Paul Boucher - Blog #GratitudePaul Boucher - Blog #Gratitudehttps://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/tag/GratitudeWed, 25 Mar 2026 18:18:18 -0700http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[A Bit of Wisdom]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/a-bit-of-wisdom

To be considered...

I’ve heard a bit of wisdom repeatedly in different forms over the years, and it’s been helpful over the past few days.

You control what you do next.


The first time I remember seeing it was in the old Serenity Prayer. You might remember the bit about accepting the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s expressed in a different context by author Trevor Moawad, founder of the company Limitless Minds and author of It Takes What It Takes and Getting to Neutral. Trevor’s work was introduced to me by Vince Fowler, a mentor and coach in his own business and life, and a good human to know. 


Among the many nuggets of wisdom that lead to “you control what you do next” was how powerful negativity can be relative to positivity. That positivity in and of itself may not work for you, but neutral thinking might. Also, don’t say stupid ***t out loud. Makes me chuckle even now thinking about the way Trevor says it in the audiobook.


In any case, the “what you do next” part can be tough to figure out when you’re working on controlling your emotions and the ambient conversation/noise around you is negative.


So, I have a life-tested suggestion to help. At least in the short term.


Do good and don’t tell anyone about it.


No social media, no talking about it. Strictly for the good of it.

The ripple effect within you and outside of you may be small, but no less valuable for that.


Like what?


How about leaving an unsigned note with a tip for a server explaining what about their service made your experience better?


If you’re getting a coffee for yourself, why not pick up a $5 gift card and leave it anonymously on a coworker’s desk who’s having a tough day?


If you spot a homeless person outside a grocery store, grab a deli sandwich and bring it out to them before you shop your list.


When all else fails…give good hug.


Don’t forget about yourself in all this. Get outside and feed your soul with some fresh air and sunshine.

You control what you do next. That’s pretty much the extent of your “span of control.” Use it wisely by remembering the people and things you actually care about.

]]>Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:15:18 +0000<![CDATA[Some Good News in AI]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/some-good-news-in-ai

Here’s a little good news for your day.

Yesterday (Feb. 4) was World Cancer Day and it provided me with the opportunity to kick off my fundraising for the 2025 Enbridge Tour of Alberta for Cancer this summer. Over two days in July a few thousand people will cycle over 200 kilometres for the cause. These are all people who have been touched by cancer in one way or another, whether as survivors of the disease, or people who continue their journey without loved ones and friends lost.
Paul Boucher starts raising awareness for Cancer by spinning

It also has made me hyper aware of positive pieces on the progress against the diseases that make up “Cancer.” That includes this very short piece in a newsletter called The DeepView, and a section they have every day called AI for Good. In this case, breast cancer detection.

So I have two links for you. The first is to DeepView and the piece noted above on how in a recent controlled trial, AI detected more breast cancers (29%), and reduced workload among clinicians by 44%. It’s such encouraging news and gives a glimpse on how AI works that’s different than say, Chat GPT. Here’s the link– scroll down past their lead story and you’ll see the AI for good section.

The second link is if you’d like to contribute to my wee campaign to raise funds to continue the Alberta Cancer Foundations groundbreaking research work via the ride, and that’s https://support.touralbertaforcancer.ca/paulboucher2025. 
]]>Wed, 05 Feb 2025 17:54:22 +0000<![CDATA[Human Wins!]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/human-wins

Keep your learning human. Your staff will thank you.

So, allow me to paraphrase for the sake of better eLearning in 2024 and 25: give me your tired script, your huddled instructional designers yearning to hire a human voice to read it, the wretched AI voiceover your client wants to use, send these to me…

 

…and let a professional voice actor give the client something tangibly human to their learners and employees.

 

Last week, a client explained that an enterprise client had a difficult technical script that they insisted on having narrated by AI. The script was close to 30 minutes long.

 

My client explained what a lot of clients don’t know: that AI still gets so many things wrong, beginning with emphasis and continuing through pronunciation, that have to be “repaired” manually after review, that it’s more efficient to use a human narrator on this kind of content from the get-go.

 

So, I offered the client the same service I’ve offered other clients in the same situation: I asked them to allow me to record a short excerpt of the course at no cost and let the client do an A/B comparison.

 

In most cases, there’s no contest; the human narration wins. That happened in this case, and I recorded that course for the client late last week.

 

I’m happy to extend that same service to any verified client in the same situation.

 

Here’s what else I’ve learned in the last little while: some clients (not that one) don’t charge their end client for the rework time caused by the AI. This contributes directly to the myth, and it IS a myth, that for complex, longer content, an AI voice is “…just as good, if not better”, and “…more efficient”.

 

Send any AI into an English narration with a word that can be pronounced more than one way, like “construct,” and get set to spend a few hours by the light of your monitor fixing, fixing, fixing, forgetting one instance, and spend a second session, fixing, fixing…

 

Here are some other unfortunate consequences of the abysmal business practice of not assigning a value to the rework time of their teams in something like eLearning:

  • Those companies are directly contributing to putting qualified humans out of work,
  • Companies signaling to their employees their time isn’t worth anything, causing a slide in employee morale,

and contributing to poor learner outcomes, including lower retention.

 

There is tangible value in human skill, knowledge, empathy, emotion, and experience. It’s evident in any narration read by a professional voice actor vs AI.

 

Keep your learning human when it’s the right choice. Contribute to better outcomes for your company, employees, and the public that might depend on their learning.

I invite you to hear my human voice and I’m happy to help with any instances like the one described above.

]]>Tue, 19 Nov 2024 22:46:42 +0000<![CDATA[The Definition of Insanity]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/the-definition-of-insanity

Yesterday, I was reminded how much I enjoy working on the

​ business of the business.

I started at about 9:30 a.m. writing emails, tending to some due diligence, following up with some happy customers, etc., when I realized that, except for a couple of hours recording some smaller projects, it was 5:30 p.m.!

The long, and enjoyable dialogue with my clients has fuelled my passion to ensure great service while providing bilingual narration for everything from eLearning to TV and radio commercial campaigns. Clients mention things they've historically enjoyed from our collaborations, like how easy I was to work with, how professionally everything was handled, how audio was delivered faster than expected, the quality, and making what might otherwise be dry come alive in ways they hadn't expected.

THAT last note, in particular, spurred me to explore continuously evolving and improving the craft I bring to the microphone then and now.

So, with that in mind, here are three thoughts and their offshoots that might help you genuinely enjoy working on your business and shine a light on the attitude you should look for in your voice actors or other suppliers. 

1. Analyze and Adapt:

   One of the first things I instinctively do when I suddenly have more time on my hands than I'm used to is working to understand why. And then take a breath. 😏 I dive into the business's makeup over the past 90 days to 6 months. Are there changes in customer behavior? Who's the new competition? Have there been any internal inefficiencies or bottlenecks? Once I've pinpointed the issues, I pivot & adapt immediately. This doesn't mean reinventing the wheel. Almost everything is working well. Can it work better?

2. Focus on Customer Experience:

   During slow periods, doubling down on customer satisfaction can set you apart from everyone else. Reach out to existing customers for feedback on their experiences with you. I remember one client conversation about a real pain point for them: revisions, or what's often needless "rework." Together, we devised a policy that both of our businesses still use. It helped to move the needle on the problem from two directions. It rewarded the clients who had their ducks in a row when providing scripts and applied a "corrective incentive" to those who didn't. Haha. It dropped the dreaded rework by at least 50%. No mean feat.

3. Invest in Innovation:

   As a small business, that phrase may seem like "big-company-think." And that sort of thinking will keep you exactly where you are, applying the definition of insanity to your work processes: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." 

AI is the obvious shiny new toy out there. How can YOU use it to increase your productivity? Is it a new software plug-in? Is it generative AI to help you with the never-ending development of "content?" 

By the way, here's a quick aside on "content." It's perceived as a huge time-suck and a "negative" by a lot of solopreneurs. Try this reframe: if you've never kept a journal, think of content development as that. It's amazing what you can discover about your philosophy and attitudes toward "your every-day," and your worldview for that matter, simply by writing it down. 

The same business coach I quoted above once refreshed advice I'd received in grade school: if you don't write goals down, they're just wishful thinking. That applies to many other parts of running your business.

You'll discover whole new parts of yourself writing things out. That will lead you to explore and genuinely enjoy the discovery of new ways of doing things (innovation) that complement your existing offerings or tap into emerging trends.

So what started on a reflection of a day well spent on the business has led me to one of my favourite things: sharing the valuable insights I've been taught in the hope that one of those nuggets can make your day better. I hope that's the case.
]]>Wed, 08 May 2024 14:45:39 +0000<![CDATA[On Words For Fun]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/on-words-for-fun

I wanted to lighten up after yesterday’s legit rant at a client using AI to clone my voice without payment or permission.

Last week was National Librarian’s Day, but today is “Look Ahead to Next Book Club” day. 😁

One of the reasons I genuinely enjoy almost everything I read from clients in my voice acting career is that I love to read. I love to learn. 

One of the cherries on my life cake is this: I’ve been part of a men’s book club called Liquor and Letters for over twenty years. On the first Tuesday of every month, the guys get together—all seven of us, when we’re lucky—and enjoy a craft beer or two with pizza. Then, we share a new bottle of whisky while we talk about the book, the various things in our lives that the book brings up, and whatever conversational road presents itself.

When we met earlier in April, we figured that we’d enjoyed over 250 books and the same number of whiskies together.
Today, I thought I’d share some of that literary bounty.

First, let me say this I don’t think you could come up with such a strangely, organically complimentary group of guys from a book standpoint if you tried.

Every one of these guys has a diverse range of interests, and yes, there are “types”, but even when we run against type, there have been such terrific surprises that we *never* would have sought out on our own – and that’s the point isn’t it? To metaphorically go down every road less travelled that we wouldn’t choose ourselves?

I loved every one of these books for different reasons. Sometimes it was just the writing. Sentences so beautiful you want to frame and preserve them. Amor Towles, Niall Williams and Ray Bradbury are three of the authors in this short list that did that for me. 

This is Happiness - Niall Williams

In Niall Williams’s This Is Happiness, the ¾ of a page revelation of the title phrase’s meaning was so powerfully arrived at and told that I cried. I left that book for my librarian mom. You know you love a book when you can’t wait to share it and hope that person loves it as much as you do.

Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine is a Bradbury classic that perfectly crystallizes “boy”, “boyhood,” and nostalgia. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Its sequel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, is rated one of the best books of the 20th century, but it would be a toss-up which of those two I’d rank higher.

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow is a beautifully told story of a man you’ll wish you knew. And so eloquently laid out that your world is left just a bit more beautiful by the telling.

Caddyshack: The Making of... - Chris Nashawaty

Sometimes it’s the absurdity of something so messed up, you can’t believe anything good came out of it. That’d be the Caddyshack story. 

A History of Canada in Ten Maps - Adam Shoalts

History told like it *should* be, with life-or-death stakes, villains, antiheroes, and every shade of person in between. And that’s Canadian history as told by Adam Shoalts in A History of Canada In Ten Maps. Among other nuggets in that one is the cartographer who mapped the Pacific Northwest before Lewis and Clark and who *almost* succeeded in Canada having a border south of the 49th! 

The Wager - David Grann

History again, this time in The Wager. It’s the incredible true story of a British shipwreck in the 1700’s that had amazing adventure, the utter futility of war, incredible courage, close calls, tragedy, cannibalism, and the origin of the British Navy that would go on to be the backbone of the world’s biggest ever empire, the British empire. And there’s more!  I mean you can’t believe what happens page after page!

American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins

American Dirt is a book that makes a mockery of the pampered, orange-tinged life of a certain racist US politician, and tells the harrowing story of true courage facing life and death daily to make it to America from deep inside Mexico.

The Anomaly - Hervé Le Tellier

The Anomaly (not the same story as the mediocre TV show) makes you really wonder about free will. It’s a brilliant blend of crime, fantasy, sci-fi and thriller. I never summarize this one well, so I’ll borrow phrases from the publisher: “In June 2021, a senseless event upends the lives of hundreds of men and women, all passengers on a flight from Paris to New York. Among them: Blake, a respectable family man, though he works as a contract killer; Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star tired of living a lie; Joanna, a formidable lawyer whose flaws have caught up with her; and Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful writer who suddenly becomes a cult hit.

All of them believed they had double lives. None imagined just how true that was.”

There are so many more, but I quickly cherry-picked from the most recent couple of pages of our book database (of course, we have a book database. Ditto one for the whiskies!).

 

I hope one of these books piques your interest. If it does, and you enjoy it, then Pay It Forward.

 

Thank you for reading. As you can tell, it’s a passion and pleasure of mine to share books and stories. 😃

]]>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:34:05 +0000<![CDATA[National Librarian's Day]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/national-librarian-s-day

I celebrate three things - knowledge, literacy, and most importantly, the person who helped provide me with the first two: my mom.

It’s National Librarians Day today.

Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing that to write, you need to read everything you can get your hands on. Be omnivorous.

Long before I read that, my mom, a librarian at the Kapuskasing Public Library where I grew up, sat me in front of our 20 or 30-volume American encyclopedia when I wanted to learn how to speak English and said essentially, “…Ok, commence avec les “a” (start with the A’s)…”. 😆

She instilled a voracious appetite for words and knowledge that is still with me. Now that I think about it, King’s likely satisfied it more than any other author.

It’s also one of the main reasons I genuinely revel in the opportunity to narrate scripts of every kind, every day, in two languages, as a voice actor. eLearning scripts are a map to treasure to be discovered. As a voice actor, I love the thought of helping a learner find the X that marks the spot where they now KNOW something new.

Partially inspired by my wife, whose mom was a teacher, and my librarian mom, I’ve enjoyed having a guy’s book club for over twenty years. We call it Liquor & Letters, and we have a bottle of whisky every month to “facilitate” the conversation over a book one of us picked. We reflected just last week that, as a club, we’ve wandered through a fabulously eclectic collection of over 250 books in our time together. Ditto the whisky variety – but that’ll be another post. 🥃

Pause for a moment to think of librarians who share their passion and who make the road less traveled a path possible to imagine for their young charges.

From story time for elementary kids (pictured) to feeding adolescents novels and non-fiction of growing complexity, they continue to deliver joy in bound pages for their curious customers.



How many terrific writers were inspired by something a librarian chose for them? The librarian respected their intelligence and trusted them to find their way through. It’s a vote of confidence in your intelligence that you don’t find from just anyone. It helps inspire the fabulous hubris that leads to fantastic flights of imagination from Tolkien to Franzen to King. It builds the mental muscle to inspire less fantasy with facts from Smil, Harari, and Bryson.

Libraries are a powerful equalizing force. I’ll never forget walking into my mom’s library office in 1984 and seeing a beige IBM PC and asking her what THAT was. She explained that it was the Inter-Library Loan Computer and that with the program, even in our small town, students could get any book they needed sent to them from the bigger cities in the south. In my mind, it was a bridge to the rest of the world. That notion has forever been at the base of my belief that the Internet is one of the most potent forces for good in the hands of most of the world.

Where I now live, in Calgary, the new Central Library is that bridge for new Canadians. They access language classes, study for the citizenship test, and find resources to help them understand the strange new context they’ve landed in – and how their life and experiences can become part of the fabric of their new community.

If you haven’t been to a library branch in a while, I encourage you to wander into the closest one, look for one of your favorite authors, pull up a chair, put your phone on DND, and get lost in the forest of letters that always end up being so much more than the sum of their parts. 

Take your kids. Let them discover the visceral joy of judging a book by its cover…and delight in showing them how there’s sometimes more to it than that. It’s a profound pleasure we often take for granted.

I’ve loved sharing my love of reading with my kids. Bedtime story times are still some of my most treasured memories with them.

This means that I owe some of the best moments of my life to what I was taught by a librarian. So, on National Librarians Day, I’m toasting my librarian mom and librarians everywhere.
]]>Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:48:58 +0000<![CDATA[Prep And The Pro]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/prep-and-the-pro

In 2001 when I first sublet space in Sync Spot studios, I was the beneficiary of the knowledge and expertise of some of the most generous peers I’ve ever worked with.

Between studio owner Frank Laratta, engineers Jason Lawrence and Steve Allen (as well as Beau Shiminsky) who went on to found Ear Candy studios, I learned the value of prep – and how it resulted in the superior service and craft those individuals are all renowned for.


Of all the things they taught me, the service that’s evolved into “Right Voice Vault” is the one that stands out for me today.

I remember walking in on numerous sessions where Frank, Steve, Beau or Jason would be unarchiving an old session so the voice actor could match up with the audio recorded weeks, months, or in some cases, years before!


I never questioned it until I walked in on Jason Lawrence handling a binder worthy of weight lifting, full of CD’s (😳) with handwritten labels with a consistent naming protocol noting studio/client/date.


When I asked what that was, he nonchalantly replied something along the lines of “..Oh, that’s the session you originally did two years ago. The client wants to update something, so we’ll haul it into Pro Tools, and you can just voice the change, and we’ll make sure it all matches…”.


Among the other details were the microphone used in the original session (most studios have more than one type), and some processing details. For a voice actor who’d always thought performances were so ephemeral, the notion of preserving them seemed like a minor miracle.


The resulting perception of seamless service to the client over a period of years was priceless in building trust and positive reputations for all of us, AND kept those clients coming back. Eventually CDs gave way to DVDs, then external drive storage, and then redundancy in physical and cloud storage.


The reason I was thinking about this today is the disciplined backup regimen those guys taught me made my transition from a 5 year old computer to a new one a one day process that was easily verified and completed this past weekend.

The new computer’s first test was updating a session recorded in 2019. I pulled in a five-year-old recording from my archive, which I’ve branded as Right Voice Vault, referred to my notes, and perfectly matched audio for Samsung.

All it took was a few minutes, but in keeping with the philosophy I’ve tried to work with in the business regularly, I paused for a moment of gratitude to those patient pros who helped me make my business and service better. So Jason, Frank, Steve, and Beau…thank you! Every session I’ve recorded since 2001 is archived and available for clients should the need arise.


The next time you hire a voice actor, or approach a studio for a project, remember to ask questions that confirm for you not only their craft and passion for it, but how much attention they pay to the meticulous preparation that makes their business a frictionless joy to deal with.

]]>Tue, 02 Apr 2024 17:36:43 +0000<![CDATA[The Right Voice & E-Learning]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/the-right-voice-e-learning

As I enter my 26th year narrating eLearning full time

...with plenty of commercials, documentaries, promos, and other types of voiceover thrown in, I still occasionally ponder what compels clients to select my voice. Some voice actors tell me that the amount of work I do in a week (5 full days of narration recorded, edited, and sent out into the world) must be an exaggeration. It's not. I'm a multi-lingually curious generalist and consider myself an excellent example of hard work and good fortune.

One thing I've always done is find a way to connect with the material honestly. Being present personalizes the learning experience: A genuinely engaged, well-suited voice can personalize the digital learning experience by fostering a connection between the learner and the material. The learners feel directly addressed, increasing their motivation and investment in learning.

I feel this connection plays a significant role in engaging learners and ensuring information retention. When learners are engaged and attentive, they are more likely to understand and retain the information presented. Here's an explanation of some of the traits brought to the table by the right voice:

1. Clarity: A clear voice is essential in e-learning to ensure learners can understand the content without confusion. Pronunciation should be precise, and words should be articulated clearly to avoid misunderstandings.

2. Proper pacing: A good e-learning voice knows how to maintain an appropriate pace throughout the content. Speaking too quickly can overwhelm while speaking too slowly can lead to boredom. The right pacing allows learners to absorb information at a comfortable rate.

3. Enunciation: Pronouncing words accurately and distinctly is crucial. Proper enunciation helps learners grasp the meaning of words and phrases, preventing any misinterpretations or confusion. Clarity becomes especially important in a multi-lingual workplace where English or French may not be the first language spoken but the chosen language of instruction.

4. Conveying complex concepts: If your narrator gets it, your learner has a higher chance of getting it. Seems simple enough.

5. Vocal inflections, tone, and emphasis: By varying pitch, tone, and emphasis on specific words or phrases, the voice actor can add meaning, convey emotions, and maintain learner attention throughout the content.

Tips for aspiring e-learning voice actors:

1. Develop vocal versatility: E-learning projects can cover various subjects and target audiences. As a voice actor, it's essential to develop the ability to adapt your voice to suit different styles, tones, and subjects. Be a curious and voracious reader.

2. Understand the subject matter: Before recording, take the time to understand the content you'll be voicing. YouTube doesn't exist only for DIY projects. Ha! Familiarize yourself with the material's terminology, concepts, and overall purpose. This understanding will help you deliver the content in a way that resonates with learners.

3. Practice proper pacing: Experiment with different pacing techniques to find the right balance. Record yourself and listen back to identify areas where you need to adjust your speed. Aim for a pace that allows learners to follow along comfortably without feeling rushed or bored.

4. Focus on clarity and enunciation: Practice articulating words clearly and precisely. Pay attention to common pronunciation challenges and work on improving your diction. Reading aloud, tongue twisters, and vocal warm-up exercises can help refine clarity and enunciation skills.

5. Use vocal variety: Experiment with vocal inflections, tone, and emphasis to bring life to the content. Practice conveying emotions, creating different character voices, and using appropriate intonation. This variety helps maintain learner interest and engagement.

6. NEVER STOP LEARNING: Find qualified coaches, not the voice-actor-wannabes-who exemplify "if you can't work, teach." Look for experienced coaches with a track record of success in the discipline you seek to improve. It's a pretty tight community of pros. Take at least one workshop every year. 

7. Get to know your community: Make it local to suit your budget; workout groups can be great. Make it regional or national by attending a conference in your area that is voice actor specific. Voiceover Atlanta and the One Voice conference are both excellent examples.

By focusing on clarity, proper pacing, diction, conveying complex concepts, utilizing vocal inflections, personalizing the learning experience, and being continuous learners, aspiring e-learning voice actors can enhance their skills and contribute to successful e-learning experiences for learners.
]]>Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:47:36 +0000<![CDATA[Take Off & Leave It All Behind]]>https://www.paulboucher.com/blogs/post/take-off-leave-it-all-behind

So today, by sharing this, I hope to encourage fellow self-employed persons to go beyond the “work-life balance” conversation. 

Instead, imagine taking off and leaving it all behind to follow a passion. Not forever, but a meaningful enough amount of time to rediscover yourself, leave “digital” and almost everything it conjures in your imagination behind, and frankly just to stop. Love a bit more deeply – people, the world and all the beauty in it. And maybe, find a way to live in the present moment, unshackling yourself from your past – or perhaps more accurately, put it in its place: the past.

Over the past several years, and especially during the pandemic, I began to appreciate my visceral need to be connected to the physical environment I’m in, and like-minded people to do it with.

Fortunately, I live an hour away from the Rocky Mountains and Banff National Park, not to mention the even closer provincial area called Kananaskis (where Leonardo DiCaprio starred in The Revenant, where Inception filmed that fabulous Snow Fortress sequence, etc.).

As a result, in 2017, I refocused my energy into some favourite physical pursuits, road cycling and hiking. In doing that, the most incredible people dropped into my life. 

After numerous hikes, I also rediscovered a nearly 20-year-old desire to trek the Camino de Santiago, originally inspired by a friend who’d read Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage, and then done the trek. Last year, I was re-inspired after another friend’s trek on the Camino. That was a gift to my imagination that I would have been a fool to turn away.

This time, I acted to make it happen. 

I didn’t succumb to the trap a lot of self-employed people fall into, which is NOT doing something based on fear.

Fear of being away for three weeks. Fear of not generating revenue for that time. Whatever.

Instead, I thought, HOW MANY TIMES have I allowed that sort of reasoning to turn me away from something that I genuinely want to do before I die (call it a bucket list item if you prefer)? Isn’t that at least ONE of the reasons I’m self-employed? Other than likely being unemployable now after 24 years of being my own boss. LOL.

So, for the next few weeks I’ll undertake the first section of the Camino Francés route stretching from St jean Pied de Port in France, to Burgos in Northern Spain. As a bonus, I’ll be sharing the adventure with my 18-year-old son.  One of the interesting things about being a dad a second time is how aware I’ve become of how much richer bonds can be when the kids know you as more than just a parent – and I, in turn know them as more than “just” the kids.

This isn’t the sort of adventure our family could have supported during my childhood/adolescence (means, scope to travel, blah, blah). I would have LOVED to do something like this with my dad. He’s been gone since 1993 (way too young), but I like to visualize him wearing a “NO FEAR” T-shirt and applauding as we set out. 

I look forward to returning refreshed, and likely humbled a bit, to tell new stories.

For now, though, I’ll say goodbye to my padded room, my microphone, and the familiarity of “the usual” for three weeks. I’m grateful for every step so far, and every one to come.

May YOU check a passion item on your bucket list this year. No fear. Eyes, arms, and heart wide open. It’ll do you good!
]]>Sun, 21 Jan 2024 23:15:01 +0000