Some of my favorite 2018 posts, and other links

This will probably be my last post for a while. I will put up links to the podcasts when they continue to publish on Tuesdays (12/25 and 1/1!) but I feel like I am crashing into the end of this year.

My time logs show I spent 4.25 hours this week wrapping presents. I spent 2 hours in Target shopping yesterday. Also, I work for a living. I am very excited about some big projects for early 2019. Juliet’s School of Possibilities will come out, and I’ve been working on a fun pre-order bonus. You can watch a fun animated video on Juliet here. I am also starting work on another big project that I can’t wait to tell you about. But more about that in January!

Anyway, earlier this week, I wrote about my most-trafficked posts of 2018. Today I’ll post some other favorites.

First, though, I have to share an article from the South Bend Tribune about the 1994 Clay High School state championship basketball team. I was a freshman when my high school’s team won (this was my first high school; I left for junior and senior year). It was amazing and shocking. There are now life-sized portraits of the team on the gym walls. They were gathering this week at a game to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that season.

Longtime readers might recall that The Cortlandt Boys, my first novel, is about a high school basketball team winning the state championship on an improbable last second 3-point shot. Then it follows the lives of the boys after. There are some parallels, though The Cortlandt Boys is entirely a work of fiction. But I remain fascinated by this question: what is life like when the biggest thing that will ever happen to you happens when you are 17?

(Insert lyric from Jack and Diane here: Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone…)

I think I will reread The Cortlandt Boys over vacation! I invite you to join me. If enough people are in, I’d be happy to set up a call or online chat to discuss some of the themes and answer questions. Just let me know. As always, you can email me at lvanderkam at yahoo dot com.

Now to the other links! Some of my favorites for 2018:

Podcast: On mom guilt. A listener wrote in about being racked with guilt for working 3 days per week when none of her friends did. Sarah and I responded with both practical suggestions (time for new friends!) and some lamentations about why women talk themselves into stories that simply limit their lives.

Why I run every day. I visited Vancouver for the first time in June (I went back in October!) My flight was four hours delayed and I didn’t sleep much, but because of my running streak, I got up and ran along the waterfront before giving my speech. And it was the most magical run ever, waking me up far more than a shot of espresso would. My running streak has not always been easy. But some days it is incredibly rewarding.

It doesn’t have to be Tolstoy or Joyce. A campaign to encourage Americans to read more made the very-true observation that reading doesn’t have to mean tackling epic, difficult books. But the truth is, most of us do have time to read Tolstoy or Joyce if we want. Reading a long book is no different than reading a short book. “Finishing is about starting, and then plugging along, day after day.”

The CEO life: More balanced than you might think. Numerous readers shared a time diary study that ran in Harvard Business Review looking at how CEOs spend their time. The upside is that while they worked a lot, and certainly more than the average person (about 60 hours a week), they did not work around the clock. They slept around 7 hours a day averaged over the whole week. Many were exercising — probably because it’s a good way to stay sane and energized. I love time diary data!

My List of 100 Dreams. My updated bucket list ran in three parts: Part 1 – Career and Travel, Part 2 – Personal and Family, Part 3 – Personal, Family, etc. If you haven’t made a list of 100 dreams, I’d encourage you to make one over the holidays!

The DONE List: Reflections on my first 40 years, and 40 lessons learned on the way to 40. These two posts, commemorating my milestone birthday, just ran a few weeks ago. But if you didn’t read them, please check them out!

Photo: Another favorite outcome of 2018! I really did like writing this book.