Good morning from New York City. It’s funny how much I love hearing the New York City. I have to say, I am still landing the plane. In fact, the first thing most people say to me is how does it feel to be home? The truth of the matter is I’m still metabolizing the landing. I’m still finding my way, and I’m sorry that I’ve been less consistent than usual. I know many of my followers listen first thing in the morning, so bear with me as I find my footing and get back on track.

As I was saying, people are asking me how it feels to be back and the truth of the matter is I don’t know. As I was drinking my coffee this morning, I thought to myself, well, what is it that I’m saying that I haven’t already shared here? I know I’ve spoken about my restlessness and my desire to do something new. I’ve spoken about wanting to bring back and infuse into my life in New York, some of the energy that I gathered out in the world. But what else?

I don’t know how it may help to share this or who it may pertain to, but I’ve noticed that when I say it, it does seem to resonate and it’s this. I feel like what I’ve been doing over the last couple of years in particular has been very self directed. It’s largely generated by my own motivation. In other words, if I’m on my game and energized, I get a lot done, I’m inspired, et cetera. But here’s the thing. I don’t have a lot to respond to. It’s very much self-generated energy.

One of the things that I’m feeling is that by making a commitment or getting involved with something or going back to work or whatever it may be, I’ll have something to respond to. I think that I’m at my best when I have something to respond to, and I think that goes for a lot of people. We can only go so far when we’re completely reliant on our own motivation and our own inspiration, and it’s good to have people and things and input to respond to. So that’s one of the things that is really top of mind right now. Even when I think of the podcast, the more I interact with people,the more I hear, reflect and have something to say.

As I think I’ve shared before, as much as I love working and operating more on the reflective side of life, the ROI of being contemplative and being in my own world eventually flattens out. And as I said, I think what’s important is that I engage more and have more to respond to. Interestingly, on a previous podcast, I was talking about feeling bored and that was certainly the wrong word because bored implies that you don’t have anything to do and it’s not about that. It’s more about feeling restless, or even better said it’s a little bit of a hunch that I have a third act and a lot a bit of wanting to have something to respond to.

I’m not so sure that this language I’m using, having something to respond to will resonate, but I hope I’ve been able to convey the idea. I don’t think it’s all about being alone a lot. I think this can happen also in working groups when you’re always talking to the same people about the same things. When you don’t have outside input, you risk groupthink. You risk getting stale in your thinking.

Everybody needs outside input and when people say to me how it feels to be back in New York that is something that’s on my mind. I want to be careful about how I close myself off from the world because New York is a very intense place. There’s a lot of activity. You can hear it through the windows. There’s a lot going on here, and of course retreating is very important to recharge your batteries. But you need to be careful that you don’t retreat too much. That’s a note to self. That’s what is on my mind today. How to recalibrate that balance in my life. So there you have it. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

I’ll close by saying thank you for bearing with me as I find my way back to a more normal cadence and delivering the podcast at 8 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks. Until next time, from my heart to yours.