Life Outside the Glass

This newsletter took a little extra time, carried on the wind, which isn’t the most reliable or predictable way to travel. I spent a week living on a sailboat earlier this month and experienced the gifts and challenges of traveling with windpower.

If you’re anchored in a bay, it’s fairly easy to let your attention wander, to let down your guards, but when you’re out on the open sea with a destination in mind, especially as the helmsperson, the eyes need to stay on the sail, the wind, and the horizon. Other boats will pass. The wind will shift. Waves may come and rock the boat. As the one steering, if I let go – scary, but I tried it! –  the wind will gracefully take charge and slow the boat to a standstill.

Sailing is an active effort. So are smartphones. So is making active progress toward any goal or destination in life.

You’ll name where you want to go. 

In my case, it’s reducing the time I spend on my phone (3.5 hours per day… shocking, I feel, but statistical averages are in the 4-6 hour range). Less time on my phone means more time in real life, more time outdoors, and more time interacting with the people around me. For example, my own road racing bike has been parked in the basement for more than a year, and I could be out enjoying the summer air instead of spending evenings refreshing 10 apps. 

You start off in that direction.

Although I’ve been at this for awhile and have used this greyscale hack for a good 2+ years, this current effort started in the beginning of May. I was away at a friend’s rural property, with the objective to plant more than 500 native plants. A time- and hand-intensive task made it easy to leave my phone, and my screentime dropped to barely an hour per day. Screen time dropped 14%. 

Shifting winds will encourage you to change course if you want to maintain speed. 

I went back to my work routine, jumping between client calls, with mornings and evenings dedicated to my personal routines. Simultaneously, I joined the start of Caveday’s two-week Tech Reset program to help me reduce my screen time. That’s when I introduced a notebook strapped to the front of my phone as the new “best” tool to help me observe and note what I’m paying attention to. Without a little friction, it’s quite easy to slip into a few minutes of Instagram, or just checking the weather, or as I’ve recently learned, many people succumb to the endless possibilities of YouTube shorts and phone games. With the temptation and excuse that checking my phone might help me stay on top of work, my new notebook hack helped me set some intention to my attention and to focus on what I wanted most. Screen time dropped a further 38%.

You’ll still aim for your destination, even if you’re traveling in a different direction. 

I was making outstanding progress, in an ideal position to keep going. Suddenly, readying to sail, which I thought would be an ideal container for me to ditch my phone, I was in a foreign city, needing to navigate, needing to research options, needing to know the weather. I was the meal and grocery organizer for our trip. 2005-Stephen might have researched in advance, used paper boarding passes, printed a few maps, printed the grocery list, maybe even brought a weather radio. 2026-Stephen doesn’t even own a printer, which is practically sacrilegious for living in Germany. I needed to both spend less time on my phone and use my phone for a lot of necessary travel tasks. I kept the intention to minimize use of my phone while knowing that I would be sailing “into the wind” for a little while. My screen time went up by 16%.

When the waves get tough, know what’s keeping you upright. An anchor keeps you from moving; a ballast keeps you mobile.

My nervous system prefers being in the water to being in a canoe or kayak, after a 2010 canoe experience left me nervous in small boats. Last week, watching waves hit our yacht as I steered at the helm, I irrationally feared we would capsize. I had to remind myself that sailboats are designed for significant heeling, supported by a 2-3 ton ballast keel, and that sailing has been a trusted technology for millennia.

In my case, when I really think about it, I don’t actually want to be on my phone. In a way, time on my phone is an anchor, keeping me safely distracted, minimizing my own choices and agency. I’m often going nowhere, drifting at best. The importance of this reminder hangs like a ballast in my mind. I want to be in real life, interacting with real people, ideally outside, not on my phone/screens, and most definitely not chatting with AI bots to build my business. 

In the great words penned by John A. Shedd in his 1928 book, Salt from My Attic, “a ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." While my comfort zone is secure, purpose and growth require stepping into the unknown and taking risks. 

I started this month and this sailing adventure with the aim to reduce my screen time, recognizing that my attention is one of my most valuable resources. It’s by no means an easy journey. There are considerable hardships, headwinds, even storms; the pull of digital distraction sometimes feels too easy to resist and the convenience of the screen threatens to blow me off course. Knowing that I want to be moving somewhere purposeful keeps me empowered.

Gradually, my own voyage is helping me to reclaim the space to be present in real life, interacting more often with people and the physical world of water, earth, and air. Even when I “need” to use my phone for essential navigation, weather updates, or even a compass, I focus on maintaining my heading by remembering that my destination is a life lived outside the glass. 

What about you? (Where) do you want to be moving? What do you want to give your attention to? Take a little more time, like this newsletter.

And What Else?

Explore one or all of these questions, and embrace the challenge to dig deeper, asking what else might be relevant to answer.

• Honor Yourself: What are some “winds” you’ve faced recently?

• Explore Curiously: What changes do you notice yourself resisting in pursuit of your goals?

• Foster Trust: What weights and stability can you rely on to keep you upright?

• Shift Perspectives: What challenges are actually helping you move forward?

• Clarify Decisions: What small shift in direction would help your needs?

• Empower Action: What ropes or anchors will you release to set sail?

These questions match the categories of the And What Else? coaching card deck, which will be available for purchase later this year. In the physical deck, each card fits one of the categories above and invites you to explore a question in 4 layers. Drop me a message if you’re curious to pre-order.

Nuggets of Work-Life

Every coaching session and team workshop closes with acknowledging learnings, insights, and moments of celebration. Here are a few of my recent nuggets:

• Two coaches recently approached me for support in their own journeys. (Yes, coaches also have coaches! Chefs eat, too.) Moreso than the gratitude for someone considering me as their thought partner, I deeply appreciate the reminder that we’re all, always capable of growing, while also honoring that it’s challenging to change oneself alone.

• Mid-sail, The Local Germany, reached out for some advice on changing careers in the current job market. While I don’t think of myself exclusively as a career coach, I’ve helped dozens of people navigate professional changes in the last years, and I’m grateful I can share some thoughts with fellow expats.

Practice Makes … Space for More Practice

• A pastime: stargazing. It’s the time of year in the northern hemisphere when weather and darkness allows us to be comfortably outdoors. Find a low-light area and contemplate the vastness of the universe and the beauty that it is to be a speck in the spectrum. 

• A recipe: one of my sailing companions introduced me to pasta e fagiole, which I’d love to pass on to you. It’s a simple, hearty blend of pasta, tomatoes, beans, and savory flavors, great for an early-summer dinner. 

• A movement: what about a little break for those hardworking hands? You know, the ones that simultaneously cradle and tip-tap through your smartphone? Set the phone down; cradle one hand in the other, and gently massage your palm. Work the tough, muscly regions and the more tender flesh evenly, then give the same love to your other hand. 

Ways to Engage and Support

Last month, I started collecting reviews on Google, but I also sent out a link that didn’t work. Oops! Proof I’m human, or a risk that an AI would sloppily make? Either way, here’s the corrected link, and I’d value any stars and/or comments you want to share to help other people discover my work. 

Looking further out, I’ll be taking an extended break from work in September, so if you or someone you know is thinking about starting or completing an individual coaching engagement or team workshop this summer, it’s a great time to get in touch. I’m here, upright, ready to support you to keep moving.

In joy,
Stephen