Just because you had a good user experience at a nonprofit or a church or an academic institution does not mean that it’s going to be a good place to work. There are people who did well in school and they become professors or teachers or people who had a significant religious experience and they […]
Author Archives: detinnyc
You can only change yourself.
I recently made a video about how misogyny is reflected in our language, and somebody asked for a follow up post about how we can shift our language. The main thing with any behavior is you can’t shift anyone but yourself. What we can do is model it and set boundaries around how people are […]
Raisins: A Lenten Tale of Death and Rebirth
I was recently on my way to the grocery store, because my mom is visiting soon and I’m was going get some of her favorite things. One of those is this cereal that has raisins and dates and nuts. It reminded me of something I learned recently about raisins. They were born of adversity on […]
Humans are terrible at predicting what will make us happy.
Humans are pretty universally terrible at predicting what will make them happy. Lori Santos teaches about this in a class on happiness at Yale, and one of her favorite examples is talking to strangers in public. Pretty much all of us think our lives will be worse off if we talked to strangers in public. […]
‘Little Lady’ is not the corresponding nickname for ‘Little Man’.
I made a video about how we call boy babies ‘Little Man’, but we never call girl babies, ‘Little Woman’. I got a lot of responses that we say, ‘Little Lady, and so it’s the same. I would submit that it is not the same, because male is something assigned at birth, and then man […]
To be empathetic, you must have this one thing.
Brene Brown recently studied empathetic people. Like, really empathetic people. People who have devoted their life to empathy, like nuns and monks. She thought that the thing that would be most in common with them is something along the lines of empathy: ability to care, ability to give. You know, what was the most consistent […]
Why you still subconsciously think leaders are white men…
How much content are you consuming that was created by women and people of color? It may seem like a fluffy question, and yet, it has so much to do with your unconscious bias. You can think you believe in equality, but your brain is going to do something else, and your unconscious bias (your […]
The Secret to the Path of Opportunities
I cannot tell you how often coaching clients are working towards something, and a better opportunity comes out of left field. But I can tell you it is not random. Here’s how I think about it: They are on a path through, say, a forest. They have decided where their destination is, and that this […]
What we’re asking about leaders
Do you have unofficial holidays that mark your years and help you see how you and the people around you have grown? For me, one of those is The Extravaganza. It’s a gathering of Lutherans who focus on Children, Youth and Family Ministry throughout the United States. Over my decades of attendance I’ve taken on […]
How we gather matters.
Too often we assume that everyone in the room knows why we gathered. It could be a meeting, a dinner party, a worship service, or a convention (I’m actually at a great one right now!). Gathering out of habit or for unclear purposes no longer works. In her book “The Art of Gathering,” Priya Parker […]