What are we doing here?

This is where we can start again. / Issue 1,500

Oh, hi friends!

I missed you!

This is my 1,500th newsletter and the first one back after an unplanned break.

It’s hard to restart, but here we are.

Proof that restarting is always available, even on a random Monday in April.

Great news: I have many new things to share (which will be parceled out slowly over the next issues). My brain is good-full.

I spent the first months of 2025 in deep strategy mode, and kept returning to this question:

What old methods are no longer serving me?

Old systems, old patterns, old behaviors.

We love routines but we can often stop seeing them.

I think we owe it to ourselves to investigate what could use a refresh.

We owe it to ourselves to root out the junky stuff.

We owe it to ourselves because the option to choose anything is a gift.

---

I started this newsletter in January 2017, an uncertain and unsettled time.

I told those first 18 readers I wanted to create a little island where we could reach for something, together.

That was the origin of this name, by the way.

The saying “grab the brass ring” comes from old carousels. A rider would climb on a wooden horse spinning in circles. They’d bob up and down, and try to reach towards the ceiling to grab a shiny brass ring hanging above the horse’s head.

If you grabbed the brass ring, you’d get a prize at the end of the ride.

If you looked up, there was always a reason to reach.

---

Surveying my projects — a musical, a pilot, a book, a podcast, a newsletter, and so on — I began asking: What is the intention? What is the value?

If the intention is clear, I can trust whatever I create.

After a few months, I’ve found it.

This is a place to think and plot and strategize and reach upwards, whether you feel like you’re spinning in circles, speeding in a straight line, or stuck in the mud. (I often find myself in all three places in a single week.)

This is a place of words and optimism and self-reflection.

This is a place full of a bunch of unseen colleagues who are cheering you on.

This is a place that tries to give a little more than it takes.

This is a place of possibilities for you.

BRASS RING
A bit of encouragement to start your day.

That’s all — and that’s everything.

Thank you for being here. If we haven’t met, I’m Kara. (Btw I also refreshed my website! Everything’s getting a revamp.)

Nice to meet you, for the first time, or again.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

We have lots on the horizon.

---