This is Johanna Rothman’s June 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Several of my colleagues and dear friends are in the midst of chaos. They want to do something new and create new opportunities for themselves. Tom is looking for a job. Andrea wants to […]
How Can You Tell It’s Time to Commit to a New Path? Read More »
I’ve seen several of these situations recently. I suspect you have, too: A friend or colleague “retires” from their day job. Within a few weeks, they’re either back at that day job or some other job. Why? Because they have no idea what to do in retirement. An organization wants to “transform” the entire way
When Do You Want a Total Transformation vs. Being Satisfied with Practicing Change? Read More »
I’ve been learning a ton lately, all about how people work, writing, and publishing. Yes, I know a lot about how people work already, but people seem to want to use AI and other tools in ways that I think are unwise. Since these people think AI is helping them, I need to understand why
How Do You Manage To Want to Keep Learning? Read More »
Do you feel lucky? I do. I’ve been able to work at jobs I (mostly) love and with people I (mostly) enjoy. My family loves me, even if they do roll their eyes often. (That’s totally fine. I often deserve that eye-rolling.) I also feel as if I’ve benefited from a ton of serendipity, especially
How Can We Create More Luck and Serendipity In Our Lives? Read More »
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Every so often, the three indicators of low self-esteem rise up and kick us in the guts. That happened to me a couple of weeks ago. That’s when I spent a week in Las Vegas. I participated in an Anthology workshop where I experienced fear, uncertainty, and doubt—along with the reality—of
How Can We Move from Low Self Esteem to Recognizing Reality? Read More »
Last week on Mastodon, my friend and colleague GeePaw Hill wrote: “Music — art — is not a promise of perfection. It is a promise of effort, of risk, of commitment, to an unreachable ideal. Pablo Casals, in his 80s, asked why he practices every day. “Because I think I’m getting better.” If you create
How Often Do You Embrace the Joy of Practice, Not the Outcome? Read More »
This morning, my husband Mark, strode into the bedroom while I was getting dressed. “Our dishwasher is broken! It’s not emptying the water!! I had to empty it by hand!!!” “I’m sorry the dishwasher wants to make your life miserable,” I said. “I pushed and nudged you to put everything into the dishwasher and stop
When Do You Reframe Challenges with Humor? Read More »
People ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up—to talk about their dreams. Back when I was a kid, I had no idea about all the possibilities. I’d seen doctors, nurses, teachers, and businessmen. (No businesswomen. Yes, I am that old!) And even as a kid, I realized doctors had power—much
When Is It Time to Set Aside Your Current Dreams and Start Over? Read More »
I’ve been taking a ton of fiction writing classes, some in-person and most online. Two weeks ago, I was at a thriller fantasy class (yes, a mashup of two genres). I successfully wrote three stories. Not one of them was a thriller. Not one. (At one point, I said, “Genre, shmenre” in the class.) I
How Can We Make the Chaos of Learning Feel Better? Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, Mark was traveling, so I cooked dinners for myself. Because of my vertigo, I plan what to cook and when. One of my favorite dinners is baked-and-then-broiled salmon with roasted veggies. Since we roast the veggies with garlic and olive oil, we need to stir the veggies partway through the
How Can You Decide It’s Time to Retire & Replace Old Tools, Such as Spoons? Read More »