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#37: Project Ski

For the last decade, I’ve been investing in what my wife affectionately calls “Project Ski,” teaching our three kids (now in 8th, 5th, and 1st grades) to get up and down a snow-covered mountain.

Skiing is an enormous investment of time, energy, logistics, effort. Teaching three kids to ski/ snowboard…that’s a whole other level. The gear alone (skis, boots, poles, hats, gloves, glove liners, long underwear tops and bottoms, goggles, helmets, balaclavas, ski pants, fleece, ski jacket, lift tickets…times five in our case!) is enough to test anybody’s patience and strain their bank account. And with the crazy weather that is our new normal, most of our ski trips in the Northeast U.S. have ended up either being dangerously cold (well below 0 degrees F) or rainy.

Sasha DichterMarch 3, 2018Sasha DichterComment

#36: I Don't Want to Save The World

I might easily have been interpreted as callous or mean-hearted when about 15 years ago I said:

“I Don’t Want To Save The World”

The orientation of the conversation I was in was that solutions HAD TO “scale” to matter

I didn’t have great words for it other than “I don’t want to save the world” but maybe what I meant was that I think each and everything along the way matters… each smile we share with a stranger or our kindness with a cashier who has had a long shift… everything… and that when we get that sorta something sorta Silicon-Valley-ish “scale” thinking and maybe even a smidge of self-importance in us it might discourage the possibility for the beauty and grace and patience and gratitude and joy of continual tender mercies and “small" successes among seven billion people.

Pip CoburnFebruary 28, 2018Pip CoburnComment

#35: Bee Time

The favorite “job” I’ve ever done is that of a beekeeper. Every time I go to the hive, the bees teach me something new. Jorgen’s piece on empathy reminded me of the most powerful lesson the bees continually teach me — becoming completely present and empathic.

Brinton JohnsFebruary 23, 2018Brinton JohnsComment

#34: Exercising Agency

As a fiction writing minor in college, I learned to withstand criticism against something I had produced. But while a Quentin-Tarantino-esque bloodbath is typical in just about any undergraduate writing workshop, one my senior year was different due to one big mistake: I based the main character too much on myself.

The biggest issue, my classmates said, was that the main character was too passive. In fact, they said, she did not actively make a single decision in the entire story. She had zero agency. Everything happened to her. It didn’t feel like they were critiquing the story, it felt like they were critiquing me.

Lauren CulbertsonFebruary 20, 2018Lauren CulbertsonComment

#33: Without empathy there is no collaboration

The other week I was asked to talk about collaboration at a company with a group of architects. They were trying to cross the boundaries of their silo’ed departments more often in an attempt to become more innovative. They’d tried many things but none of them really stuck.

Jörgen Van der SlootFebruary 18, 2018Jörgen Van der SlootComment

#32: Blank Spaces

There’s no way I can fully know and see everything you know and see (and vice versa). So how do I react when I discover you did something that seems wrong?

I start by reminding myself that what I know right now about the facts you had and the decision you made is full of blank spaces. In the absence of knowing what you know, I can choose to have a bias in favor of believing that you likely did the right thing. (did you really?)

Sasha DichterFebruary 16, 2018Sasha DichterComment

#31: Sculpting the Backsides Of Our Work

I was having this wonderful conversation with a colleague about their company's thought-leadership program. They have this whole program where they create white papers for their customers and teach them about leading trends in the industry. And their white papers are amazingly good. I was asking my friend about how in one paper, in particular, and how they had included details that would elude most of their beginner audience (including me). But after I’d read it a second and third time I had finally noticed.

Robert RoseFebruary 14, 2018Rob RoseComment

#30: How'd You Get Roped Into This?

This community provides so much inspiration and insight about how to live.

Recently my sister taught me how to die.

She had been sick for several years.

We knew it was coming.

She knew it was coming.

Her husband and children called me that morning and I drove the two miles to her house.

They sent me up to her room, where she lay half awake, listening to the Beatles.

Jim OthmerFebruary 11, 2018Jim OthmerComment

#29: Some Days

Some days you get a lot of praise for work well done.

It can feel like this praise isn’t deserved, or that it is for things that came easily to you, or that it is not worth all the fuss. Often this means that you won’t allow yourself to fully hear the gratitude and appreciation that someone expresses.

Other days you toil and sweat and put your heart and soul into a thing and nothing comes back. Or, worse, it’s exactly your best work that engenders criticism or nit-picking or downright resistance.

Sasha DichterFebruary 9, 2018Sasha DichterComment

#28: Doing the Dirty Work

Before I lived in El Salvador, I really didn’t find much joy in doing the dishes. I mean, if they required minimal rinsing and then they all fit in the dishwasher seamlessly in one fell swoop, then some joy, yes.

But it wasn’t until I lived in a rural town with a great deficit of economic opportunities, potable water and healthy food sources that I really began to find the joy in doing dishes. I read something that said something like, “Be grateful that there are many plates to be washed, for that means you had a meal to be shared.”

Jaime PosaFebruary 7, 2018Jaime PosaComment

#27: Many Questions and an Answer

Yesterday was the third day I spent pre-interning in an elementary school about thirty minutes from the University of Florida. I think I’m about as emotionally invested in these kindergartners as someone who’d worked with them for years. In fact, I’m almost 100% sure they are some of the sweetest little souls I’ve ever met.

Amanda PosaFebruary 4, 2018Amanda PosaComment

#26: Trust and Fear and Danger

I have the following whacky counter-cultural thoughts and then a vulnerable story about my vulnerability.

++ Trust is scalable because of its transitory property. If persons A and B trust person C, then A + B can trust each other immediately.

++ Trust can be generated in an instant. It doesn’t have to take time to build.

++ Transparency is NOT trust. Transparency is a method for accommodating the lack of trust.

Pip CoburnFebruary 2, 2018Pip CoburnComment

#25: Vision

Last week I met with the founder of a young startup to go over the financial model for their company. As we started digging into the finer points of his spreadsheet, I stopped and said, “This is all great, but how are you imparting the vision to your group? Does everyone know their role? Do they understand the vision, its importance to the world and that it will not come to pass without them?” We quickly ditched the spreadsheet and went to the whiteboard.

Brinton JohnsJanuary 29, 2018Brinton JohnsComment

#24: We Can All Walk With Strangers

The power inside every single human being never ceases to amaze me. And despite a world that appears increasingly divided and argumentative, every Monday night my hope that people lean towards good and not evil is strengthened.

Lauren CulbertsonJanuary 24, 2018Lauren CulbertsonComment

#23: About pink elephants and red cars

When I was in junior high one of my teachers taught me to ‘never say what you don’t want to do’, because subconsciously you can not deal with that. Apparently it will plant a seed in your head leading you to do exactly what you didn’t want to do. In Dutch (and I don’t know if it translates well into English) we use the metaphor of ‘pink elephants’ to illustrate this. When you say to someone: don’t think of a pink elephant, a pink elephant will immediately jump into your mind.

Jörgen Van der SlootJanuary 22, 2018Jörgen Van der SlootComment

#22: No wonder(ing)

During my first proper summer internship, working in Washington DC, some colleagues and I got into a friendly argument over lunch about whether pinball was a game of skill.

To resolve this heated debate, we agreed that the “ayes” would have it if and only if we could prove, by the end of the working day, that there was such a thing as pinball competitions or tournaments.

Sasha DichterJanuary 22, 2018Sasha DichterComment

#21: The Subtle Art of Becoming Ordinary

As I peruse the nonfiction bestseller wall at the bookstore in the airport, these are the titles that jump out at me. They probably say great things. The titles make me want to pick the books up. They even make me feel a little special. My chest puffs out a bit. “That’s right, I am a badass, different and completely special. Thank you for noticing.” I think to myself. (My wife says you can learn a lot about me from that last sentence!)

Brinton JohnsJanuary 17, 2018Brinton JohnsComment

#20: Quick backgrounder on the Chinese language

My family immigrated to the U.S. when I was 11 so I learned both Chinese and English through grade school education. Throughout the years, I found Chinese to be helpful in giving me a different way to think when when pondering... Here is one account...

Julie SunJanuary 14, 2018Julie SunComment

#19: Making Lasting Change

About 22 months ago, I started playing with a “formula” to organize “making lasting change”.

One day I asked our brand new Fellow Amanda:

“What conditions are required to make lasting change?” and she set off for eight weeks thinking and writing and having fun with the topic.

Pip CoburnJanuary 12, 2018Pip CoburnComment

#18: Water Your Lettuce

It was a bit of a rough holiday season for my family. The day after Christmas we had to say goodbye to our beloved Golden Doodle Daisy. I’ll say this: cancer sucks. But, as she did for her 12 years on this earth, Daisy made things as easy for us as she possibly could. It was as beautiful, and immensely sorrowful as anything we’ve ever been through. Because of their unrelenting and unconditional love, there’s a saying that has been around for some time that says “we don’t deserve dogs”. I don’t know if we deserved Daisy or not. But I do know we are infinitely better humans because of her.

Robert RoseJanuary 10, 2018Rob RoseComment