Twenty-five years ago, my high school art teacher gave me an assignment.
She asked us to write beside our drawings—to preserve what we noticed, what we felt, and what we were trying to create.
I forgot the assignment.
But I never lost the gift.
This week, I opened a new notebook and finally understood what she had given me. That notebook has become the place where I work through the challenges, questions, and discoveries I encounter while building something new.
In other words, the notebook is Along the Way.
In today’s episode, I’ll show you what I wrote on its first pages—and share the lesson that came back to me twenty-five years later.
That notebook is also where Five Minutes in America begins.
The new weekday storytelling series officially launches September 7.
Paid Coffman Chronicle members will receive the entire first week—five complete stories—in a special Saturday edition on September 5, before any of them are released publicly.
If you want to help build this project and hear the stories first, I’d be honored to have you with us.
Find your if.
Write it down.
Then return to the work.
Stay free,
Tony Michaels
