Acupressure mats promise all kinds of benefits. I'm not going to argue that it seems to do something for me. Although, I wonder if I'd feel the same if I was on a cloud instead of letting pins burn into my skin. It doesn't hurt after the first few seconds or so. It becomes quite relaxing. Still, I think the positive, feel-good effects have a lot to do with the routine itself.

A few seconds in and my mind was drifting. Work dissolved. This time, I started to think about a dog I had. He was a very special one to me. Riley.

When Riley was getting older, this was years ago now, he started to have some trouble with his back. You could see it in the way he walked. I had heard about acupuncture for dogs. Although I was skeptical, and on a budget, I wanted to do whatever I could to help my English Cocker Spaniel.

I didn't think he would settle long enough for the acupuncture. He was starting to become more sensitive about vet visits as he aged. Don't we all become more protective of our bodies when something hurts or feels off?

To my surprise, Riley immediately took to the acupuncture.

I had a routine down. I packed his green mat for every visit and brought him a treat stuffed toy he could have while we waited. He usually was dressed in his regular harness with a bowtie attached.

The veterinarian was gentle with him. She got on the floor and talked calmly. We talked about dogs, training and positive training methods. I was calm. He was calm.

I don't recall glancing at my phone or stressing about work. I was focused on Riley. I watched as a weight seemed to be lifted off of him. I could feel it lifted from me, too.

He did make improvements. Whether it was from acupuncture or something else, we still had many more memories together after that period of his life. While I can't say the dog acupuncture worked for sure, those quiet moments and the consistent routine became important.

Riley 2015

Tonight, I was going to work on Unleashed and Untangled. There's so much work to do here. Growing a Substack seems like a huge challenge and I say that as someone who started and grew a small business.

Writing is just so personal and different from anything else. It's especially challenging without one single “niche.” It's going to take time.

I was going to work on these things tonight because I want to share pieces that mean something to others. I want to tell my readers that I appreciate them, and remind them that they are doing amazing things. I want to connect with subscribers. I had a plan for how I could work toward that a little more this evening.

But I didn't do it.

I didn't do anything productive tonight. Instead, I copied Riley’s routine. I ignored my phone, enjoyed the quietness and let a weight be lifted. I wrote about such an ordinary moment as if someone was waiting for me to.

I could save my words for reported pieces, but that would leave a big part of what I'm untangling behind a curtain. So here it is: me untangling my thoughts in public and telling you that I hope you find ways to let your mind drift, too.

I didn't optimize everything today.

I just existed.

We all need moments like that. I hope you'll share this post if you liked it, or at least let me know you are here.

Thanks for reading Unleashed and Untangled.

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I wish I could tell you that those were my thoughts this morning, but instead, it took an entire day to realize that. When I got ready for work this morning, I was feeling thankful, but I didn’t pay attention to the feeling right away.

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Walking My Poodle Before Dinner

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Short notes between longer stories, interviews and essays.

Want to discover new ideas to help you finally solve something you've been working on or give you a new topic to write about?

All you have to do is keep a list of things you find interesting or are curious about. You see an otter at the zoo interacting with visitors through the clear sides of the enclosure and wonder what purpose that behavior has for the animal. Write it down. Don't investigate it, yet.

Don't add everything to the list, but when a question seems to stand out and draw you in, add it to your list.

The next part is where things get interesting.

Choose two unrelated topics from your ongoing list at any moment in time and begin to investigate how they are related. You should have plenty to choose from by the time you are on this step. You can go back to the list at any time.

The end result might give you a story idea or an entirely new topic to learn about. It might show you something interesting that helps you solve a problem, or it could provide something that surprises you.

For me, the interesting part isn't just about finding a connection. Seeing where my attention keeps going reveals even more.

Leave a comment or join me in the subscriber chat if you give this a try. I'd like to know what you think.

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Rather than accepting that reality, Bruno Amaral decided to do something about it.

Amaral set out to build a tool that could track new research as it was published. With the help of his mentor and advisor, António Lopes, and the people who continue to believe in the project, that idea became the Brain Regeneration Observatory.

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​Bruno Amaral/Image provided by Bruno Amaral

The Brain Regeneration Observatory monitors research in three core areas: cell reprogramming, Neuroimmunometabolism, and neuroinflammation. Subscribers can also choose which clinical trials they want alerts for from the tracked ones, which include multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. It’s free to subscribe and receive the emails.

Today, Amaral’s vision for the project extends far beyond where it started.

I opened an email from the Brain-Regeneration Team this morning, before I began writing this, and found a list of 15 new clinical trials matching the research area I selected, multiple sclerosis. In the body of the email, I could see the names of the trials, the countries, and the phase and status of each. The link below each one brought me directly to the trial information.

Amaral told me that there are over 6,000 clinical trials currently tracked with the tool for multiple sclerosis, and that number is growing. In total, between trials and areas of research, there have been over 30,000 clinical trials tracked and over 50,000 articles indexed.

Scientific curators from research institutions help identify the most important developments, while an artificial intelligence (AI) model named GregoryAi—developed by Amaral with Lopes—collects newly published papers from public scientific databases. Machine learning then ranks the relevance of the research, producing tailored digests for patients, clinicians, and researchers.

Since GregoryAi also tracks clinical trials, another source of information is brought into the same connected ecosystem.

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, Amaral did what many patients do. He started reading.

“I was scraping the science journals to see if I could find new information to take to my doctor,” Amaral told me during a video interview.

“I wanted to have a database. I never imagined the volume of literature that I would find.”

A post on the Brain Regeneration Observatory website explains that there is a fragmentation problem when it comes to research. Finding out how research from all over the world connects seems like an impossible task.

Amaral’s project might have started as a way to find research he could share with his own doctor, but when he discovered this was a real problem he could work on to help other people, too, he didn’t let his own diagnosis or his other obligations get in the way. He balances his role as an Assistant Professor with his time working on the Brain Regeneration Observatory.

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People Who Aren’t at Peace with the Way Things Are

When I first reached out to Amaral about the observatory, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I had come across the project almost a year earlier when it was called Gregory-MS. Bookmarking the research I found interesting related to multiple sclerosis, B-cells, and much more had already become a habit for me. At some point, I had landed on Gregory-MS.

When I rediscovered the website recently, I decided to reach out to Amaral. A few days later, we met for a video call. I read a blog post in which Amaral talks about the connections people interested in the project and contributing to research in general share. He highlights it perfectly when he explains in the post that these are “People who aren’t at peace with how things are and who want to do something about it.”

He brought up someone else’s story in the same post that I think is important to mention here as well. Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder of GitLab, shared his fight against cancer publicly. He, too, didn’t let information overload become an obstacle. He used AI to organize medical data, analyze papers, and generate questions for his medical team, as explained in this article by Elliot Hershberg. Sijbrandij went as far as posting his own patient medical records as part of sharing his journey. In Amaral’s blog post, he says that Sijbrandij referred to his actions as going into “founder mode.”

It’s a feeling so many can strongly relate to. For anyone who has been through a life-changing diagnosis themselves or held the hand of someone who has, these stories might bring up both hope and frustration because so many questions remain.

I wanted to understand how an idea like Gregory could emerge from that uncertainty, so I asked Amaral to take me back to the beginning.

“It started as Gregory-MS,” Amaral said.

“The story,” he paused.

“Wait,” he said.

“I’ve got Gregory.”

I waited curiously. A second later, Amaral held up a 3D-printed, tabletop-size robot character with round, white eyes. I smiled in response.

“The idea behind Gregory is that he’s based on the character Baymax from the movie Big Hero 6.”

The character in the movie, who is more marshmallow-like than the 3D-printed Gregory, as Amaral further explained, is a medical assistant robot.

“Every time I start a personal project, I like to give it some personality and some connection with pop culture,” said Amaral.

“The name comes from Gregory House.”

He then explained that his inspiration changed direction a bit to Baymax because of the character’s friendliness and desire to help.

3D Print Gregory/ Image provided by Bruno Amaral

GregoryAi, the AI model behind the Brain Regeneration Observatory, is complex, so I wanted to learn how Amaral decided what to build.

“I always had a knack for computers, but my training was in public relations,” he said.

Amaral has a master’s in public relations and has worked on projects in Portugal, Spain, and the UK. He is an Assistant Professor at the IPL School of Communication and Media Studies in Portugal.

One of the projects Amaral worked on previously was called Crypto Novel. Although not as large, he explained that the personal project was an online book. Each chapter ended with a puzzle, which had to be solved to move on to the next part of the book.

Soon after Amaral started working on organizing medical research for his own purpose, he learned that he could do much more with it.

“A friend of mine works in AI, and he told me, “Listen, if you’re doing that, then let me show you how you can apply some AI to it with some machine learning algorithms.”

Gregory differs from the large language models many people think of when they think of artificial intelligence. Instead, Amaral explained that Gregory does a very specific job using three machine learning algorithms. Currently, anyone can subscribe to alerts and be emailed them for free simply by checking a few boxes on the website. Patients, clinicians, and researchers already use the Brain Regeneration Observatory. While the tool is undoubtedly valuable, Amaral says there’s even more to come.

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What’s Next for Gregory?

“What I would like is to turn this into a discovery engine, because no human being on this planet can read the whole tsunami of information that comes from the science journals,” said Amaral.

“Imagine Gregory being able to, day-by-day, identify the trends of two different compounds that can work together.”

Amaral recently added support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allows AI assistants to interact with external software and data sources securely. This allows GregoryAi to connect to other tools, making it easier to retrieve research and automate tasks. Amaral posted about it on Bluesky on August 5, 2026.

One of the most remarkable things about Amaral’s story might be his ability to balance it all. So I asked how he does it.

“People don’t realize that this isn’t just wanting to help myself and wanting to help others; this is my way to cope. There are days where I just feel like, okay, this day was shit. I didn’t do anything, nothing was productive, I didn’t even get dressed decently,” he said.

“At least if I do a little bit for Gregory, I know that I’m pushing the research a bit forward.”

Amaral is working on Gregory from Portugal, and I’m writing this from the U.S. We’ve never met, but somehow our stories connect. When I wanted to know how he gets through the hard days, knowing myself, how frustrating the unpredictability of living with multiple sclerosis can be, he simply said:

“Do I want to give up? No. This is all I got.”

We all can keep doing a little bit each day, even on the hard days, toward whatever it is we believe in, and our stories will remain connected. Without technology, the likelihood of our paths crossing would be even smaller. I think Amaral built something powerful, and it’s far from being solely “AI-driven.”

Amaral’s work shows how AI tools can help those in need by building human connections.

Thanks to Omar Gallaga for providing editorial support for this piece.

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Every once in a while, an ordinary evening quietly asks an unexpected question.

I thought I was training my dog. Instead, I found myself wondering whether the moments we disappear into are where work, identity, and play stop needing separate names.

The training center settled into stillness at almost ten o’clock at night. Only a few rows of lights were still on. I was sitting on the rubber mats, with one palm resting on the floor to feel the cool beneath me, and the other on my dog. I scratched between my standard poodle’s shoulders. He was content. The building gave off hums that go unheard throughout the day. No barking or ringing phones interrupted.

I reflected, thinking about both the calmness of the moment and the lively play that occurred just before it.

With music in my ears, I trained my dog before settling with him on the floor.

I held his bumper toy out to the side while I waited for him to give me eye contact. The moment he looked at me instead of the toy, I told him it was his to take.

“Get it,” I said.

Two words that strike his ears like the sound of winning a jackpot.

He sank his teeth into the bumper, graceful about where his teeth landed, but not without strength. He missed my fingers, as I knew he would.

Too easy.

I played a bit of tug before asking him to return the toy to my hand.

“Good boy,” I told him.

This time, I would see if I trusted him to take the toy so carefully when I wasn't looking.

I turned my back, asking him to wait.

He understood.

I held the toy out with my arm straight.

I named fruit. He had to listen carefully for his cue.

“Apples, oranges, pineapples.”

I paused to listen for any movement. Then I continued.

“Bananas, berries… get it!”

With perfect timing, I felt him leap for the toy in my hand with shark precision.

The games continued.

I gave him the cue to meet me at my side. He moved to the heel position, and we walked together. I asked him to spin in a circle, jump over my leg, and then drop down.

He remained focused as he enthusiastically followed each request.

Finally, we were both tired. I sat with my dog on the floor and began to think about the life that I’ve built. It's one that revolves around my career and passion, but I don’t think of it like that exactly.

Why would I be training my own dog at 10:00 p.m. after a long day of work? The question isn't, "Aren't I exhausted?" For me, it’s, "Do I need this time to train tonight?"

It’s just dog training, sure. But somehow it means something more.

The Promises

1. I’ll Investigate Interesting Questions and Hear from Remarkable People

Together we’ll explore interesting questions. They might have to do with business, daily habits, building and creating, focusing, or something else entirely. I’ll take you with me as I explore. Since I want to keep improving the way I work and the way I think, I hope what I explore with you at Unleashed and Untangled helps.

I’ll also sit down with remarkable people for interviews. This is the part I’m most excited about. I want to hear from people who are building things, creating, and untangling their own questions. Being able to share their process with you truly means a lot to me.

2. I’ll Pay Attention and Bring Back What I Notice

The topic of being present comes up a lot in writing, but not as much in business. Writing reminds me to stop and take mental pictures, and to imagine what it’s like to explain feelings in words. When I’m busy running my small business, everything feels fast and measured. When I stop and notice things, I make room for important connections. I hope that when I stop to reflect, something I say speaks to you or reminds you to do the same.

3. You’ll See What Happens When Ideas Meet Real Life

I invite you to join me as I learn new skills and test ideas. What else is unleashing about? I could have remained stuck in the same routine I’ve known my entire adult life, because I never felt stuck. I was having a great time, but then everything changed. When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I had to rethink things. I don’t have the answers, but I have something else. This promise is about my personal journey with learning things and testing ideas, but it’s also about stepping outside of what we know. A willingness to learn, try new things, and keep moving forward shows up often here.

Who Am I? Where Do I Normally Write?

If we haven’t met yet, I’m excited to learn what brought you here.

A Bit About Me...

In 2013, I opened a small business with no savings or business experience. While not having enough set aside for the first few months of rent sounds like a recipe for failure, I had such an intense focus on the work (dog training) that I was willing to take that risk. (Here’s an interview where I talk a bit about that.) I grew up learning about dog training and grooming and was ready to turn my passion into a career. Early on in my business, I put in long hours and worked seven days a week. I learned a lot and was having a great time doing it.

My hard work was worth it because each year my business grew a little bit more.

I took another risk when I moved the business into a larger location in 2021. Businesses were open again after the 2020 shutdown, but the pandemic was not truly over yet. I made the choice to take my business to a new level at a difficult time to do so.

Things changed when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease that can affect movement, vision, energy, cognition, and more. It was just two years after the move. Owning a small business is hard enough, but now my body is unpredictable.

My plans keep changing, my routine has been disrupted, and my body has more say than ever in the way I work. This isn’t a publication about life with multiple sclerosis, but it plays a role in the way I think.

My Work as a Writer

Even in the early (chaotic) days of my business, writing has been important to me. I make time for it. I’ve been writing for pet publications since around the time I opened my dog training business. My work has been published in leading industry magazines. I also write a weekly pet column, host a podcast, and write about other topics. If you’d like to learn more about my writing or conversations, my website link is below.

Find my work here

My Vision

Unleashed and Untangled is different. This is a more personal writing space for me. While I’ve outlined my promises, I’ve left room for things to move in the direction they are meant to over time. I’m not just here to write, I’m here to have a conversation about important areas so that you also leave with new ideas, reminders to reflect, and most importantly, a reminder to make space in your day to simply think.

While some people refer to it as fatigue, it took me a while to call it that. I've always struggled to tire out my mind and body. I could work long days and still have excess energy, but living with multiple sclerosis changed all of that, at least some times.

Occasionally, I have days when my eyes can't focus, and my legs feel like they're stuck in cement that will continue to harden if I try to fight through it. I urge myself to use my willpower, but my brain and body become disconnected. I tell myself I can fight through almost anything, and I truly believe that. So why not this? It's not painful in the sense of saying "ouch." It's not tiredness in the sense of needing to sleep to make it go away. Those who have witnessed it have noticed my speech slow down and my personality begin to change in real time as I lose my energy. Those who have experienced it know that it’s almost impossible to describe the feeling.

I've always told myself that every problem has a solution. Accepting the symptomatic days doesn't align with that core belief. Yet there is no easy answer. I started doing a bit of research to learn what this fatigue is all about. I even looked up whether there had ever been a proposal to change the name since it's not really fatigue in the way many people think. There has been! I read about the things I can't control, like when there will be a way repair myelin, for example.

I kept trying to strip the problem down to the basics. First principles thinking, right? That's when I thought, if I can continue to work on the detours my brain has to take, it will require less energy to use them, and therefore those bad days might be reduced. Now, I want to be clear that I don't know how it truly works, but that’s how I imagine it. I visualize it in this way and it makes me want to keep following my passion for learning new things.

I was having a frustrating time and trying to solve something I couldn't control. My expression of frustration and attempt at solving the problem (knowing I couldn't) became meaningful, though, because it highlighted my interest in learning new things. As I began to think about learning and the way the brain works, I once again revisited my interest in optimizing how I learn.

A while back, I started learning data analytics and Python. I've taken a writing course, dabbled in playing the harmonica, and played games such as “The Last Caretaker,” all to continue working on my brain. I love learning new information and skills. I love challenging myself to remember what I learn, pass tests, solve problems, and strategize.

I started reading about the various techniques to improve learning. I don't want to get carried away talking about which techniques I used or whether I noticed a difference here. Instead, I want to share one of my biggest observations. I noticed that focusing on finding the right study technique was actually depleting my energy faster. I became more invested in trying to find the secret to how the brain learns best that I forgot what I already knew.

There was a time when I had no clue how to run a business, build a website, create systems within that business, and so on. I spent hours studying, but not in the book-only sense. I took courses and read books, sure, but I also practiced everything and put it to use. I talked about it with enthusiasm while I was learning, and I wrote a lot. In a previous post, I talked about how writing has helped me, and I can't emphasize it enough. Whether I'm watching a video or reading a book, if something feels important, I'll make a handwritten note about it.

There was a time when I wasn't stressed about the right way to learn. I still want to optimize my learning abilities, and I'll talk about that more in other posts. I’m not saying that’s not important, but I believe there is a balance. Just the fact that I’m asking the question reveals a lot. I’m still as excited to learn as ever, and it’s that enthusiasm I should lean on more than any single technique. I'm saying that a long time ago, I had the perfect technique for learning without trying, and it worked. I think my enthusiasm for learning played a big role.

So I'm taking a break from trying to get it just right, and I'm going to follow what my mind needs as I continue teaching myself important skills and solving the problems life presents to me.

Explaining something in words for other people to easily understand is a skill that takes practice. As you’ll see from this post, it’s even more challenging than you might think at first. Even explaining concepts to yourself takes effort.

I’ve spent my career teaching people to train their dogs. While most people would think of me as a dog trainer, my role is to teach the people who own the dogs. I have to find the words to explain the smallest behaviors I observe and why I do what I do, which often feels like instinct more than skill after doing it for so many years. Turning ideas into lesson plans for other people requires focus. In animal training, it requires you to switch from what you feel and notice to language. You might see the way an animal processes the world through their senses, but you have to transfer the information to your client.

I recently read “Animals Make us Human” by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson. I found myself stopping to highlight right from the start of the book. I’m not surprised that Grandin’s work resonated with me because I’ve read other books and watched lectures. Grandin talks about this exact thing in animal training and husbandry, where the person struggles to explain their techniques because they think in sensory details. While such thinking is how we can understand animals, it’s not always helpful when it comes to explaining to the client exactly what needs to change.

It’s not just a skill for animal trainers either.

While I need quiet training sessions with the animal, where language is not required, I understand the importance of being able to explain what I’m doing, too. I work hard on this skill to prevent any miscommunication between myself and my client, and I hope it shows. Outside of animal training, this is a challenge in being intentional, focusing, and being self-aware.

Draw a Bicycle

A large, open car carrier caught my attention on the highway the other day. The skeleton frame is perfectly designed to serve a purpose. I took a mental picture to test whether I would remember what it looked like later. I wasn’t suprised to find out that I couldn’t recall precise details from my mental image. Although it felt clsoe to accurate, I couldn’t recreate a functional design in my mind and definitely not in words. So I thought I’d try with something much simpler, a bicycle.

Take out a piece of paper and draw a simple bicycle. Don’t look at a picture or even look for a bike to inspire you. Just draw something you have seen many times before.

Was it easy to draw?

Now try to explain how it works. Can you explain how a bicycle functions and the reason behind its build?

I tried this exercise, and although it might be easier for you, I found it challenging. Sure, I can explain what I understand and am most passionate about (dog training), but it’s hard for me to explain something that’s only in the background. You could argue that it doesn’t matter. There’s no reason to have to explain to anyone how a bike works, but I’m fascinated by experiments in thinking.

The Business Value

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked something out by forcing myself to write about it. This even applies to my business.

Before I moved my business from a small studio to a larger, more demanding space, I turned first to writing instead of other forms of planning. I wrote freely about it over the course of days in free moments. Of course, I soon used other planning techniques too, but explaining the move to myself did something important for me. It became a conversation with myself about the problems I might encounter and how I would overcome them. Looking back, even when I opened my business in the first place, way further back, I wrote about it to work out the details.

Framework for Key Questions and Problems

I’m inspired by the famous framework, Richard Feynman’s 12 favorite problems. I read about how the theoretical physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1965 kept a list of a dozen problems and constantly tested new information against them. When I first read about this, I became fascinated by the technique because I wondered how the subconscious mind would come into play. While I’ll keep my own technique of how I return to key questions and problems to myself, learning about Feynman’s has inspired me.

I think a big part of why this is so powerful is the impact of having to explain to ourselves different concepts and solutions over time. If you learn a new piece of information, can you explain how it changes the problem? Writing it out is one way to do this.

Whatever it is you are working on, whatever problems you encounter, something interesting happens when you begin to put it into words. I keep looking at the world around me and challenging myself to do something that isn’t always easy, and explain the things I see, concepts, and ideas. It reminds me to remain cautious of patterns and distractions that do little to help the way I think and do little for the problems I’m trying to solve. It’s also a reminder that sometimes the best thinking partner is still pen and paper.

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Lazy days don’t make it into my schedule all too often, and long weekends aren’t for me. Yet, I manage to stand still as I point my phone at a ladybug I found on a leaf, and I think about how the moment is quiet enough that I can hear my foot shift as I try to get a closer shot.

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I’m far from a photographer, but at some point, I started taking pictures of insects, flowers, and little mushrooms. It’s one of those small habits that probably doesn’t need much explanation. I keep slowing down to take a closer look at the tiny life around me.

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Toward the end of last summer, I had my eyes peeled for the arrow-shaped micrathena. Imagine a spider with an arrow-shaped abdomen and colors so bright they look artificial, not to mention intimidating. While learning about the unique appearance of the orb-weaver is what caught my attention, it’s the impossible task of quantifying my chances of seeing one, especially a female that matches the color description, that has kept my interest.

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I found myself reading about their peak times and where to look. I stopped to glance at the bushes near the entrance of my business’s front door. I paused while walking my dogs to take a closer look at the plants around me. While I didn’t see one last season, I wouldn’t call it a failure.

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Looking for a spider hardly feels important compared to the big picture. I have piles of work at any given moment, but the seemingly elusive spider keeps me looking for it.

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I can’t calculate where it might be. I can’t turn the search into a task. It’s not like I go out of my way to look for the pointy little spider. But somehow, it makes me think about slower times. I know, as I approach the season of the arrow-shaped micrathena once again, that I’ll find myself looking for it. Coming across it won’t even be the most exciting moment. There’s something about the quietness of the search that holds my attention. Doing something that no one else needs to be there for or understand reminds me why we need time to write words we don’t like on pieces of paper.

Between seasons (where I am), there's often a combination of patches of ice and remaining mounds of snow mixed with mud and slush as the seasons create friction. One tree seemed to be caught in the middle. Its branches were slowly bleeding drops of water as the snow they have been supporting finally melts.

I watched as each drop fell to the ice-glazed snow creating a rhythm which I have no doubt would have mathematical significance somehow. Fog escaped off the tree’s body. In some spots it spiraled and circled with the movement of air. Behind it, a squirrel climbed another tree. Everything in the background seemed to have less color, leaving only the tree in front of me highlighted by the new day.

I took a mental picture because as the day goes on it gets muddier, faster, louder. And maybe we are caught between morning and night the way a tree is caught between seasons. We are only truly there if someone looks long enough to capture us in their mind, or if we pause long enough to see ourselves.

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Whether I’m covering a topic for a publication or writing an email to my clients, I want my writing to be clear. Over the last few months, I’ve been working on my writing skills, and I can’t believe how much has changed.

I asked myself how I could become a better writer, and it changed everything.

The first article I published, over ten years ago, marked a significant milestone for me. I still feel such satisfaction when I take a project from start to finish and see it in print.

A secret: until recently, I had a habit of not looking at anything I wrote after it was published.

Whenever I did, I’d want to run away with a beet-colored face. I’d catch something in my work that I’d want to change.

Things are different now. While I’ve always read my drafts before sending them off, now, I read them and see if I can tap my foot to the rhythm of the sentences. I also read them after they’re published. I compare my work to the final edits made.

It took me too long to dive into improving my writing skills with this level of dedication. I’m on a journey of learning new things and building a variety of skills—from data analytics to storytelling.

I know that in a few months, my writing here will have improved because I’m committed to making that happen. In a year, in two? Who knows where this will lead?

I’m all for learning and improving in public. I’m letting you see my work every step of the way.

I’ve wanted to go back and hit delete so many times.

Here are nine things I’ve either learned or rediscovered recently that are changing the way I write.

1. Tiny skills are the building blocks that make a big difference.

I talk about this in dog training a lot. There are skills that might seem unrelated or insignificant but make the biggest difference. The same goes for writing.

Tiny skills like correcting keyboard sloppiness, improving typing speed, or maintaining focus matter. I also have to take care of myself by creating balance that helps me do my best thinking and writing. Then there are practical things: maintaining an organized digital filing system, managing browser tabs effectively, and minimizing distractions. These small things add up.

Figure out the micro skills that you need to improve the way you work and write. It helps.

2. What you think is a weakness might not be.

I never thought I had a diverse vocabulary. That mindset opened me up to listening and noticing new words. I created a folder (that digital system I mentioned earlier), and one of my documents is simply for words I like.

My love for learning gives me focus and helps me notice words and the way they are used. I’ve also learned not to panic about vocabulary. Natural language is best.

3. Being in front of a screen all day on your day off is not the best way to write.

Over the last month or so, I’ve scribbled in my notebook while on a tall hill overlooking a Cape Cod nature trail. I wrote while sitting in the grass with my dogs playing around me. I wrote during workshops and on day trips.

I need to move. I need to change the scenery. It makes a difference.

4. Writing well requires new experiences.

It doesn’t have to be extreme, but changing my routine changes my thinking. Get out and do something. Don’t do it on autopilot.

5. Writing requires emotion.

I’m getting to know myself in new ways. This is growth, and it’s good for me and my writing.

6. Daily learning is a habit.

Whether I’m writing creatively or professionally, I keep notes on what I learn. I add them to my folder mentioned above. A habit of reflection makes writing stronger.

7. Notice more. Feel more.

I’ve said this in a few ways already, but writing is helping me experience the world in a new way. I hear new words when I listen to people. I notice how things feel. When I splash water on my face, I ask myself: How does this feel, and how would I write that?

8. Writing in public is important.

I know some of my writing here could be chewed apart, but this is my blog. It’s where I practice hitting “publish,” even when something feels too personal.

I write on Substack, LinkedIn, my company blog, plus publications. I write in multiple places and styles. It’s all practice. It’s about being brave enough to put my writing out there.

If you want to do something, you need to move forward and do it.

9. Invest in your craft.

I’m working hard to learn. I’m investing time in my writing. I’m also taking classes, asking for feedback, and attending workshops.

Over the last few months, I’ve attended three writing workshops, enrolled in one in-depth professional writing course, and submitted work to two creative writing contests.

I’m putting in the work.

No matter how busy or chaotic life seems, I believe it’s worth giving the things that interest you a second look.

Give yourself a chance. Do something for yourself.

My final (bonus) suggestion: loosely outline what you think you should learn to improve. Don’t be so strict that you miss new paths that emerge during the learning process, but do give yourself some clear goals.

Whether it’s getting organized, changing your mindset, or something else entirely, if it makes you better at what you love, and it improves other areas of your life, then why not?

Technology may not be the first thing you associate with dog training and grooming, but it’s played a big role in how I run my business. Even long before my business started it was an important part in developing my interests. Looking back, by age twelve I thought I had my pet care business figured out thanks to computer access. I read forums nonstop, printed safety sheets on the products I used, contacted professional groomers to ask questions, and made myself some business cards all from my clunky childhood computer. And yes, I did groom dogs at that age, too. Sitting at that computer and waiting to get online hoping the phone didn’t ring and kick me off, was a portal into another world and I couldn’t get enough.

Over the years, I tried to dabble in code here and there. but nothing stuck until recently. Strangely, it was because of the ideas that opened up while taking the Google Data Analytics course .

It was how that content clicked with the way my brain already works that left me exploring much more than data analytics.

It’s funny how just one small spark can reignite something that’s been sitting dormant for years. Suddenly I found myself deep in projects, some at 2AM, like exploring everything from fictional sales data to very real complaints pulled from New York City’s 311 system. (Yes, I voluntarily analyzed rat sightings by borough.) Saying I enjoy this is an understatement. It feels like this world of data has been waiting for me, and now I’ve caught up to the right moment in tech to really dive in.

On day one of the course, I thought I signed up to learn about spreadsheets and charts. And yes, you learn those, but soon you also explore SQL, BigQuery, Kaggle, Tableau, and more. I quickly followed my curiosity beyond the curriculum. When I find a rabbit hole, I don’t walk around it.

That curiosity led me to Python. I’d tried to learn it before and gave up. But this time, I realized, I have the best teacher and debugging tool willing to work on any project at any hour. This is the time to let your mind run wild. We have the most incredible tools available. I started building projects for fun, not for my business, but just because I wanted to understand. That’s when it hit me: analyzing data or working with code, like training dogs or running a business, is deeply creative. It’s problem-solving and storytelling at the same time.

As I wrap up the final lessons of the course and get ready to earn my certificate, I’m already thinking about what comes next. There’s so much more I want to learn, but this course gave me more than just technical skills. It reminded me of what it feels like to be a beginner at something again.

Now I find myself standing at my desk, sometimes barefoot on a Shakti mat, building or discovering something I didn’t know I was capable of. It’s the kind of focus that’s good for my mind in ways that are hard to describe. I think everyone deserves to find something that challenges them like that—something they enjoy getting lost in.

In the 1830s, rubber was gaining popularity, but it had limits. Too hot, and it was sticky. When exposed to cold, rubber became brittle. Not to mention, the rubber had a foul smell. This was before Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization, making rubber stronger, more elastic, and heat-resistant. Waterproof shoes and jackets were innovations that rubber made possible before Goodyear’s discovery, but rubber was far from being durable enough for much else. As if he knew how important his future discovery would be, Goodyear spent years searching for a solution.

There is an excellent discussion, “Burning Rubber In Mass.: The Obsession That Changed The World,” by Edgar B. Herwick III with author Charlie Slack, in which they discuss Goodyear’s proposal to a New York shop owner that helped inspire his pursuit to improve rubber. Goodyear thought his improved life preserver valve, which he presented to the shop owner, was a great idea. Instead, the owner challenged him to improve rubber.

It would take five years for Goodyear to discover vulcanization, putting his family in debt to finance his experiments. He was working at Eagle India Rubber Company when he made the discovery. Goodyear went to work, unaware that he would find his solution that day. He accidentally mixed rubber and sulfur and discovered that raising the heat hardened the rubber.

Goodyear did not profit from his discovery, and fighting patent infringement left him with more debt because of legal fees. About 40 years after his death, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded, though it had no direct connection to Charles Goodyear. Goodyear’s discovery created endless possibilities for industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, and automotive.

He died with $200,000 in debt, but his discovery is now a legacy. How he knew that rubber had so much potential is something only Goodyear could understand. For every person wired to solve a specific problem and who succeeds, many likely fail. When costs are high and there is no guarantee, do you keep working on the same problem or do you look for a new one? For some people, it feels impossible to give up no matter what. We are fortunate that Goodyear never gave up.

Learn More

Herwick, E. B. III. (2014, June 27). Burning Rubber In Mass.: The Obsession That Changed The World [Audio]. Retrieved from https://www.wgbh.org/

Charles Goodyear | Rubber, Vulcanization, Inventor | Britannica

Raincoat - Wikipedia. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raincoat

Charles Goodyear Receives Patent for Vulcanized Rubber. (n.d.). Retrieved from Charles Goodyear Receives Patent for Vulcanized Rubber