pills onto hers, grabbed the molasses bottle, tilted it and … nothing. Tried again, this time turning it upside down. Nada.

Ever try to make cold molasses faster? Spoiler alert: you can’t. You have to wait. Be patient. Gently warm the bottle in your hands. Tilt, and try again. It comes out eventually. On its time. Not yours.

I’ve always been a bit like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. Racing and rushing. A slave to the clock. Hurry hurry to whatever is next, and on arrival, barely taking a breath before looking to what’s next.

Most things in country life are decidedly not that. Slow down. Breathe. Oh, right. Breathing. Oxygen is my friend.

There’s a saying in recovery — time, takes time. I hated that when I first got sober. Especially as it typically came from people who’d been in recovery for double digits and often said — at least as I perceived it — with a smile that danced between patronizing and smug. I’d come to learn that it was a smile of knowing.

Then time passed — one breath at a time; one minute at a time; one hour at a time; and, yes, one day at a time.

5,478 days. 131,472 hours.

That’s how long it took me to “get it”. To look at that molasses, and get it.

My Brain Hurts was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was an 11th hour decision.

My parents were prepared. The nursery painted in the relatively gender-neutral color scheme of black and white, leaving room for color enhancement once they knew who’d arrived.

Back when I was born, the very idea of knowing the gender of your baby before birth was unheard of. Ten fingers, ten toes, healthy baby — these were the crucial elements of concern.

So as far as naming was concerned, you prepared. A boy’s name, a girl’s name and when the time came, you’d be ready.

My father’s dad was the most recently passed relative, so homage to the “A” of his name, Abe, was on tap.

Alison Leigh, if a girl. Alan Lee, if a boy.

So my name, wasn’t intended to be mine.

It was 1968.

Not a stellar year by most accounts. Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination in April. It was the year that also would bring the murder of Bobby Kennedy, the catastrophe that was Kent State. Pretty much a dumpster fire of a year.

The pregnancy was easy so I’m told. Easiest of the three kids. From water break to delivery it was smooth, fast, and as comfortable as I guess it can be for pushing a small human out of one’s body.

Ironically they were more prepared for my name than my mother had been in having me in the first place.

She thought it was a summer flu. August 1968 and she wasn’t feeling well. So she did what you did. She went to the doctor. He ran tests. A few days later the office called asking her to come in.

“Doris, you’re not sick,” the doctor said.

Mom protested. Of course she was sick — nauseous, weak, unable to sleep, headaches. She had symptoms. That meant she was ill.

“You’re not sick, Doris. You’re pregnant.”

Boom.

Just like that, any plans my mother had, were gone. Going back to art school or doing clothing design. Being able to travel again with their friends or have anything resembling a pre-baby social life, or … or … or … So many plans put on hold to “start” a family. Plans that now would be delayed, again; and this time a delay that could mean they’d never happen.

Pregnant at 35 years old in 1968. That wasn’t something people did — at least not in the social circles in which my mom and dad ran.

That extra room in the big, brand new dream home on which they were nearing completion? So much for it being her space. Now it would be a nursery.

To be honest, I never thought much about what my mother’s experience of finding out she was pregnant with me was like. The stress, fear, uncertainty that must have flowed through the same veins that were giving me life. The frustration and disappointment that her life would have to wait.

Thinking about it my own chest tightens, my heart aches and my vision blurs with fat tears of loss. All that she might have been, could have been.

Doris Sandra Berkowitz Brooks graduated Penn State University. A feat in and of itself at the start of the 1950s. Nearly every roommate she had ended up leaving school, engaged to the fraternity boy who’d pinned her over the holidays.

Not my mom.

She was academically curious and did well. She also had ambition. When she heard of plans to start a radio station at her school, she stepped up, becoming the very first station manager for what was then WDFM (now it’s WPSU-FM). She had leadership roles in student government. She had a fierce eye for design and keen talent for art. And, she graduated.

Months later she met my dad.

A disastrous first date followed (the next day) by brunch at my dad’s parents’ place, which horrified her. Meeting the family after merely one date (and not even a good one)? Definitely not appropriate. My mother’s family was all about appropriate, proper, rule-following etiquette.

They were an odd match and somewhat odd fit from the get go. Somehow, it worked, on the surface at least. I have come to learn that household was quite different before I showed up.

It makes sense. My sister and brother were planned. My mom and dad — each in their own ways — were planners. Two kids were part of the overall expectation and obligations of my parents’ respective ecosystems of origin.

They’d completed phase one. My dad had leveled up his career, opening his own architectural firm after the requisite years of apprenticeship and learning. They’d purchased a great piece of land in a well-to-do suburb on the Main Line of Philadelphia. On it, they were building their dream home with I guess what we now be called a “man cave” in the basement and a spare room upstairs for my mom to call her own.

Then I announced my arrival via morning sickness and swollen ankles.

How they got from Alison Leigh/Alan Lee to Cathy Ann is something of lore.

After I was born my dad and my mom’s father (Pop Pop Nat) went to smoke cigars and drink martinis at a nearby bar. At some point, I’m guessing about two martinis in, my grandfather turned to my dad:

Pop Pop Nat: “Stan, we have a problem. She doesn’t look like an Alison.”

Dad: “Okay Nat, what’s she look like?”

Pop Pop Nat: “Cathy. Cathy Ann. Cathy Ann Brooks.”

After apparently balking briefly given the planning and discussion that had been done, he agreed and suggested they head back to the hospital to make sure my mom was okay with it. Either she was never attached to the first name, or was so hopped up on drugs post birth she didn’t care, but mom is said to have agreed right away.

Thus, Cathy Ann Brooks I became. Not Catherine, just Cathy.

Recently I was asked if my name had meaning, and so I did a bit of sleuthing on its meaning.

Cathy, from Catherine, meaning pure. Ann, meaning grace or merciful. The part that got me, though, was my middle name. After all, the initial naming was in respect of my dad’s father, Abraham, so my name needed to reflect that. Ann has its root in the name Hanan (Hannah). My dad’s mother had a sister, Hannah, who’d died very young and who, when I was growing up, my grandmother would often say I was very much like.

Then there was my Hebrew name, Aviva, the feminine of Abraham (dad’s dad). It also means Spring, perfect since that’s when I was born.

The original names Alison/Alan — had no such connection, either to the season or my family history.

Was this intentional? No. It’s not like there was an Internet and the era of baby naming books was still a long time away. It was merely the instinct they had.

It turned out to be perfect.

What’s in a Name? was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I spent the majority of my time in the first chapters of my career guiding people — in one way or another — to find their stories. Each new role requiring me to take a well-honed set of skills and apply them in an entirely new way.

Journalist > Public Relations > Communications Strategy > Influencer programs > Event content curation > Personal brand communication.

At each of these junctures, a shift. Same general set of skills, applied in ways I’d never done before. Each time also finding a space that didn’t quite yet exist — like creating influencer outreach programs back in the day when influencers were people who actually had a body of work and depth of expertise validating their influence …

In 2012 — a hard right turn and appearing to shift entirely. Leaving Silicon Valley to open The Hydrant Club. To most — especially anyone who didn’t know me personally — this was weird.

Except me doing something entirely dog-focused was probably the first thing I’d done in my professional life that made any sense at all.

Now, that said, I’d never run a brick and mortar business. I’d never actually taught others how to handle dogs. I’d never handled groups of dogs myself. I’d certainly never constructed a facility for dogs or anything of the sort.

The list of “I’ve never done…” went on.

And yet, I did it. Courtesy of the late Tony Hsieh I was given the opportunity to build an idea from nothing, carve it from the asphalt of downtown Las Vegas and over the course of 10 years create an industry-leading, award-winning, paradigm-breaking dog training facility.

We won every award. In the last several years of the business had near zero attrition rate for staff. Of most amazement — the fact that in 10 years an open format dog facility had zero incidents. Unheard of.

The point? Transition never has scared me. It fuels me.

That seems to make me something of a unicorn among my peers. Every day I see posts across myriad platforms of folks I know — smart, capable and, yes, later in career life — who seem to be viewing the world through a a lens that tells them everything is ageist, everything is impossible, the cards are dealt against them.

You know what? If I put on glasses that have opaque lenses, there’s zero chance that I will see a thing.

Let me be clear. Ageism is real. Misogyny, sadly, is still alive and well. Companies are slashing staffs and “claiming” it’s because of AI when it isn’t and they’re just trying to cut money. Many companies are relying too heavily on automated systems saturated with tech and run by folks who don’t have the experience to look beyond the black marks on the screen that tell a tactical bits of what someone has “done”.

AND

Despite this, there is more opportunity now than ever before — but in order to SEE it, one must be willing to bust up any and all preconceived ideas and look through new glasses.

Transition requires reinvention.

The end.

Transition. Reinvention. was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you heard a loud popping noise recently, don’t worry. It was me not so delicately yanking my head out of my posterior and taking up the pen to write once again.

I’m a writer who hasn’t been writing. The character and word constrained dollops scattered across various social media platforms notwithstanding, it’s been ages since I sat properly to craft anything more. It’s a pretty miserable place.

What held me back?

I could offer up something cliche like “fear of failure” but the truth is far less interesting.

Inertia.

Writing is like any other form of exercise, let it go for too long and the muscles atrophy. They’re still there, but flaccid and weak and the very thought of heaving finger to keyboard or — gasp — pen to paper feels a Herculean effort.

So I don’t.

The creative flow stagnates. Then it backs up until nothing short of a spiritual stick of C4 can blast it free.

Or a writer’s group.

Thankfully the latter is a lot less messy and a lot more fun.

A few weeks ago I found myself perched on a Saturday with a group of splendid humans (looking at you Susan Brearley and Elle Becker), peering at a set of prompts, a 30-minute timer, a blank notebook page and a brand new Pilot G-2 (.07mm).

Imagine my surprise when, 30 minutes later, I was gazing at 10 full pages of spidery left-hand penmanship scrawl.

A few weeks later and I have a handful of pieces, churned by hand and all of which feel like pieces of a puzzle beginning to fall into place.

Except one thing.

Where to post them? Where does it fit?

Like I said, I’m a writer who’s not been writing. Except I do have a spot here on Medium, a seed I planted back when this platform first started and where I’ve had a few fits and starts but never gained a head of steam.

In fact, I even started a publication called “And So it Begins”, when last I committed that I was going to do this writing thing and the last post wasn’t all that long ago — December 2025, in fact.

Before that, 2024 … before that 2023, and that was the year when I was began to take my own desire to write more seriously.

It was fine. Fine in the way that doing something is better than doing nothing is fine. Not, however, fine, in terms of anything that has sufficient ballast to keep a writing ship steadied and sailing forward.

That it was there, though, was another source of inertia. How do I build on it? What do I do with it?

Per usual, I had to overthink the crap out of it.

Then it hit me.

Start a new publication.

Why it didn’t occur to me before, I don’t know. Perhaps because I wasn’t ready.

Am I ready now?

I guess we’ll see.

F*ck Fitting In was originally published in Fix Your End of the Leash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I spent the majority of my time in the first chapters of my career guiding people — in one way or another — to find their stories. Each new role requiring me to take a well-honed set of skills and apply them in an entirely new way.

Journalist > Public Relations > Communications Strategy > Influencer programs > Event content curation > Personal brand communication.

At each of these junctures, a shift. Same general set of skills, applied in ways I’d never done before. Each time also finding a space that didn’t quite yet exist — like creating influencer outreach programs back in the day when influencers were people who actually had a body of work and depth of expertise validating their influence …

In 2012 — a hard right turn and appearing to shift entirely. Leaving Silicon Valley to open The Hydrant Club. To most — especially anyone who didn’t know me personally — this was weird.

Except me doing something entirely dog-focused was probably the first thing I’d done in my professional life that made any sense at all.

Now, that said, I’d never run a brick and mortar business. I’d never actually taught others how to handle dogs. I’d never handled groups of dogs myself. I’d certainly never constructed a facility for dogs or anything of the sort.

The list of “I’ve never done…” went on.

And yet, I did it. Courtesy of the late Tony Hsieh I was given the opportunity to build an idea from nothing, carve it from the asphalt of downtown Las Vegas and over the course of 10 years create an industry-leading, award-winning, paradigm-breaking dog training facility.

We won every award. In the last several years of the business had near zero attrition rate for staff. Of most amazement — the fact that in 10 years an open format dog facility had zero incidents. Unheard of.

The point? Transition never has scared me. It fuels me.

That seems to make me something of a unicorn among my peers. Every day I see posts across myriad platforms of folks I know — smart, capable and, yes, later in career life — who seem to be viewing the world through a a lens that tells them everything is ageist, everything is impossible, the cards are dealt against them.

You know what? If I put on glasses that have opaque lenses, there’s zero chance that I will see a thing.

Let me be clear. Ageism is real. Misogyny, sadly, is still alive and well. Companies are slashing staffs and “claiming” it’s because of AI when it isn’t and they’re just trying to cut money. Many companies are relying too heavily on automated systems saturated with tech and run by folks who don’t have the experience to look beyond the black marks on the screen that tell a tactical bits of what someone has “done”.

AND

Despite this, there is more opportunity now than ever before — but in order to SEE it, one must be willing to bust up any and all preconceived ideas and look through new glasses.

Transition requires reinvention.

The end.

Transition. Reinvention. was originally published in And So it Begins on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I share this both so you don’t make the same one AND that I may share the importance of 100% responsibility in life when sh*t goes sideways …

VIP Pet Care is a mobile clinic that offers shots and such in rural settings. They usually set up at a local Tractor Supply Co.

For the record — mobile vets are not entirely a bad idea. I know some seasoned, long-time veterinarians who chose to create mobile services and work for themselves rather than AT a hospital.

They’re awesome

This is not about that.

This is about a mass-offering mobile shot clinic.

My dogs have never had adverse vaccine reactions. Ever. I know they’re possible. I know they happen. But I’ve gotten through the scary ones (Leptospirosis in particular) without a hitch.

So I figured it would be okay.

I didn’t factor inexperienced and unskilled veterinary staff.

I made the false assumption that an organization doing mobile care would have at least one veteran pro on their team.

I was wrong.

Vaccines for dogs are supposed to be administered subcutaneously NOT intramuscular.

This vet — who was lovely, kind, sweet with my dogs — was either not trained enough to be on her own, or just not very good — and she didn’t do them right.

Seeing my dogs writhing in pain — well you know me, so you know what that does to me.

This meant another trip to a vet — A real one this time. Thankfully the issue can be solved with rest and pain meds.

Then the other whammy’s.

When I told my vet what they had recommended I purchase as preventive med care (flea/tick/heartworm) her eyes widened and she shook her head.

Apparently they were not the best choices and one of them could result in catastrophic reactions.

So I called the company to cancel the order and switch to meds I can use.

Too late — they said (after spending 45 minutes on hold and another 45 minutes relating the whole story). “The order was ‘just’ processed and it’s already shipped and on the way to you.”

This after being told yesterday that the shipment would be processed in 3–5 days and shipped next week.

Ironically the one thing they did efficiently.

The one medication they gave me that they had on hand was dosage for a dog 51–100 pounds.

My three dogs collectively weigh about 45.

For that they’re sending the right dosage and not charging me for it. So that’s one mark in the good customer service column.

But wait there’s more

They also charged me for fecal tests and said I should the samples when they come back in two weeks.

Except they don’t come back in two weeks.

They come back in more than a month. So those tests I need now? I’ll be paying for them to be done elsewhere.

Here’s the good news:

1. At no point did I lose my temper, get angry, terse or in any other way take things out on the folks on the phone. Was I upset? Yep. Are the things that happened consequences of choices that I made? Also yep. This means I don’t get to take things out on anyone. Which leads to …

2. I don’t get to take it out on myself — self beat up, being angry, obsessing on what I could have, should have, might have done. I made some poor choices and THANKFULLY none of them led to any kind of permanent issue. AND even if God for forbid that had happened — turning my anger on the people who were just doing their jobs — that wouldn’t be responsible.

Now can you feel my energy and frustration in this post? Of course you can. I’m upset. Edge of tears upset. Partly at my own error but mostly because my error has put my beloved pups into danger and discomfort.

So what do I do?

I found the President of #VIPPetCare on Linked in so we will see if the fish stinks from the head or if perhaps this gets to be a teaching moment — both to ensure the veterinarian teams get training and support AND their customer service learns how to actually do customer service.

Having done that and also having completed a customer response form in their website, I’ve taken all action I can take.

Now I take a deep breath, I go for a walk to “let out” the pent up feelings … take the lesson and move on.

Trusting Your Gut — and Not Being an Asshole. was originally published in And So it Begins on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.