Or
Rain, Gold Ultrasuede and Letting Go of the Plan
I just had a big birthday party up in Great Barrington, MA. Yes, thank you.
My boyfriend and I had built the whole thing around the backyard. We rented tables and chairs, bought special lighting to string up, and I even ordered a Cornhole set. This was serious.
Two weeks earlier, the forecast had promised sunny and 75.
Not 55 and rainy.
Pivot.
Kris is right.
So, the day before the party, we bought heaters, moved everything onto the wraparound porch, shifted the bar setup, rearranged furniture, and covered the built-in benches with some gold ultrasuede we happened to have lying around from… I honestly don’t remember what. We turned the front porch into a little seating nook with a lamp and a cute table.
It turned out to be lovely.
People had room to wander. The temperature on the porch was perfect. The food was great.
And all four of my siblings were there.
My sisters are usually a given. My brothers are older, and I don’t see them as often. One even came up all the way from Florida. There are six of us — three brothers, three sisters — and I’m the youngest. Having all of us together in one place is rare.
What was really cool—and slightly weird—was seeing my different worlds collide in one room. My friends don’t know my family. My family doesn’t know my friends. And suddenly, there they all were, talking and laughing together.
At one point, I stood up to say a few words.
“Wow. My brothers are here,” I started.
“And your sisters!” a friend chimed in.
“Right. All my siblings are here… except Danny.”
I looked upward and waved. “Hi, Danny.”
In the back of the room, my brother David (who has his own history of showing up for things) piped in: ”Somebody go wake him up. He’s always late.”
It’s true. Danny was always late.
The speech went the exact same way the planning of the party went. I barely remember it, or even what I had originally planned to say. I just talked.
Looking back, I realized the best moments of the evening only happened because the original plan was tossed out.
Porch! Youngest and oldest of six kids. Me, making a wish.
Apparently, the lesson wasn’t done with me yet.
A few days later, I was recording the first segment of a five-part podcast series. The host had asked me beforehand what topics and questions I wanted to cover, so I had a clear roadmap in mind.
Then the interview started.
And he asked almost none of them.
I felt that brief, familiar spike of panic. The internal, Wait… what is happening here?
But then I managed to do what I always tell my clients to do: relax and just go with it. Thank goodness! What a hypocrite I’d be if I couldn’t follow my own advice.
The conversation ended up being far more interesting than the one I’d prepared for. It was more spontaneous. More connected. It felt less like a rigid interview and more like an actual human conversation.
This is exactly what I help my clients navigate.
Preparation matters. A lot.
But there comes a point where preparation has done its job. After that, what matters most is whether you’re paying attention to the present moment.
Sometimes the most impactful thing in the room isn’t the line you planned to say. It’s the thing that’s happening right now.
The party worked because we stopped trying to recreate the original vision and responded to what was right in front of us. The podcast worked for the exact same reason.
In both cases, the plan wasn’t the problem. The plan is what got us to the starting line. But once we arrived, it was the improvisation that made everything come alive. (Shout-out here to my friend, Carl Kissin, improviser extraordinaire, who knows this better than anyone).
I’ll be sure to share the podcast recordings here as soon as they’re available.
Talk soon,
Judy