Welcome to what is next

For nine weeks, my blog has been (almost) singularly focused on the journey Dr Marry and I took together to reveal his alcoholism and our path to sobriety. I’ll likely do a wrap up piece on that, but not today.

Today, I am focused on what is next for this blog and for me…and for you.

It’s funny where ideas spring to life, isn’t it? Funny how you can be, say, walking your dog with your partner, talking about who knows what but thinking about an earlier conversation you had about where you want your blog to go when, “Eureka!” it hits you.

Dr Marry and I were walking Lilly last week, and I was indeed thinking about a conversation I had had with a friend about what comes next for this “thing” I am doing. Originally, I thought I wanted to talk about pursuing passion, mine and yours, and I do want to keep talking about that, but it’s much larger, much more significant than that.

It dawned on me that where I have started moving all this work is toward how to pivot from failure and find happiness on the other side. My Ladyboss talk danced around it without my realizing it in the moment. My December commencement address to the MSUM graduates was squarely about that. Heck, there’s no question that my nine-week series with Dr Marry is absolutely about that.

So what does that mean?

It means I want to start having conversations over podcast with people who are willing to talk about moments of failure in their lives, be they large or small, that were defining moments of change. It means I want to find those who are willing to be vulnerable to revealing their private or public hardships that turned their course towards a new direction and ultimately to happiness.

We’ll start from failure, but that’s not where we’ll spend much time, because that’s not the interesting part of the story. It’s the pivot, the path forged from that failure that has me intrigued, and I think will intrigue a vast audience. It’s the learning, the joy, the discoveries that come from the failure that is where we’ll ultimately spend the majority of our time.

Are you someone who has had a journey that could give listeners a new lens from which to view failure, disappointment, sadness, stress? I want to hear from you! Share your story with me (250 words or fewer), and we’ll connect.

Remember, I think we’re all at the intersection of remarkable and so, so ordinary, and it’s that fork in the road that intrigues me most. Well, that and the “path less traveled by” that you pursued or are pursuing because of it.

I hope to hear from you!