I am really loving Simon Sinek’s new podcast called A Bit of Optimism. In this episode he speaks with Seth Godin and his wonderful wife Helen Godin on entrepreneurship.
I can also highly recommend this episode with Bob Chapman.
An Unlived Life
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
— Dawna Markova
Calling-In versus Calling-Out
“…
Call-outs make people fearful of being targeted. People avoid meaningful conversations when hypervigilant perfectionists point out apparent mistakes, feeding the cannibalistic maw of the cancel culture. Shaming people for when they “woke up” presupposes rigid political standards for acceptable discourse and enlists others to pile on. Sometimes it’s just ruthless hazing.
We can change this culture. Calling-in is simply a call-out done with love. Some corrections can be made privately. Others will necessarily be public, but done with respect. It is not tone policing, protecting white fragility or covering up abuse. It helps avoid the weaponization of suffering that prevents constructive healing.
Calling-in engages in debates with words and actions of healing and restoration, and without the self-indulgence of drama. And we can make productive choices about the terms of the debate: Conflicts about coalition-building, supporting candidates or policies are a routine and desirable feature of a pluralistic democracy.
…”
I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic, by Loretta Ross
Falling In Love
“If you think falling in love is only reserved for romantic relationships, then you’re missing out on so much.”
— Ayishat Akanbi
Where are the Black Designers?
This digital conference called Where are the Black Designers, which happened two days ago, is nothing short of incredibly impressive. Huge congrats to Mitzi Oku, the organizer.
Revolutionary Love
“Revolutionary love is a well-spring of care, an awakening to the inherent dignity and beauty of others and the earth, a quieting of the ego, a way of moving through the world in relationship, asking: ‘What is your story? What is at stake? What is my part in your flourishing?’ Loving others, even our opponents, in this way has the power to sustain political, social and moral transformation. This is how love changes the world.”
— Valarie Kaur
What’s The Best Lesson You’ve Learned?
What's your best lesson you've learnt?
— DO Lectures (@DOLectures) June 23, 2020
This thread is pure gold.
Revolutionary Love
This. Made. Me. Sob.
Thank you Valarie Kaur, you are a gift to this world.
Yancey Strickler: A Framework for Your Ultimate Self
Loving this talk by former Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler. With a simple four-square grid Yancey shifted his entire perspective on decision-making, his sense of self, and his relationship to the world. His concept of “Bentoism”, inspired by the Japanese bento box, is a way of framing your choices with an eye to the future, beyond your own self-interest, and with consideration for your community and the next generation. I’ll definitely be applying this to my life. Grateful.
(One of many talks of 99u’s virtual 2020 conference)
Black Lives Matter CSS
All proceeds of this Black Lives Matter CSS Shirt directly benefit organizations that support Black LGBTQIA+ folks.
To Show Up Imperfectly
I keep reminding myself of this.
The Loss of Chance Meetings
One of the biggest things lost in remote work is chance meetings. These are very important, but hard to quantify. If you measure productivity on individual projects, everything will seem fine. Yet when you read stories of how things happened, chance meetings were often crucial.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 10, 2020
I am feeling this Tweet (and the responses) on the loss of chance meetings by going remote. I personally thrive on the unstructured, serendipitous meetings. Trying to figure out how to create them in a remote context, some folks seem to believe it’s possible.
The Internal Work
the internal work – interrogating, re-arranging, and re-educating our psyches and hearts – that’s the hard work. that’s the work nobody will hold you accountable for. do that too. do that most.
— kendra (@kendramorous) June 2, 2020
(via Kai)
Expression of Love
“When you intentionally make the expression of love a part of your daily practice—that is feeling, receiving, and giving love—not only do you boost your immune system, but you begin to understand that the more you feel love, the more you become love, and when you become the embodiment of love, you can change the world.”
— Dr. Joe Dispenza
I Need To Do Better
Thank you for this gentle yet powerful call to action, Anisa Makhoul. I have to do better.
Towards a Moral Revolution
“One of the biggest lessons of my life, Krista, has been that we can’t separate the world into monsters and angels and that there’s nothing like loving people and knowing friends who played different roles in the genocide, including being perpetrators, that makes you have to confront that most raw element of what it means to be human. And the only conclusion I could make was that there are monsters and angels in each of us and that those monsters really are our broken parts — they’re our insecurities; they’re our fears; they’re our shames — and that in times of insecurity, it becomes really easy for demagogues to prey on those broken parts and sometimes make us do terrible things to each other.
We’re seeing that all over the world right now. And we have to fight against that. And that’s where the moral revolution becomes a matter of whether we choose to dive into the dark, the perilous path, or whether we choose to create a narrative and make that narrative real, which is our shared destiny, the possibility of collective human flourishment, our repairing the Earth in ways that make it more beautiful — and the choice is ours. And so my hard-edged hope comes from having lived and worked in communities that have had to contend with both. And like flowers breaking through granite, I’m gonna choose hope every time. And I frankly — despite all the dark, I remain a stubborn, persistent, hard-edged, hopeful optimist. I do!”
This is an excerpt of a conversation between Jacqueline Novogratz and Krista Tippett in the most recent episode of the wonderful On Being podcast. Listening to this episode is what my heart needed today.
The Need for A Cry
The School of Life is making a case for a good cry.
68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice
Love these 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice by Kevin Kelly. You can read them here.
A Hill You Are Willing To Die On
NIGHTLY QUESTION: what is the pettiest, silliest, most meaningless hill you are willing to die on
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) May 12, 2020
This thread made me laugh. And nod my head in agreement.
Until There Was Nothing
…or “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Black Hole”
Someday this will pass and there will be nothing left. The inevitable spaghettification of it all. That’s not something to fear “because we come from nothing” as Alan Watts puts it… and from nothing comes something new! By Paul Trillo
Gate A-4
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”
Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
(via Julie)