Natalie MacLean, Wine Author, Educator, Podcaster, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)

Years in the Industry:
I used to say that I started drinking when I met my husband (now ex), then started writing to make it look respectable. Twenty-three years later, I question my "boozy-jokey" shtick about wine. I thought I was making it more accessible, but was I encouraging over-consumption?

That's one of the questions in the memoir I'm writing now: Am I bringing more pleasure or pain into the world?

This is the inevitable follow-up to my first book Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass and second Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World's Best Bargain Wines. I also offer online wine and food pairing courses and host Unreserved Wine Talk.

I studied the Romantic Poets at Oxford University with Jonathan Wordsworth, then got an MBA. I worked at Procter & Gamble where I beat my head against the focus group glass as I watched women discuss how flaky their pie crusts were using Crisco. So I "pivoted" into a supercomputer company, SGI, in Mountainview, California, now the headquarters of Google.

Not exactly linear, but it makes sense to me now ;)

My Top Three Challenges to Wellness:
1. The Need to be Loved (a.k.a. perfectionism): This drives me to work too many hours and waste too much mental space based on what others will think.
2. Competitiveness: See perfectionism above.
3. Anxiety/Depression: This runs in my family, as does alcoholism. As my relatives have noted about my career choice: you're a moth to a flame.

How I Keep It Together to Stay Well:
1. Getting Older: This gives me a more merciful perspective.
2. Giving Grace: If I can forgive others, I can forgive myself.
3. Going Deeper: Excavating the past to make sense of the present and future. As William Faulkner said, the past is never dead, it's not even past.

What Inspires Me:
The stories of strong women, like those in this community, as well as memoirs by Glennon Doyle, Tara Westover and Jeannette Walls.

A Quote I Love”
You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” - Glinda, the Good Witch, to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, 1900

You can find Natalie's work at www.nataliemaclean.com, and email her at natdecants@nataliemaclean.com. She is on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.