Hi friends,

Exciting business update before we jump into today’s letter:

I’m offering 60min Career Strategy Sessions for those of you with specific career questions. While I’m keeping my 1:1 coaching practice small for the time being, I still want to help when you reach out with smaller-scope challenges.

What are smaller-scope challenges? Well, more clear-cut situations that we can feasibly tackle in an hour. Last week, I chatted with someone deciding between two job offers- within the hour, we arrived at a very confident decision and workshopped talking points for declining one of the offers.

Other examples: Navigating tough conversations; preparing for your end-of-year performance review; managing up (influencing your boss); giving feedback; asking for a promotion; job search advice; optimizing your LinkedIn… the limit does not exist!

Here are the deets:

I’m offering two 60-minute Career Strategy Sessions by phone each month

Find and book an available hour in December here

First come, first served

I’ll update the calendar at the start of each month- I’m only sharing it with newsletter subscribers!

Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below. I can’t wait to connect!

Now, time for a story.

I nervously adjusted the seat one more time, kicked off the ground with my right foot, pushed my left foot down on the pedal, and... felt the world spin sideways as I landed on my left hip in a flash of mint green.

I’d failed to move the bike again, and the frustration bubbled up in my throat and behind my eyes. What wasn’t I getting?

If you're imagining a five-year-old in this story, I wouldn't blame you, but you'd be wrong. No, this was a scene from just a few months ago, when I was 27.

That's right. I learned to ride a bike at 27 years old.

While not totally uncommon among adults, my lack of biking skills was a big insecurity of mine. I avoided social gatherings that included casual rides and sometimes used this as a self-depreciating “fun fact” on dates.

But in May of this year, while I was unemployed and living with my parents, I finally said “screw it.” I was over being shut out of an experience just because I didn’t have the skill- yet. So I searched for the cheapest bike I could find on Craigslist and picked up this “young adult” sized cruiser a few hours later.

I was more nervous to start than I expected to be. I seemed to fall by just standing next to the bike. It took more than a day for me to really get going. But I got going. And I spent the next month at home zipping around the neighborhood on what I can now admit was a child’s-size bike. I was proud and happy.

Fast forward a few months, and I spent most of this past Thanksgiving weekend on a bike.

I cruised along Ocean Beach and weaved my way through Golden Gate Park. I pedaled through the Marina, around the Palace of Fine Arts, and to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an experience so blissful, and one I would have never considered this time last year.

I’ve only recently started other things, too: a pivot into an HR Business Partner job; entrepreneurship as a career coach; writing consistently for the public.

It gets really frustrating sometimes. Not having the answers, not anticipating a bump in the road, losing your balance, people seeing you fall. But the journey is so rich, the view from the bike so beautiful, that starting is always worth it.

If this year has proven anything, it’s that it’s never too late to start something new.

So, what will you start?

KEEP GOING

⏳ Observe: 9 Successful People Who Made it Big Later in Life. Um, Vera Wang was an ice skater, then a journalist, before she started bridal design at 40? I had no idea that most of the folks on this list only got their “big breaks” long past their twenties. What if Samuel L. Jackson had been too scared to start acting in his forties? Would we know how to defeat snakes on a plane?! I shudder to think.

🙊 Read: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck, by Mark Manson. You know when my real bike-riding breakthrough began? When I stopped giving a fck about what it “looked like” for a 20-something woman to be learning for the first time. I ignored any neighborhoods who may have looked on in confusion, and held fast to the reminder that this was for me. “It’s cool that I’m teaching myself a new skill! I have agency over my life,” I’d think as I gripped the little white handlebars a little too tight. Manson’s easy yet humbling read reminds us that our opinion of ourselves is really the only one that matters.

💪 Remember:

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