It’s been a long time since I went on a writing retreat to start playing around with ideas for a teaching book. That retreat scared the bejesus out of me — WHO THE HELL AM I?!?! was my inner dialog — but it was also a necessary spark to get me stepping into the idea …
I’ve been getting excited about writing up my annual review of the best books I read last year … this is my fifth such annual review, and I have so much great stuff to share with you this year! According to Goodreads, I read 139 books, totaling 39,970 pages, in 2019. My reading productivity benefited …
** With apologies to Harry Potter fans for butchering the line. I spend about six hours a week staring at a video feed of myself whilst holding virtual office hours (which I call drop-in student hours, because not everyone knows what “office hours” means). During that time, I typically have very few students actually swing …
At 6:34 pm (central) on Friday, September 18, my cell phone pinged to alert me to an incoming text message. I glanced at the screen. My pulse accelerated rapidly at the two words that appeared under the name of a former student–one with whom I traveled to Washington, DC, last May for a two-week learning …
I recently blogged about a variety of things clustered around emotion at work — psychological safety, leadership in challenging times, etc. — and did so in a vague-ish way, because I’m painfully aware that I’m not in a position to speak freely about some of the trickier aspects of my work life. You can deduce …
I’ve wanted to write this blog post for a long time. Maybe as long as a year — maybe more. But when I read the book No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, by Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy, I knew it was time. But any time you want to …
Follow your bliss … and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be Joseph Campbell As a high school senior, the Joseph Campbell quote about following your bliss spoke to me. I couldn’t now say where this instinct originated; what about my first 18 years suggested that my bliss would lead …
Disclaimer: I’m a bit of a Jen Louden #fangirl. It’s possible I’d like to be her new BFF… but I promise, that aspiration is a result of reading her book, and not the reason I’m about to gush about it. In tackling an important but challenging topic, Jen Louden brings a tricky balance of hard-won …
This morning, I was driving over to my local drive-thru to get a little something to eat. It was a foggy morning in Monteagle — not at all unusual up here in our mountain hamlet. At one point, I was approaching a popular intersection and a pickup truck was looking like he was going to …
A moment of self-awareness demands that I admit that I have a problem saying ‘no’ to good ideas. If there’s something that my time/effort/attention could make better for the world or another person (or lots of people), I’m apt to knee-jerk commit to the project with little reflection on whether, realistically, I have the time …
