Coaching for SFWC attendees

If you’ve arrived here, then you must have attended, spoke at, or volunteered with the San Francisco Writers Conference in 2023. Welcome!

(Did your flyer have a sticker attached? Send me a selfie!)

The conference can be an inspiring, exciting, overwhelming experience. You might feel energized. You might feel like a complete impostor and ready to quit altogether. You might feel wildly confused. You might feel like you have a million more options to you than you had known about. You might feel laser-focused on your next steps.

Whatever you’re feeling, I can help you sort it out, find your way through it, and put yourself on the path to success… the way you define success.

Here’s a short video I made about myself, related to the free on-site mini consultations I offered during the conference.

What am I offering you?

I’m an ICF certified professional coach. I work with individuals, teams, and companies to help people overcome obstacles, focus on the important things, and achieve their personal and professional goals.

I’m offering a free hour of professional coaching to anyone who was at the 2023 San Francisco Writers Conference.

This hour can be about any topic that’s on your mind. It can be as specific as “should I self-publish” or as broad as “my family doesn’t understand my desire to write.” It can be entirely unrelated to writing—trouble with coworkers at your day job, deciding whether to get an advanced degree… anything.

How do you claim the free hour?

Simple: Book your hour through my online calendar. This offer is good until June 1st. If you really want to talk with me but can’t get to it before June 1st, or if your time zone causes problems with my availability, then email me and we’ll work something out.

Schedule time with me

Is this for real? Why am I doing this?

Totally for real. I’m doing it for two main reasons:

First, and most obviously, I hope you’ll find this hour so valuable that you’ll want to continue working with me as a paying client.

Second, and just as important, I want to be of service to you. I’m a lifelong writer who has been through several career changes, a 32-year marriage and divorce, raising two kids to adulthood, cross-country moves, world travel, and a lot more.

About a decade ago, I went through my own existential crisis as it related to my writing. I’d just finished the draft of my fourth manuscript, the book that would become Semper. I’d grown disillusioned with the publishing process and had to dive deep into myself to reconnect with my personal values, understand my true goals, and reimagine my publishing dream.

I made the decision to self-publish Semper, which reinvigorated me to complete the entire trilogy and write another book after that.

I’m not advocating that you self-publish. It’s not right for everyone. What I do want to do is help you distinguish between what the rest of the world tells you you should do, and what you think you should do.

*Signing an anthology at the 2014 San Francisco Writers Conference at the Mark Hopkins*

Friends, spouses, and other people who know you have your best interests at heart, but their advice is always tinged with their own biases and fears.

As a professional coach, I arrive impartial, unbiased, and interested in only one thing: Making sure you feel you’re taking the right steps on the right path to your goals.

The path I’ve taken is irrelevant to the path you should take. The decisions I’ve made are irrelevant to the decisions you need to make.

In all my experience, I’ve learned how to live my life, not yours. I’ve also learned how to ask the important questions, and shine a bright light on the right connections, and guide people through assessments and exercises, to help others figure out how to live theirs.

There’s really no cost? No obligation?

That’s right.

I am offering this for free, with no obligation.

If, however, you’d like to contribute something—a token payment, a cup of coffee, a donation to my charity walk fundraising effort—I will gladly accept it.

Where can you find out more about me and my coaching?

You’re here!

The website you’re on is the best place. Browse through my blog posts about values, leadership, writing, authenticity, and many other topics. You can also visit my personal website with its own related blog (mostly old stuff). I’m also active on LinkedIn. I have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but I’m really not active there anymore.