I just finished coaching an amazing group of entrepreneurs. It’s so inspiring to be around the positive energy of people who love life and love creating the lives they desire to have. I coached each member of the group to write their next year’s story by answering questions for the next year like: 

Whether I’m supplying prompts to my coaching clients to help them write to get to clarity on their values and goals or sharing the powerful impact of using writing to tell your story, I have seen the power of the process of writing. Today I want to talk about why I love to write, and why I want to encourage you to write mindfully and often.

Every morning I ask myself the same question. This question represents a lot. It represents everything that drives and motivates my thoughts and actions. It represents the reason why I do what I do for myself and others. The question I’ve asked myself every morning for the last 20 years is: “How can I enjoy even more freedom today and help others do the same?”

“Don’t let the Old Man in.”

The lesson of course applies to women, too. Obviously, men and women both get old, but the image of the cantankerous, curmudgeonly “Old Man” is the one that brings to mind all the habits we have to be sure to keep from taking root as our birthdays pile up.

To keep the Old Man out, you reject the notion that you should stop giving, stop doing, stop learning, stop growing, and stop moving.

Being real doesn’t have a dictionary definition as much as a personal one, but “being real” is a phrase that pretty much everyone I've spoken to resonates with. And interestingly, their sense of what it means is usually identical to, or at least compatible with, mine.