Hello there!

My name is Lance Odegard and I’m writing to you from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I’m a husband, father of four, writer, coach, friend, neighbour, and lover of all the things that make up a good dinner party — story, hospitality, people.

I am also very fond of dogs, good questions, poetry, Oilers hockey, Raptors basketball, human centered design, natural wine, organizational health, reading multiple books at a time, and making excuses for a party to go longer.

Want to connect? Email me at hello@lanceodegard.com

A bit about my work…

I help people get unstuck. I clear the way to creative confidence through coaching, hosting, and writing at Unstucking.co

I’ve spent my working life learning people. Specifically, I’m interested in the human potential for creativity. It’s the most fascinating and most frustrating thing to work with. Sometimes that potential unfurls, shows up, and seems to truly happen. Other times, it doesn’t — it hides, fizzles, fades.

The most painful part of creative potential is stuckness. It’s when resistance, as Steven Pressfield calls it, gets in the way. Or it’s the way tiny acts of self-sabotage stack up, creating ‘the mountain is you’ as Brianna Wiest writes. And it’s certainly the pain of bearing an untold story inside of you, as Maya Angelou teaches us.

Stuckness is the arch nemesis of creativity. It’s the shadow, the self-limiter, the snuffer of good ideas. There are just too many reasons and too many things to get stuck in:

comparison
decision paralysis
a dead end job
mediocrity
who you used to be
stale success
someone else’s version of success
waiting for permission
conflict cycles
limiting beliefs
fear
your head
career treadmills
a creative cul de sac
boredom
scarcity
mixed messages

Over and over the need is for a thing that’s so hard to find (which is why I needed to make up a word for it): Un.stuck.ing (v.)

It’s a made up word for ongoing movement. It’s a process for unbecoming/becoming. It’s when you find your forward.

Other favourite synonyms include: changing, dislodging, unfettering, bounding, unlearning, launching, migrating, innovating, flourishing.

This is the stuff I’m obsessed with, which is why I’m writing here on Substack in two ways.

How the Unstucking Newsletter works

The Unstucking newsletter explores the inner workings of creative confidence. Poetry, practices, and provocation to get unstuck and find your forward.

1+1+1 (free subscription)
Every Monday, one quote, one question, one poem to get unstuck.

1+1+1 is a super short and super fun weekly nudge, a creative spark, a shot in the arm to keep you moving.

Find Your Forward (paid subscription)
All month, creativity fuel to keep you moving.

Paid subscribers ($5 month) get the full Unstucking experience and receive my most personal writing—weekly newsletters + a thoughtful long form monthly email + access to the full archives + content not found anywhere else.

With a bit of a longer format, I’m able to pull together and build ideas for growing more curiosity + conversation + collaboration + creativity + change, in your world. If you’d like to check it out, here’s a sample from an earlier newsletter.

If you’d like to support me directly, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, which costs about as much as one fancy coffee per month. Your support means a lot!