Thoughts on Slowing Down
Field Notes - Issue #02
June 17, 2026
Welcome to the field!
This past month, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to slow down.
I’ve been restructuring the focus of my business, and my days are less scheduled. Intentionally.
Slowing down was an intuitive decision that took place over several months. As I contemplated what I wanted, I was very clear that I was not ready to quit working or quit thinking or quit creating.
I am ready to stop chasing things. Things that don’t bring me joy; things that distract from my own inner work and my most creative external work; things that don't enable what matters most to me.
If you've followed my work for long, you know I encourage clients to complete a What Matters Most to Me exercise at least annually. I practice what I preach and revisit my own list regularly. The items on my list have been very stable for the past several years — and very telling. The top five all begin with the word “time.” I’ve wanted:
- time with my wife (as we both age this is becoming more critical);
- time to exercise so I can maintain healthy longevity
- time to garden — it grounds me
- time with our dogs (this is pure joy for all of us)
- and time for myself to explore what creativity actually means to me at this stage of my life.
In the past three months, I’ve had a number of days that went exactly as I had hoped. The first time it happened, there were two days in a row where I stood at the kitchen sink mid-morning and had a moment to reflect. On those two mornings, I realized that I had gotten up without an alarm clock. I had coffee with my wife and our dogs. I went to my garden to weed and tend plants while it was still cool. Then, I came back in, had a light breakfast and found myself standing at the kitchen sink taking inventory. When I found myself enjoying that kind of day twice in a row, I thought, "This is exactly the life I set out to build! It aligns with my list.”
In addition to having more and more days like that, I've been reshaping my professional life. My coaching practice continues; I have a number of clients I truly enjoy working with. I’ve been reimagining what my business so it thrives in today’s environment while aligning with my energy and enthusiasm as well as my particular set of skills and interests.
And I’m having FUN!
THINGS WORTH YOUR TIME
As I’ve been moving through this self-reflective period, I’m also noticing that a number of people in my life and in my online feeds (I mostly work on LinkedIn and Substack) are talking about similar ideas. I’ll shout out a couple of them:
Justin Welsh writes in The Saturday Essay on LinkedIn and Substack about making counterintuitive choices that align with your core values.
Careers in Flux on Substack tracks the unfolding story of a woman in the midst of a career transition. She is writing about it very publicly and very well.
And Ryan Levesque at The Digital Contrarian shares his observations and journey in leaving behind a very successful corporate and entrepreneurial lifestyle to return to the land and get “Back to Real.” (That’s the title of his upcoming book, which I am told by early readers is very good.)
Maybe I'm noticing these people because I'm on a similar path. Or maybe many people are taking stock differently these days. Either way, there are a lot of ways to think about career and life transitions, and I’m grateful to learn from others as I remake my own life.
RECENT HAPPENINGS
In the past few months, you may have seen my contributions on LinkedIn become more frequent and more intentional — if you haven’t, check out my most popular post of the last 30 days here. It’s about the Flight of the Bumblebee and linear career paths, and it references one of the most important books in my life — one that helped launch my thinking about my own career.
I’m also now publishing a weekly newsletter on Substack. It’s called More Than Work, and my recent issue describing the Professional Precariat garnered a lot of interest. Each week, I’ve been sharing a tool or framework that helps people make courageous career decisions. Here are two examples:
Most recently, I had the opportunity to work with nine amazing individuals in a workshop I co-sponsored with my colleague Dr. Mira Brancu from Towerscope Leadership Academy. We led a long-format webinar titled “The Career Transitions and Design Lab,” where we took a structured look at career decision-making across the life course of a professional career, building on content from my book, Professional Careers by Design: A Handbook for the Bespoke Life. Thanks to all who participated, and to Dr. Brancu for the opportunity.
WHAT’S NEXT
I’m deeply exploring what the transitions in a senior career look like. They can take many forms. You may choose to call it Capstone (as I do), you may wish to craft an encore career, you may think of it as retirement, or if you may be entirely unsure what form it should take.
It's likely no accident that as I am living through this stage myself, I am finding I have more to learn and more to share about this period of life. I expect I'll continue writing about this topic, and perhaps a new focus on that kind of coaching work will emerge.
As I continue exploring, I will share my questions and learning along the way. Thanks for showing up for this newsletter, and if you read something here or elsewhere that piqued your interest, reach out to me by replying to this email. I'd particularly like to hear if there is something you’d like me to write about or wish to share from your own experience.
Let's create something meaningful for all of us.
More soon,
More Than Work is our free Substack newsletter, with structured content about the changing world of work and what it means for your career choices. Subscribers get a free tool, a coaching question and an inspiring story every week.
Hope to see you there!