Rob Tourtelot
“I sometimes think of my journey through adulthood to date as one of incrementally discovering the truth that there is no institution, no walk of life, in which everyone isn’t just winging it, all the time." -Oliver Burkeman
- “A real writer (or artist or entrepreneur) has something to give. She has lived enough and suffered enough and thought deeply enough about her experience to be able to process it into something that is of value to others, even if only as entertainment.”
from Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It by Steven Pressfield
- The space between stories is an invitation to sit with mystery and the uncertainty it holds.
from Belonging and Butterflies in Times of Breakdown by Emerge
- I call these experiences our dark teachers. The lessons that hurt, scare, scar, wound, and almost destroy us are very often the things that make us who we are because they require us to muster what we thought we could not muster—courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart. The time... See more
from Happy Anniversary to This
- if I tell exactly the story I’ve set out to tell, I’ve failed. The truer story exists somewhere outside the margins of consciousness. Writing constraints help us discover the truth rather than recite it.
from The One (and Only) Technique That Finally Helped Me Write About Trauma
Think of life as an opportunity to create and give.
That is what the story is about. Not a step-by-step accounting of Charlie’s birth or the harrowing potential of a placental abruption, but a look into the horror and the beauty of the unexpected. A little moment hiding within a big event.
from Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
Big questions interrupt the daily routines people fall into and prompt them to step back and see their life from a distance. Here are some of my favorite questions that do that: “What crossroads are you at?” At any moment, most of us are in the middle of some transition. The question helps people focus on theirs. “What would you do if you weren’t a
... See morefrom How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks
If you know almost nothing, almost anything will tell you something.
from How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business by Douglas W. Hubbard