I call her Flo.
Not out of familiarity or irreverence, but because over time she stopped feeling like an author I read and began to feel like someone I returned to. A steady voice on the shelf. A companionable presence rather than a doctrine.
Her full name is Florence Scovel Shinn (1871–1940), and she wrote in the early part of the twentieth century — a time when women’s voices, particularly spiritual ones, were often softened, sidelined, or dismissed. Yet her books endured. Not because they were loud or persuasive, but because they were quietly radical.
I didn’t discover Flo all at once.
Her work came to me in fragments — a sentence here, a passage there — often at moments when I wasn’t looking for answers so much as reassurance. What struck me first wasn’t the promise of abundance or the language of manifestation that later became fashionable.
It was her tone.
Calm. Assured. Kind.
Flo wrote as though the universe was fundamentally benevolent — not naïve, not sentimental, but ordered. As though life, beneath its mess and sorrow, had an intelligence that could be trusted. She believed our thoughts mattered, yes — but not as tools of control. More as invitations. Alignments. Choices about how we meet what arrives.
At first, I resisted her.
Her references to Scripture made me wary. I had already loosened my grip on rigid interpretations, and I wasn’t looking to replace one set of rules with another. But Flo didn’t ask for belief in the way I expected. She asked for attention. For listening. For a willingness to consider that kindness — toward oneself, toward others, toward life itself — might be a form of intelligence.
Over time, her books became part of my inner landscape.
They sat beside my journals. They travelled with me through seasons of questioning, through moments when the world felt harsh or transactional, through periods when I needed reminding that there were other ways to measure a meaningful life besides urgency and noise.
This way of thinking eventually wove itself into my own work.
If All Parts of YOU explores wellbeing as a whole-of-life practice — across physical, creative, financial, environmental, occupational, spiritual, emotional, and social dimensions — then Flo’s influence sits quietly at its core. She helped me see that learning isn’t just about acquiring skills or knowledge, but about cultivating a way of being that is both grounded and generous.
I don’t agree with everything she wrote. I don’t take her words literally. And I don’t treat her books as instruction manuals.
I treat them as conversation.
That’s why, years later, I found myself returning to The Game of Life and How to Play It — not as a text to study, but as a starting point for dialogue. I began creating simple activities around each chapter: journaling prompts, small experiments, questions designed to be lived with rather than answered.
Those explorations eventually became a small Book Club — not in the traditional sense, but as a shared learning space. A place for conversation, reflection, and gentle practice. Some people arrive curious. Others come seeking connection. Many stay because they enjoy thinking alongside others, without pressure or performance.
This is where my work now sits most comfortably.
As a facilitator. A coach. A conversationalist.
Creating spaces — on the page, on the train, around a table — where people can explore ideas that matter, at a human pace. Where learning is relational, not rushed. Where kindness isn’t an abstract value, but something we practise in how we listen, speak, and show up with one another.
Flo didn’t give me answers.
She gave me a tone.
And in a noisy world, that has mattered more than I ever expected.