Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?

I began in the deep South, In Mississippi, with farming people. That shaped my early childhood immensely, and I have many very clear memories from age 2 – 6 that I often consider magical. I think my biological father abandoning us shaped my life in many ways I would only much later grapple with. Later on, I moved a great deal, primarily in the SE USA, with one foray onto CA in the late 60s, which was eye-opening.

What is something you wish you would’ve realized earlier in your life?

That we have infinite chances and opportunities to ‘get it right’ and that there is no such thing as ‘right,’ for everyone. That we can change or ‘fix’ no one but ourselves. That what others think of me is in fact none of my business. That comparison is a zero-sum game.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

That Life is suffering so deal with it. That you only have one life to live so you must (fill in the blank). That we have to forgive what others have done to us, before we can progress, when actually I think we have to forgive that part of ourselves that we hold responsible for not doing more, or better or not preventing, etc. That’s 2-3 big ones that I think we could do without.

Tell me about one of the darker periods you’ve experienced in life. How you came out of it and what you learned from it?

Several come to mind. I learned I can survive. I learned about near-death and domestic violence and how to be much more compassionate of those who struggle with the bind of that. I learned it’s not helpful to be so identified with early training of ‘being nice or good or always put others first and what others think; how that can severely warp your Real true self in pursuit of others’ values, to the point of losing the Self we have been given.

What is one thing that you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your success so far?

To do my darndest to get out of my own way, by lifting up, to see the Big Picture, not the muddy path.

What is your morning routine?

I must be part rooster because I naturally wake up with the Light. I am a Light-Hog. Love sunrises, sunsets, and will take the time to savor them. This can include some morning/evening rituals of welcoming or saying goodbye. As I currently have a view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, I have a ritual of greeting her with my coffee and a smile. Reminding myself of why she’s important to me. If I am extra motivated I will just do a bit of movement to help my body join me in wakefulness. I like to hear or read something worthwhile, orienting, I guess, before starting my day.

What habit or behavior that you have pursued for a few years has most improved your life?

Reading, discussions with smarter people than myself, and the fine art of Southern ‘visitation’ that helps us connect, re-connect and stay connected.

What are your strategies for being productive and using your time most efficiently?

Oh, my common fall-down, which is fall-out from being interested in so many things in life. I attempt organization and self-management with an evening notepad that lists the goals for the next day, which I review 1-3x during the day to check that I am on-task. Often I am not, but I try to re-orient instead of punishing when I am not.

What book(s) have influenced your life the most? Why?

Goodness! That’s a lot of books to think about! When I was small, Dr. Suess showed me the world in ways I could understand. A Wrinkle in Time, To Kill A Mockingbird, and fantasy adventure-type things, often in SciFi, as a way to talk about the world with less personalization and prejudice. CS Lewis, Ursula LeGuin come to mind. When I got older I gravitated to beautiful but stylized writers, like F Scott Fitzgerald and Dostoyevsky, Pynchon, Paulo Coehlo, before diving back into Kurt Vonnegut, Walker Percy, and Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Then onto more resonant modern ones like Toni Morrison, John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany!), Jane Goodall, Barbara Kingsolver and later David Halberstam, Umberto Eco (Focault’s Pendulum!), and Oliver Sacks, James Burke, David Mitchell, Philip Pullman, later people who reveled in the Real, like Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, and then more seriously, Rob Bell, Anne Lamott. Then I seem to have made a very sharp turn into non-fiction for my work, and that list is rather endless. It also seems I have skipped a lot of literary giants in this list that I enjoyed but the above is what came to me most, today.

So you see the answer to your question is… too hard to answer.

Do you have any quotes you live by or think of often?

A simple little one I found in a Y.A. novel, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle you know nothing about is very popular with me. Also from GK Chesterton, ‘Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.’ And maybe I’d add the famous one from Schopenhauer, ‘All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’ And not least the one from Marianne Williamson that was so widely said to come from Vonnegut, but didn’t, of course: ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frighten us.’