Jeff Goins's Blog

Years ago, I met a famous podcaster and introduced myself as a blogger. The first thing he said was, “People still do that?” This was 2015. At the time, I took offense as I had built my entire career off of blogging. Now, I’m asking the same: Do people still blog?

Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash

Not really. Not exactly. Not the way they used to.

Blogging was once a community. It used to be a place for people to express themselves—a testing grounds of sorts, a way for would-be writers to see if they had what it took to go the distance. It was a shot at sharing a big idea and seeing if it connected with anyone else. I owe a lot to this Petri dish of creative work that has sadly gone the way of the dinosaur.

I’ve been blogging since 2006. Over the years, I’ve launched a dozen different blogs, all more or less failures—except for one. This one. The biggest lesson I learned from this experience was how to listen to the Muse, that invisible force that guides our greatest inspirations. Of course, it was a lot of hard work to find her and trust what came through, but blogging helped me access something inside myself I always knew was there but wasn’t sure how to unlock.

For me it was always about figuring out what I had to say.

I never know what I want to say when I begin writing. It always starts with an idea or a phrase, sometimes just a word that gets me going in a direction. As my fingers type faster than my brain can think, I am surprised by the words that appear on the screen. Sometimes, what ends up in front of me is inspiring; other times, it’s embarrassing. But always, it's a surprise—and I like that.

Blogging taught me to tap into my own fount of creativity and trust what flowed from that mysterious source. It was how I began practicing this craft that has defined much of my life for the past decade, allowing me to become a professional writer.

Blogging helped me find my voice and connect with others around the world who resonated with what I had to say. It was a networking tool of sorts, a badge of honor we nerds and misfits proudly flashed at each other, as if to say, “I’m trying to figure this thing out, too; but I know there's something here.” It brought people together.

Blogging gave me the tools I needed to start a new life more than once—when I was working at a nonprofit and wanted to make a change, when I was going through a lot personally and was grasping at what my next big move would be, and even now as not-quite-young-anymore writer who still has a thing or two to share.

What I loved most about blogging, though, was that whatever my challenge or trial, it reminded that I was never alone. There was always someone to listen, someone to pay attention, someone to say, or perhaps more appropriately, type: “Yeah, me too.” That felt good.

I loved blogging, but it's not what it used to be. Nowhere near. And so, it is not without any ingratitude at all that I hesitantly bid farewell to my tenure as a blogger and to this blog, in particular. I appreciate everything I’ve learned from this tool, but it’s time to say goodbye. It’s probably no surprise to the reader that blogging is now a forgotten art, a now-defunct medium replaced by TikTok videos and Instagram captions and epic-long Twitter threads. For all intents and purposes, it's over.

Or is it?

I’ve stumbled across an incredible community of writers and readers recently that reminds me (and others) of the early days of blogging when it was still a frontier of online publishing. Nobody knew the rules then; or rather, we didn’t realize we were making them. It was fun. Eventually, that carefree and exciting atmosphere was replaced by influencers vying for more market share, killing the communities they were initially a part of with greed and ambition. And of course, I am talking about myself here.

Blogging, though, may not have died as much as changed addresses. I’m no fan of new technology, as it is often a lot more hype than it’s worth; but I’ve been impressed with Substack, an online newsletter service (a seemingly, a whole lot more). At first, I was a bit skeptical of yet another platform. But I was wrong.

I did a small trial run on the platform last month and was beyond impressed by what I discovered. Within 24 hours, without any promotion whatsoever, I had over 100 new readers. Then, from there, my audience just kept growing. People were reading, commenting, and sharing. In my experience, that is currently unparalleled. It feels fresh and new and worth some energy and effort.

For the past few years, writing on this blog and sending out email updates has felt like pushing a rope. I love what we've built here together, and sometimes it's simply time to move on. To start over. Every once in a while, I need a new beginning: to simplify and focus on what matters most for me. I did that with this blog almost exactly 12 years ago, transitioning from one kind of work to another. When I finally committed, everything took off.

I feel that same kind of energy these days with this new endeavor. Maybe it’s just the novelty of a new tool or the fact that I’m getting older and not that interested in sound bites and quick fixes. I’ve recently quit social media, as it just no longer works for me and hasn't for some time. It doesn’t appeal to me to figure out the fastest, most succinct way to get people to respond to a message as quickly as possible. Not anymore. I am now far more curious in deep dives: long and articulate thoughts on a particular subject that take some time to digest.

Which is why, for the foreseeable future, I’m moving all online writings over to Substack. Yes, in many ways, it’s blogging redux; but the community there (and some of the built-in tools) are incredible. I’ll soon be transitioning my email list and blog over there but will be leaving this site up for the archives. Effectively immediately, I’ll be primarily posting on Substack. It’ll be the only place to connect with me online. My goal is to go deep in my writing and share what I learn with those who want to listen.

I’ve called my new newsletter “The Ghost,” because I've made my living these recent years as a ghostwriter. It also speaks to that feeling I had when I started writing here over a decade ago. These was some compulsion, some seemingly hidden force calling me to a new work; and eventually, I had to relent. I’ve been feeling that same tug for a while now, and it’s time to listen. It’s only appropriate, then, that I would make this transition around Christmastime in an Dickensian sort of revelation. The ghosts of writing past have visited once again and are calling me into the future.

Blogging is dead. Long live blogging. See you in the next life.

The post The End of Blogging (for Me) appeared first on Jeff Goins.

This season on the podcast, we’ve been talking about a lot of ideas: the concept of life as a dream, the whole befuddling mystery of what money is (or isn’t), and what we are doing here as humans. It’s gotten a little existential.

We’ve talked about a lot of things that aren’t real, and one fight I want to pick is with the whole concept of finish lines, of being “done” with anything. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I hate a lack of resolution. I am always vying for things to come to some sort of conclusion. It just feels better to have everything tied together, doesn’t it?

But in life, our finish lines are a bit messier. In some cases, they don’t even exist. I want to argue that a true finish line doesn’t really exist. It is really just an invitation to the next stage in the process.

Last week during our AMA, I addressed a question from a writer who has been sitting on her first draft of a book for the past four years. She said she was 90% complete but just couldn’t push through the final tenth of the project.

Do you know what I told her?

“You’re already done. It’s time to start again, time to move to the next phase.”

Any time you can get any project to an 80% completion point, it’s time to move to the next part. To take the next step. Otherwise, you spin out, and get stuck in some confusing point that you just can’t get out of. As you can see, this can take years.

Don’t do that. Don’t believe the myth of the finish line. Instead, find a way to ship what you have, inviting someone else into the process. That doesn’t mean publishing the thing, necessarily, but it does mean to stop stalling and figure out where you need help.

Often, that comes in the form of an editor or a coach. Sometimes both. Which reminds me…

Over at our book production agency Fresh Complaint, we are just about to close registration for our new six-month coaching program for authors. Here’s the overview:

Finish Your First Draft is a six-month learning experience that immerses you in a supportive community of peers, experts, and coaches who will help you plan, write, and refine your book so that you can get your message out into the world. It’s time to stop writing alone so that you can start finishing.

What is it, exactly? Weekly Zoom calls with a book coach and editor, along with special guest appearances from other experts who will help you write the first draft of your book. You’ll also get four one-on-one private calls and weekly “office hours” to ask any questions on Slack.

All the details are at freshcomplaint.com/finish. Check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. We’d love to help you get your book to the next level.

On Friday, we will close down applications, review all our applicants, and invite 15 writers to join Ariel Curry and me for the rest of the year for this intensive program. Ariel is the head facilitator on this project, and I’m coming in a few times as a guest teacher. It’s gonna be a hoot.

One of the things I’ve learned about writing is that you can’t honestly write what you are unwilling to live. At first, this might seem preposterous. After all, J.R.R. Tolkien hadn’t ever really faced a dragon before. Nor did J.K. Rowling know what it was like to grow up an orphan who became a great wizard.

Or did they?

We cannot write what we do not know. It has to come from somewhere—or so the popular thinking goes. If you ask any creative writer, however, where their words come from, the best of them do not know. The most intelligible answer they can offer is some vague response about the ether or a muse or some confusing theory on the origin of myths.

It all sounds like, well… magic.

What they are saying, I think, is that nobody knows where these things originate. They seem to arrive from out of nowhere. But really, it seems obvious to me: it all comes from you. And don’t be surprised if what you find surprises you. That's how deep you go.

Every book we writers face, every word we dare to type, each sentence we dream up—these are all invitations to an inward journey.

It may be a trip to reconnect with your own childlike wonder that was lost long ago. Or maybe it’s an adventure that makes you laugh or cry. Perhaps, you learn something you didn’t know that you knew, some secret wisdom that would benefit the world or just your neighborhood.

No matter how we slice it, no matter what comes out, each act of creation is a trip. And by the end of it, like any good journey, we are changed. Transformed. Something a little different from what we once were. Our friends or partners may notice a new spark in us, something they didn’t see before. Because it wasn’t there before, at least not in any conscious state. It feels brand new because it is.

Writing, for me, is therapy. It’s a meditation, a chance to see what I am refusing to acknowledge in my outer world—an opportunity to witness on plain paper what I think.

Even these words surprise me as they come out. Are they true? They are no more (or less) true than a band of furry-footed creatures attempting to take down the greatest source of evil in the world. They are equivalent in their veracity to a boy with a stick standing up to the man who killed his parents. These words are the best I can do right now, and each of them teaches me something about myself.

I don’t know that we write what we know as much as we write to experience what we could know. Stories are a dance with what could be, with what might have been in another place, at another time. Ideas are approximations of the truth. We write to teach—first ourselves, and then the world.

At least, that’s what I think for now.

Over the years, I've grown more contemplative as I’ve gotten more experienced as a writer. All these words of mine have taught me things about myself, and the greatest lesson is this: “Pay attention.”

Of course, that’s easier said than done. I used to say that I wrote because I loved writing. Now, I would say that I write because I love life, and that writing down my thoughts and observations is a way of teaching myself a new lesson on the art of living.

If you don’t know what you think about something, write it down. Test it. See how it looks on the page. Feel what comes up as your own thoughts glare back at you. Do you want to hit the delete button, backspacing a few dashes towards the truth? Or do you want to keep going? This is the gift of any creative act. What we make reveals our deepest thoughts and beliefs, allowing us to hold them up to the light. Only then can we actually see.

This, then, is how we “live” what we write. We can feel the truth of our own expressions. If you attempt to say something in the world that you aren’t willing to face in your own life, you will feel the lack of integrity in your body. It’ll be like a little revolt in your nervous system. You might shake, feel nauseous, or even throw up.

Of course, you can ignore these signs and signals. You can force yourself to write something you know that your soul disagrees with. But who wants to live like that? Write what's true. For now. As far as you can tell. That's all you can do; that would change everything if you let it.

I wake up to birdsong and soft light washing in through a window that no curtain can cover. I drink coffee and read a book, easing into the day. Work starts with an interview. A woman interrupts at just the right time. Doorbell rings, dog barks, life continues. She wants to mow my lawn in exchange for the ability to pay a bill. I say yes and go back to work. The children play upstairs and I try to focus.

The heat is harsh this week and still somehow wonderful, like a blanket you don’t need but filled with memories you can’t let go. I go for a walk for no particular reason at no particular time, and it is transcendent. A woman passes with her baby in a stroller, and we both nod in recognition as if to say: “This was a bad idea.” We smile at the absurdity of our poor planning, then resume this silly game of pretending that life is anything other than perfect, always.

I go on a business trip and it‘s cooler in this new place, but the sun still shines. I feel tired and miss my bed and window with the sun rays. I eat too much and drink more than I should, watching my belly droop over the waistline each morning while feeling new aches in odd places. This, I think, is what getting older must be like.

My body remembers high school and taunts from older boys whom I foolishly mistook for wise; a familiar shiver of shame shakes through me, bringing attention to the parts that no longer feel young. I walk to get ice cream and forget my troubles, noticing that I am still here, smiling as the wind caresses my face, unperturbed by my tiny melodramas. A tightness in my body releases without prompting, and with it, an exhale I didn’t know I was holding.

Who knew a life so simple could be so sweet?

I come home. It rains here but only for a minute. A meal is made by my hands on a new grill that sits on the patio. It is served with care and love, and before bed, the whole neighborhood stops by for s’mores. The kids want to see their mother and I agree to make a stop the next day.

When we meet, they hug and cry and say goodbye, and I watch from the driveway. The return trip home is filled with golden moments of sunset reflecting off green Tennessee hills in miraculous and unforgettable splendor. And yet, in a moment, I forget it all, because more room must be made for the following moment.

My life feels smaller these days, but richer… There’s not a thing I would change, because I can find nothing wrong with any of it.

The night wraps its cool arms around the car as it barrels down country roads, stopping at the corner station for snacks before pulling into the cul-de-sac. We are Here. Everything is as it should be, in spite of dwindling bank accounts and children who accuse in one breath and gleefully squeal the next—and a father who doesn’t know what to do with any of it. All is well.

My life feels smaller these days, but richer. I imagine there are pieces of my story that some may pity, details others would want to change. But it is my life, and I love it all, even the parts I don’t understand. There’s not a thing I would change, because I can find nothing wrong with any of it.

I am loved by a woman whose affection I cherish and whose honor I protect. There is a dog in our care whom the doctors say is dying. They’ve been saying this for months, though; and in this moment, he chases stuffed toys thrown deep into a dying lawn. It is ten p.m. He returns the bedraggled ball of fluff after each throw as street lamps illumine our view, offering a spotlight to adult conversation.

There was a time when I wanted fantastical exploits and over-the-top experiences, a life lived to the full. Now, I can find no part of me who desires such things. I have no room for anything larger than this. It is all I could ever want, filled with more than enough wonder. And yet, there’s always more. To be tuned in like this, to be here for all of it, feels like heaven. And for all I know, it is.

If I could offer some sliver of observation, something that approximates advice, it would be this: What fills your life is you. No success can give you any sense of satisfaction you don’t already possess. A little life can contain an entire universe when you know what to look for—and learning to look is what it’s all about.

Every grand achievement I’ve ever encountered ultimately disappointed me in some way, leaving my soul in a state of greater confusion. When the glitter of accomplishment fades, what remains is the life I am trying to get away from, the one that won't stop staring back at me. Eventually, I had to face it, and what a wonderful face it had.

In spite of what the self-help cliches assert, you don’t actually get to choose your life. Try as you might, you can’t control what happens. What each of us can do is learn to live—to be in this life, all the way, for as much as possible.

When we do that, we discover that the little stuff is larger than we thought. We start to see that it’s all here, right now—a fireworks display of majesty in every single breath. And we realize that the life we were waiting for was actually waiting for us.

Listen to the podcast episode that accompanies this post here.

Hi, friend. I’m tired. I flew in late last night to Portland, Oregon, for a writing workshop I’m teaching tomorrow. (If you’re in town, tickets are still on sale here.) Then I’m headed back home to the new house and new life that’s waiting for me. The summer schedule has started this week, so we have kids loafing around the residence repeatedly droning all day, “I’m bored.” Not the worst of problems in the world, I admit, and all things considered, I’m grateful. But still, I’m tired.

I’m reminded of a mantra I learned back in 2020 when life seemed to slow to a halt and every day still felt like a slog. I was in a men’s group at the time, and one of our guest facilitators shared it with us. As a midwesterner who has pridefully pulled himself up by his metaphorical bootstraps for most of his life, the simple phrase offended me: Let it be easy.

The way she said it sounded like a child squealing to her parents on Christmas morning to get out of bed: “Let it be… easy!” It seemed too hard to believe. The solution to my problems, the secret relief to all my stressors, was to simply let it be… easy? That couldn’t be. Growing up middle class in the farmlands of rural Illinois, I had been trained to work hard my whole life, to push myself to the max. If there was no pain, there was no gain. No progress without struggle.

But over time, that started to feel exhausting. Did I really have to kill myself to live the life I wanted? Didn’t that defeat the purpose? What good is a life you strive to create if you can’t even enjoy it? The whole pursuit started to lose its significance—all this hustling, and for what? It really did seem like chasing after the wind. It couldn’t really be easy. Could it?

But what if? What if I at least tried to let life be something other than a banal exercise in pain and disappointment? That sounds dramatic, to be sure, but for most of my life I was so distracted by what I wanted that I was blind to what I had. And all that was starting to wear on me. So I decided to try, to let life be easier than I was making it.

I began to allow things to happen and listen to my intuition, paying attention to the little voice inside when it said, “I don’t want to do that” or “That sounds like fun!” The voice didn’t always get exactly what it wanted, because sometimes it sounded like a child asking for candy, but I gave it the space and attention it needed, honoring its (and, I soon learned, my) desires.

And guess what? Life started to feel easier. The burden was lighter, the yoke not so heavy. I wondered if maybe all of life could be like this. Perhaps I didn’t have to overextend myself to achieve things only to wonder what it was all for. Maybe I could just enjoy this experience as much as possible, tasting each morsel of life as it’s presented to me, one bite at a time.

Maybe.

These days, when I find myself up against the wall with all these things I “have to do,” I start to get suspicious. Is it true? Is it absolutely right that all these things must be done right now, or is this just an old program running in my mind, demanding that I stay busy and productive so that I can demonstrate my worth to the world? Now, don’t get me wrong. Things need to get done on occasion. But, in my experience, far less than we assume is actually necessary.

So instead of dropping a new issue of the podcast today, we’re gonna take a “breather” this week. We’ve got several more to come, and we could use a week to get ahead, so what’s becoming a rather lengthy essay is, in a way, a distraction technique. Then again, maybe not. Maybe this is just what’s happening right now. All that to say, stay tuned. We’ve got more coming soon, and if you haven’t caught up on the current season, consider this your invitation to do so.

Meanwhile, things are cooking over at Fresh Complaint, our book production agency where we help would-be authors to plan, write, and edit books. We’ve got a full roster of clients and more waiting in the wings, plus several new projects coming this summer and fall.

One such project is a live workshop I’m teaching next week on book proposal writing. This is an all-day event hosted via Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 28-29, (9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Central). We record the sessions and give you the notes, templates, and recordings. All details are in the P.S. of my last newsletter, and if you have any questions, you can shoot me an email, and someone from the team will respond. Or you can grab one of the final spots here.

Following that workshop, our team will be rolling out a pilot version of a six-month coaching program for writing your first draft. If that’s something of interest to you, check out the application.

So that’s what’s going on. Today, I’ve got a workshop to prepare for, a manuscript to deliver to a publisher for a ghostwriting client, and some friends to see. I choose to let it be easy, to be surprised by what unfolds, and do my best with how I respond to the inevitable surprises. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Career-wise, I continue to want to share ideas that interest me with others. I love the catharsis of coming across a concept and sharing my take on it, in writing or in audio, then seeing the reaction of an audience to it. That’s the magic of what blogging used to be, and still, there’s nothing quite like it. I hope to continue being able to do that, in whatever format makes sense, expressing my voice in a way that resonates with others and helps me clarify my own thinking.

I struggle to find the right time to fit it all in, though, while honoring my professional and personal commitments. I want to be creative and do good work and make a decent living while taking care of my family and myself. And there’s never quite enough time to do it all; or rather, there’s always exactly enough time and not a minute more.

So, my friend, let us let it be easy together. I admit that such a challenge at times sounds, well, difficult. Isn’t that ironic? I suppose, then, that’s the work facing us. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard. Maybe it all can feel a little lighter, a little more effortless. Maybe it can be easy.

I’m willing to try—and in some cases, to stop.

Are you?

I have a friend who likes to say, whenever you ask him how he’s doing: “Livin’ the dream.”

That always bothered me a little. Perhaps this is my melancholic, artist side showing, but I was like, “Really? You’re always having a fantastic day? Life feels like a dream… all the time?”

How, I wondered, was that even possible?

But now, I think he was right… just not in the way he probably meant it.

One of the most interesting parts of my journey as a human has been these past few years of re-contextualizing my understanding of reality. Which is a fancy way of saying I had a mid-life crisis. But what’s so bad about a crisis?

Doesn’t every great story begin with some dramatic moment, an “inciting incident”? I heard it said once that every moment of crisis is an invitation to greater awakening, deeper awareness. I liked that. After all, what good is life, or anything for that matter, if you’re missing it?

It seems that the artist is especially sensitive to such reckonings. Anne Lamott once wrote that “this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, ‘How alive am I willing to be?’” I never fully understood that until recently.

If our job is to build new worlds and imagine alternative realities, then awareness, I should think, is a vocational requirement. We have to be so tapped into life to even be capable of inviting others into deeper experiences of it. We would have to be more in tune with the way things are if we wanted to be true to our craft and calling.

And that, my friend, is exactly why I think so many artists go crazy—truly. Because life starts to feel a little shaky when you are weaving in and out of dream states. You start to realize that everything, maybe even you are an idea, a projection of the imagination. Or, as Morpheus says in The Matrix: “What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

What we call life is often not as real as we might think.

Ever rushed through your day and failed to notice the clouds?

Ever met someone for coffee and struggled to look them in the eyes because you were so nervous or distracted?

Ever driven down the road and seen something for the first time that was probably always there?

As humans, we are often discovering deeper ways of being, sometimes without even knowing that’s what is happening. As artists, we have an opportunity to guide others into this exploration of themselves. At least, that’s how I think of what we do.

This week on the podcast, Kelton and I talk about his tattoo and explore the tale of the “Ten Bulls,” a series of short poems in Zen Buddhism. We also discuss Pedro Calderon de la Barca's classic “Life is a Dream,” the seemingly subjective nature of reality, and what all this has to do with creativity.

Listen in here:

If you’ve ever wondered what all of this is really about or had a nagging suspicion that there was more to life than meets the eye (and not be content with simple explanations), then you’ll probably enjoy this one. It’s one of my favorite subjects because it is immensely practical.

If life is a little less serious than we thought, then there is a lot more room to play, to have fun, to explore who and what we are. And if art is anything, shouldn’t it at the very least, and essentially, be fun? I’ll let you decide for yourself. I could be completely wrong about that.

Then again, maybe you’re just dreaming.

Don’t forget to check out the latest podcast and be sure to leave a review if you’re enjoying the show!

Have you had your cup of coffee today? I have. I’ve tasted the sweet nectar of the gods and gone back for more. How could I not? This is the stuff of which creativity is made, after all.

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love coffee, that I see the very act of coffee-making as a careful and subtle art, one worth our attention and respect. And this love for something bitter but life-giving has taught me more than a few lessons about the magic of making things.

What is it about coffee that makes life worth living? Maybe you think I am given to hyperbole, but that is only because you must still be a member of the uninitiated, so allow me the privilege of enlightening you. Of educating you.

A cup of coffee is never just a cup of coffee. It is a beautiful pause, a way to say to yourself and to the rest of the day: “Before we do anything, we will take a moment to connect to ourselves and our senses. We will stop the frenzy that is our lives and smell, sip, and sit with what it means to be here, right now, in this wonder we call life.”

Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic here, but my coffee-making is a ritual. It is important to me, and something I do every day without thinking about it. Yes, I could pop a Keurig cup or go to a coffee shop, but I refuse to rob myself of the important act that allows my day to begin with a little art. Making coffee is a wonderful invitation that life is constantly offering us: take a moment and create something beautiful… and then enjoy your creation.

How do you make a great cup of coffee, you might be wondering? Well, I am glad you asked.

It begins with the beans, with the raw source material that comes straight from the earth. A coffee bean is, in fact, a seed—which means it contains the primary material for making other things. It is pure potential, a fruit from a bush that can grow other bushes and create other things just like it. An entire oak tree is contained in the tininess of an acorn, after all; and all of life that is worth living can be found in the miniature latency of a coffee bean.

Good beans are whole and intact—they’re not grounds. To make great coffee, you’ve got to start with the bean, with something whole and atomic that you can crush into fine powder and turn into something consumable. So your day begins with an act of alchemy, with turning one thing into another thing. And all of life, in a way, is like this. We are always taking raw stuff and turning it into something else: whether that’s a bad day into a good one, an acquaintance into a friend, or an idea into an email. It is our own version of transforming water into wine; and in this way, we can each be children of God, little creators dancing with the creation that is us.

Good beans are not too old, because life tends to grow stale when it sits on a shelf for too long. You want something fresh, not older than a couple of weeks. Most coffee follows the rule of fifteens, which is to say green beans tend to last fifteen months, whereas roasted beans only last fifteen days, and ground coffee lasts a mere fifteen minutes before it starts to lose flavor.

Coffee is a reminder that life is evanescent, as are our best ideas. We must seize the day before it’s over lest the opportunity be lost forever. You cannot hold on to a moment anymore than you can let a cup of coffee sit all day and still expect it to taste as good as it did the minute it was brewed. Enjoy what you can while it’s here is what coffee is trying to tell us. For tomorrow we die. 

Which brings us to the next step: preparation. Surprisingly, the least important part of making coffee is how you actually brew it. If you are in the mountains of Peru and use a stone to grind some freshly roasted beans that a few peasants picked only a day before (side note: you actually want beans that were roasted a few days ago for optimal flavor, because things take time to mature and there is only a small window between maturity and staleness and we are always trying to maintain that balance, aren’t we?), then pour some hot water over those grounds, and strain it in a T-shirt, well, that will likely be pretty good coffee. 

But I digress, albeit only a little.

Whether you use an espresso machine, or an Aeropress, or a Chemex, or a Kinto cup miniature pour-over, or a French press (all of which are devices in my possession), what matters most is that you make the coffee. Not that you do pretty latte art or impress your friends with a fancy machine from Switzerland you don’t know how to appreciate. What matters is you get up tomorrow and dare to taste the morning. That you endeavor to make something worth consuming, something infused with love and art. Something that just might satiate a soul.

Finally, just as important as the beans themselves, is the timing of the whole thing. You need to make your coffee quickly and enjoy it without dragging out the process. Yes, I love a good sit on a balcony with a hot cup of liquid love, but if I am drinking so slowly that I have to microwave the mug, then I am in trouble. I am not carpe-ing the diem. Life is always changing, and fortune favors the bold. So I must drink.

You must make your coffee today. You must pull from the best sources you can find, using whatever tools available. And you cannot sip slowly. Embrace what you’ve created, and let it be just as it is. Of course, you made choices that on another day would be different. Of course, you could have done it differently, and maybe next time you will. But it’s not next time; it’s now. And now, you’re here: with your cup, and your life, and all you can do is imbibe it all.

And of course, we’re not talking about coffee anymore. And be sure to tune in to this podcast where I riff on the art of coffee-making and what this has to do with creativity. Enjoy!

“When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny.” —W.B. Yeats

Morning, Creator.

Have you had your cup of coffee yet? I have. I’ve tasted the sweet nectar of the gods and gone back for more. How could I not? This is the stuff of which creativity is made, after all.

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love coffee, that I see the very act of coffee-making as a careful and subtle art, one worth our attention and respect. And this love for something bitter but life-giving has taught me more than a few lessons about the magic of making things.

What is it about coffee that makes life worth living? Maybe you think I am given to hyperbole, but that is only because you must still be a member of the uninitiated, so allow me the privilege of enlightening you. Of educating you.

A cup of coffee is never just a cup of coffee. It is a beautiful pause, a way to say to yourself and to the rest of the day: “Before we do anything, we will take a moment to connect to ourselves and our senses. We will stop the frenzy that is our lives and smell, sip, and sit with what it means to be here, right now, in this wonder we call life.”

Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic here, but my coffee-making is a ritual. It is important to me, and something I do every day without thinking about it. Yes, I could pop a Keurig cup or go to a coffee shop, but I refuse to rob myself of the important act that allows my day to begin with a little art. Making coffee is a wonderful invitation that life is constantly offering us: take a moment and create something beautiful… and then enjoy your creation.

How do you make a great cup of coffee, you might be wondering? Well, I am glad you asked.

It begins with the beans, with the raw source material that comes straight from the earth. A coffee bean is, in fact, a seed—which means it contains the primary material for making other things. It is pure potential, a fruit from a bush that can grow other bushes and create other things just like it. An entire oak tree is contained in the tininess of an acorn, after all; and all of life that is worth living can be found in the miniature latency of a coffee bean.

Good beans are whole and intact—they’re not grounds. To make great coffee, you’ve got to start with the bean, with something whole and atomic that you can crush into fine powder and turn into something consumable. So your day begins with an act of alchemy, with turning one thing into another thing. And all of life, in a way, is like this. We are always taking raw stuff and turning it into something else: whether that’s a bad day into a good one, an acquaintance into a friend, or an idea into an email. It is our own version of transforming water into wine; and in this way, we can each be children of God, little creators dancing with the creation that is us.

Good beans are not too old, because life tends to grow stale when it sits on a shelf for too long. You want something fresh, not older than a couple of weeks. Most coffee follows the rule of fifteens, which is to say green beans tend to last fifteen months, whereas roasted beans only last fifteen days, and ground coffee lasts a mere fifteen minutes before it starts to lose flavor.

Coffee is a reminder that life is evanescent, as are our best ideas. We must seize the day before it’s over lest the opportunity be lost forever. You cannot hold on to a moment anymore than you can let a cup of coffee sit all day and still expect it to taste as good as it did the minute it was brewed. Enjoy what you can while it’s here is what coffee is trying to tell us. For tomorrow we die. 

Which brings us to the next step: preparation. Surprisingly, the least important part of making coffee is how you actually brew it. If you are in the mountains of Peru and use a stone to grind some freshly roasted beans that a few peasants picked only a day before (side note: you actually want beans that were roasted a few days ago for optimal flavor, because things take time to mature and there is only a small window between maturity and staleness and we are always trying to maintain that balance, aren’t we?), then pour some hot water over those grounds, and strain it in a T-shirt, well, that will likely be pretty good coffee. 

But I digress, albeit only a little.

Whether you use an espresso machine, or an Aeropress, or a Chemex, or a Kinto cup miniature pour-over, or a French press (all of which are devices in my possession), what matters most is that you make the coffee. Not that you do pretty latte art or impress your friends with a fancy machine from Switzerland you don’t know how to appreciate. What matters is you get up tomorrow and dare to taste the morning. That you endeavor to make something worth consuming, something infused with love and art. Something that just might satiate a soul.

Finally, just as important as the beans themselves, is the timing of the whole thing. You need to make your coffee quickly and enjoy it without dragging out the process. Yes, I love a good sit on a balcony with a hot cup of liquid love, but if I am drinking so slowly that I have to microwave the mug, then I am in trouble. I am not carpe-ing the diem. Life is always changing, and fortune favors the bold. So I must drink.

You must make your coffee today. You must pull from the best sources you can find, using whatever tools available. And you cannot sip slowly. Embrace what you’ve created, and let it be just as it is. Of course, you made choices that on another day would be different. Of course, you could have done it differently, and maybe next time you will. But it’s not next time; it’s now. And now, you’re here: with your cup, and your life, and all you can do is imbibe it all.

And of course, we’re not talking about coffee anymore.

P.S. Be sure to tune in to this week’s podcast where I riff on the art of coffee-making and what this has to do with creativity. Enjoy!

“When I think of life as struggle with the Daimon who would ever set us to the hardest work among those not impossible, I understand why there is a deep enmity between a man and his destiny, and why a man loves nothing but his destiny.” —W.B. Yeats

Not long ago, after my marriage had ended but while we were still too polite to say so, I awoke one morning to the soft song of birds. Exiting the bedroom, I descended the stairs of our 3800-square-foot house in the suburbs of Nashville, making my way to the coffee maker. As I fired up the espresso machine, my thumb tapped “enter” on the Google search already queued up on my phone: “Why do birds sing just before morning?” 

Some scientists believe the reason for the “dawn chorus” is that male birds are calling to their mates, letting them know they made it through the night and are, um, shall we say “open for business.” It is a rite of passage, of sorts, or at very least, a beautiful booty call. Either way, it occurred to me that maybe this is why we sing, too, why we create art: as a way of saying to each other, “I made it. I’m still here.” I carried this thought into the hardest season of my life, one that included a divorce, writer’s block, and even a global pandemic.

The day before Valentine’s Day, I sat my children down at our breakfast table, looking into their eyes and breaking their little hearts with the news that their mother and I would no longer be living together. That night, I packed up a pile of clothes that had been lying on the floor of the guest bedroom where I’d been sleeping, threw them into a trash bag, and carried the bag to my car. The next night, in a half-furnished apartment a mile across town, I drank cheap beer with a friend and wondered what the hell I had just done. The next week, a tornado hit Nashville, and a day later we started hearing reports of the “coronavirus.” The President declared a state of national emergency, friends went into isolation, and my kids extended their spring break by a week, 300 miles away at their grandparents’ house. 

Most mornings during those early days of Covid consisted of struggling to get out of bed, going for long walks, and eating whatever felt like comfort—usually toast, eggs, and a few cups of coffee. At night, I’d stay up late mixing cocktails, preparing elaborate dinners for myself, and messaging friends on Instagram, never choosing to fall asleep so much as surrendering to the exhaustion that eventually overtook my body. 

Working in a pandemic was weird. As a self-employed writer, I found myself in a quantum state of not wanting to start anything new nor feeling like I could return to the old. During this time, I pretended to be unfazed by conflicting reports regarding what was happening in the world, feigning profound insights on the complexities of life, epidemiology, and even race relations in America. But really, I was confused and scared like many others, trying to find ways of passing one monotonous day after another. 

Sometimes, I’d watch a movie in the middle of the day; others, I’d just start drinking. If I could muster the courage to get in thirty minutes of email, the day was considered a success. 

It had been years since I’d written anything I was proud of, and this state of global lockdown wasn’t doing much to motivate me. A couple of my books in the past had found their way onto bestseller lists, then bounced back to relative obscurity, leaving me with a sense that it was all downhill from here. 

The most popular thing I’d written in years was a viral tweet about those damn birds, which was hardly something to glory in. My sister recommended a book of poems, one I’d never heard of but somehow stumbled upon in a used bookstore one night. I bought it and ordered a pizza, staying up late to devour them both. The poems reminded me of long nights as a teenager when I would write confessions of unrequited love to the literal girl next door. Poetry, for me, had been a way of making sense of things in a world that did not, and this seemed as good a time as any to get back into it.

When you get divorced, people say all kinds of things to you. One person congratulated me. “This,” he said, “will be the best thing that ever happens to you. I think everyone should get divorced at least once.” Another whose marriage was on the rocks encouraged me to “be alone for a while.” To which I replied, “Try it.” Many wanted to know the unknowable, like why a person would ever choose to end what they intended to be a lifelong commitment. Or what the specific reason was for such a conclusion, as if there were an answer other than the decade of stories it takes to get to such a state. Most say “sorry,” and that’s probably all that can be said. One friend told me, “You’re depressed,” and I responded, “I am?” I was also, it seemed, in denial.

The first night my children spent away from their mother, my four-year-old refused to sleep in her bunk bed and could be comforted only by the stroking of my hand on her back while she sobbed into the mattress. “Mama!” she cried for over an hour until falling asleep, whimpering gently throughout the night. The next morning, I took the kids to school and then walked around Radnor Lake, a large forest preserve tucked away in the hills of Tennessee, a cloud haunting me with each step. There was a familiar pressure on my chest that day, one that seemed to say, “you should have known better.” 

As I hiked, emotions being stirred up in the body, my tears joined my daughter’s. Unable to disguise my feelings, I wept, not caring who saw me or what they thought. When there were no more tears to shed, a phrase rocked through my consciousness: “This, too, is beautiful.” It felt like cool water on a scorched psyche. 

Perhaps, this is what Joseph Campbell meant when he said we aren’t looking for a meaning to life so much as we are searching for the feeling of being alive. The sadness made me more sensitive, more tuned in to the experience of life. In a way, I liked it. It reminded me of a Rumi quote I had understood conceptually but now knew at a deeper level: “The wound is where the light comes in.” The realization of what I’d lost was unmistakable, but so was the sun beginning to break through the canopy of trees overhead. Reaching the end of the trail, I returned to my car, took a deep breath, and left, the chatter of birds echoing behind me.

I found an old day planner lying on the side of the road one morning. It was full of plans that likely never happened—a graduation party, a family trip to the beach, a fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was a remarkable sight: an entire year of plans, hopes, and dreams that did not occur. How does one grieve what they never had? 

Halfway through that walk, I stopped in the middle of the trail and pulled out my phone to jot down a few words that suddenly came to mind. Those words turned into lines, and those lines became a poem, something new staring back at me from a touchscreen. It was short but good, and I knew it, the words sending signals to parts of me that had long been forgotten. It felt nice to say something again, even if only to myself.

And then, there were the hawks. It had recently rained, and the air had that wonderful smell of warm, wet pavement one midsummer afternoon. I crossed an overpass, looking down at the highway with few cars driving down it, and then noticed a huge, red-tailed hawk. It was perched on a steel beam, not ten feet away, the raptor’s chest full of digesting prey. It stared at me, solemnly and unflinching. 

I stopped, captivated by its gaze, so close I could have touched it—and wanted to. It was quiet; I felt some primal compulsion to speak, to say something reverent, but could not. When I passed the bird, neither of us broke our gaze until at last, I turned away to head home, walking in a different direction from the way I came. A friend studying to become a shaman told me the visitation of a hawk is a good sign: “It means you’re on the right path.” I saw hawks everywhere after that. 

People now were responding to the pieces of writing I was sharing online, and that felt good, if not a little superficial. Still, it was something. One reader said she liked me a lot better now; I did, too. My agent called about a book idea we had been discussing years before, and as we spoke, he said it was time to begin again. I agreed. After school one day, my son said to me, “You know, I’m starting to get used to this.” He and his sister had finished feeding the pigeons on the balcony, and I had just hit “publish” on a new poem. As the sun set and the birds pecked at their seed, we started making supper together.

The post I’m Still Here: Perseverance, Creativity, and a Pandemic Divorce first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Some things must end so other things may begin. 

In this final episode of The Portfolio Life, Jeff discusses what a portfolio life is and shares the lessons he’s learned over the course of producing the podcast. 

Lessons learned:

Your first stab at a new medium is rarely very good. You learn as you go. Finding your voice requires experimentation.  How you end something is directly correlated to how you begin the next thing.

We invite you to check out our new podcast, Hey Creator! at https://goinswriter.com/hey/.