Exciting day -- the launch of The Pennymores, a novel created with my daughters. This began during the pandemic as a collaborative bedtime story and turned into a full novel. It was like trying to bottle childlike imagination -- the hardest & most fulfilling book I've done.

“Entrepreneurship is no joke. You’ll cry real tears and still continue” – @Salaamah9

“Make your mental illness work with you, not against you. Become a writer.” – @TBQuarterly

I found a better way to end the workweek. ⠀ Right before I “sign off” for the weekend, I send one last message to one or two people I worked with closely that week. ⠀ Not to check in. Not to chase something. Not to push work forward. ⠀ Just to say thank you. ⠀ A quick note: ⠀ A little gratitude. A small celebration. Maybe even a corny joke or reflection. ⠀ It takes about two minutes. ⠀ And every time I hit send, I feel better about closing the laptop. ⠀ The replies? ⠀ Always positive. Always unexpected. Usually pretty fun. ⠀ It’s become one of my favorite little rituals. ⠀ Part reflection. Part celebration. Part reminder that the week wasn’t just a pile of tasks. ⠀ There were people in it too. ⠀ And honestly, that’s a much better way to walk into the weekend than: ⠀ “Ugh. Finally done.” ⠀ So if Fridays tend to end with you slamming the laptop shut and running for the exit... ⠀ Try one last message first. ⠀ End the week with gratitude. ⠀ Start the weekend with a smile. ⠀ #Gratitude #Leadership #WorkCulture #Relationships

A surprisingly good Friday ritual: ⠀ Before you close the laptop, send one thank-you message to someone you worked with that week.

“When creating content remember, You don't have to be perfect. Just be yourself. Don't try to appeal to everyone. If you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Discover your target audience and laser focus on providing value.” – @JaynitMakwana

A few years ago, I was interviewing for a teaching role at Georgetown. ⠀ There was one obvious complication. ⠀ I didn’t have a PhD. ⠀ In most academic environments, that’s the credential that matters. ⠀ So I assumed that would be the sticking point. ⠀ But the conversation didn’t revolve around degrees. ⠀ It revolved around the books. ⠀ The committee wanted to know what I had written, how I structured ideas, and how I taught those ideas. ⠀ The books weren’t treated like marketing assets. ⠀ They were treated like evidence. ⠀ Evidence I could think clearly. Evidence I could organize complex ideas. Evidence I could teach. ⠀ That moment changed how I think about authorship. ⠀ Because in a world where information is everywhere, something else becomes more valuable: ⠀ Not just what you know. ⠀ How you think. ⠀ And I think AI is accelerating that shift. ⠀ Information is abundant. Frameworks can be generated instantly. Surface-level expertise is easier to access than ever. ⠀ But clear thinking is still rare. ⠀ And a serious book does something very few formats can do: ⠀ It shows your thinking in public. ⠀ Not your résumé. Not your job title. ⠀ Your thinking. ⠀ That signal travels. ⠀ It can open doors to teaching, speaking, advising, and leadership conversations that may never have happened otherwise. ⠀ Not because the book went viral. ⠀ Because it made your thinking legible. ⠀ That’s why I’ve started thinking about a book as more than content. ⠀ It can be career infrastructure. ⠀ #ModernAuthor #ThoughtLeadership #Writing #CareerDevelopment

The most valuable thing I have ever read: "There is no time to wait for perfect conditions. Beginning makes the work that matters for perfection to be done."

“I don’t know if this is getting better... or just longer.” ⠀ An author said that to me during a conversation about her book. ⠀ She had been writing consistently for weeks. ⠀ The book was growing. Chapters were expanding. Ideas felt solid... in the moment. ⠀ But something felt off. ⠀ And I’ve seen this pattern enough times to know what was happening. ⠀ She was writing alone. ⠀ Here’s the trap: ⠀ Writing alone feels productive. ⠀ You’re making progress. Pages are stacking up. The book feels like it’s moving. ⠀ But you’re mostly optimizing for one thing: ⠀ Expression. ⠀ Not clarity. Not usefulness. Not whether the idea actually works outside your own head. ⠀ And that’s where books quietly go off track. ⠀ Because the job isn’t just to produce more pages. ⠀ It’s to make the ideas better. ⠀ And ideas usually get better once they leave your head. ⠀ You explain one out loud. Someone asks a question you didn’t expect. Something doesn’t land. You adjust. ⠀ That’s the process. ⠀ Not just writing more. ⠀ Testing more. ⠀ The authors I’ve seen get to clarity fastest build feedback into the writing process. ⠀ Explain the idea. Teach it before you write it. Ask: ⠀ “What stuck?” ⠀ Because what people remember is usually telling you something. ⠀ That’s what belongs in the book. ⠀ Everything else probably needs more work. ⠀ It’s one reason I keep coming back to a simple rule: ⠀ Never write alone. ⠀ #ModernAuthor #Writing #Authors #WritingCommunity

“entrepreneurship will truly expose each and every one of your unrelated weaknesses and force your to refine them all in order to succeed, fascinating” – @GirlNamedMarley

Writing alone helps you produce pages. ⠀ Feedback helps you figure out which ideas are actually worth keeping.

“You could be one script away from changing your life. Always remember this as you write your pages.” – @spyderdobro

"The problem wasn’t the MBA. ⠀ It was how they saw themselves. ⠀ I was talking with someone, smart, capable, mid-career, deciding whether to go back to school. ⠀ They said: ⠀ “I just don’t want to spend that kind of time and money on myself.” ⠀ That stuck with me. ⠀ We’ll invest hours into other people’s progress. ⠀ But hesitate when it comes to our own. ⠀ Not because we don’t care. ⠀ Because we expect the return to show up quickly. ⠀ But investing in yourself rarely works like that. ⠀ The course you take. The skill you build. The thing you create. The person you meet along the way. ⠀ Most of it doesn’t look particularly valuable at first. ⠀ Then a few years pass... ⠀ And you realize some of the opportunities you have now started with investments that made very little sense on a spreadsheet back then. ⠀ That’s the hard part about investing in yourself. ⠀ You usually have to make the investment before you can see what it will become. ⠀ So if you’re thinking about investing in yourself, don’t wait for all the ROI to make sense upfront. ⠀ It probably won’t. ⠀ The real return shows up later. ⠀ In what you know. Who you know. What you can do. And how you move forward. ⠀ That’s the real ROI. ⠀ #Growth #Learning #CareerDevelopment #Leadership"

The opposite of fun isn't work. The opposite of fun is boredom.