"You Are Not Alone"--Rhimes

Here is a great section from a speech by Shonda Rhimes given to the Human Rights Campaign on 14 March 2015.

     I don’t know if anyone has noticed but I only ever write about one thing: being alone. The fear of being alone, the desire to not be alone, the attempts we make to find our person, to keep our person, to convince our person to not leave us alone, the joy of being with our person and thus no longer alone, the devastation of being left alone. 

      The need to hear the words: You are not alone.

       The fundamental human need for one human being to hear another human being say to them:  "You are not alone.  You are seen.  I am with you.  You are not alone."



As found in Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person (New York, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2015) p. 234.

Spaulding on Striving for Magic

In an interview on the Public Radio show Bullseye, Jazz Musician Esperanza Spaulding talked about the impact of "Petrushka" by Igor Stravinsky on her.


The rest of this wash of glorious futuristic surrealist magical organic architecture
Like erupting up out of the ground around you
. . . . .
 And heard the meaning of this composition
And I was gob-smacked
And completely turned inside out
In a way where I was like “ I suck. Stop being so wimpy and thinking all this bull doodo”
This is what I am here for
This dude is right
He is modelling what is possible if you don’t be little whiny wimp and work really hard and do magic and strive for magic.









Full Interview
http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-rachel-bloom-esperanza-spaulding
20 June 2016  Episode

What is a Whisper?: Radiolab

RadioLab interviewed writer Kent Meyers about the Sanford Underground Research Facility and the small signal resulting from dark matter detection.  Meyers gave an amazing analogy of a whisper.

The universe whispering to us.
The whisper in human nature. 
The whisper is the point when we really 
We want to speak intensely to a single person. 
We whisper at funerals 
We whisper in the presence of awesome things in nature. 
It's that sense. Reduced use of the voice.
Drops down and drops down 
Only goes in the ear it was intended for 

 http://www.radiolab.org/story/xenon/


 

Orlando and Leadership Reflections

The mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando is awful tragedy.  Acts of leadership often emerge from tragedies, trials, and immense challenges.  Here are three quotes that reflect solid leadership in the aftermath of this tragedy.

"And he said we just - we need the president to help us to start to heal, to stabilize this community because we've gone through such a trauma. And so we appreciate so much that he - you know, the busiest man in the world took time out to come see us and give his condolences."
--German Lemus, Orlando artist in public radio interview commenting on President Obama's visit.
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482362913/obama-biden-visit-with-victims-of-orlando-mass-shooting


"He hugged me like a brother."
Family member of victim on President Obama visit, in a public radio story.

From a New York Times article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis:  "He grasps for words of sympathy, comfort and condolence and offers long, tight embraces that the mourners will remember far more vividly than his words. His visit to Orlando came four days after the massacre. Accompanied by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the president entered the Amway Center, about two miles from the club, and the two men took turns hugging and grieving with the scores of people who lost sons, daughters, siblings, partners and friends."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/politics/obama-orlando-shooting.html


"An attack against gay Americans in Orlando is an attack against each one of us."
--Dr. Ronnie Floyd, outgoing president, Southern Baptist Convention, during an annual meeting
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482362969/southern-baptist-convention-urges-churches-to-welcome-refugees

Good Quotes 2016

"It isn't the sort of thing you ask questions about, because the answers are not usually answers you want to know."
     Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale

Tempered Radicals:  Cautious catalysts whose small victories, won over time, lay the groundwork for something grander.
     Kathryn Winters, as found in Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner


Sunday's a day of rest. 
all important things should be forgotten. 
From "dead dog" by Charles Bukowski


"Those who will not risk cannot not win."
     John Paul Jones


"I knew I had more in the tank, and to be able to go out there and put the pieces together and pull it out."
    Michelle Carter, 2016 Gold Medalist


I decide that the only definition of 
Truth (which changes) 
is that it is that thing or act or 
belief which the crowd 
rejects 
From”people as flowers” by Charles Bukowski


Billy Strayhorn's "four major moral freedoms": freedom from hate, unconditionally; freedom from self-pity (even through all the pain and bad news); freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might possibly help another more than it might himself and freedom from the kind of pride that might make a man think that he was better than his brother or his neighbor.


From Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoesky

"I know she would sooner go to the plantation as a negro slave, or live like a Latvian serf in a Baltic German household, than degrade her spirit and her moral feeling by a union with a man whom she does not respect and with whom she has nothing in common."

"Men of business are not shame-faced."


"I instantly love Naples.  Wild, raucous, noisy, dirty, balls-out Naples.  An anthill inside a rabbit warren, with all the exoticism of a Middle Eastern bazaar and a touch of New Orleans voodoo.  A tripped-out, dangerous and cheerful nuthouse."
From Eat, Prey, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Epigraphs from Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson

In his book Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson start each chapter with a great quote.  Here are several of them.


Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is open.
 --Jim Butcher

 The greatest carver does the least cutting
--Lao-Tzu

 Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.
 --Charlie Parker

 And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it
--Roald Dahl

 The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
--Tom Waits

 It is more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy
--Steve Jobs

 When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.
--Tuli Kuperberg

 To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
--George MacDonald

 Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.
--Will Durant

 Connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.
--Brené Brown

 Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.
--Chinese proverb


Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty, Eleven Rings:  The Soul of Success (New York, The Penguin Press, 2013)

Malai Yousafzai and Neimoller's Poem--"They came for me"

One interesting fact that Malali Yousafzai mentions in her biography is that her father carried a copy of Martin Niemoller's poem

First they came for the communist,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I was not a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one lift to speak for me.


As found in Malala Yousafzai, I am Malala (New York, Back Bay Books, 2013).

Good quotes 2015

(Describing a poor archery bow.)
"A knot-riddled branch broken from a cross-grained tree by a blind idiot in the middle of the night."
Robert Jordan in The Fires of Heaven


"You can't have the fruits without the roots."
--Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People


"Trust generates commitment; commitment fosters teamwork; and teamwork delivers results."
--Jon Gordon in Soup


"Art Share should always have at least one broken door knob because the last dollar should go to an artist."
--Rick Robinson at "Above the Streets"


"Jashinski’s work insists we do not overlook the everyday beauty that surrounds us, and for him, this beauty lies in life’s imperfections."
--Noah Jashinski, photographer, for Art Share LA exhibit


“If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality.”
--Jean-Luc Godard

Nurturing Image: Splint Supporting Plant--Perry

On her public radio show On Being, Krisa Tippett had a great conversation with Princeton Professor Imani Perry.  During that conversation they discussed a blog post that Perry made.  In that post, there was a great analogy for nurturing.

Have you ever seen a small plant that has a splint holding it up? Growers do that when the plant is precious, but the ground on which it sits isn’t quite right for that little green shoot to flourish.

Perry was referring to nurturing children, but this imag can be applied to any nurturing situation.


Conversation at On Being: http://www.onbeing.org/program/imani-perry-the-fabric-of-our-identity/6747

Blog Post at The Hairpin: http://thehairpin.com/2013/07/teaching-trayvon

Before Happiness by Achor: Practical Suggestions

In his book, Before Happiness, Shawn Achor provide numerous suggestions for sustaining positive change and achieving success.  On useful thing is that at the end of the chapters, he provides application suggestions.

Here are a few "Making it Practical " suggestions.

Diversity your meaning portfolio.  Write down a list right now of as many meaning markers in your life as you can. Aim for at least ten, and be specific.  Instead of just "money" or "family," yours might include "Be a positive role model for my son" or "Find time to read more" or "Do more adventuresome travel with my family."  And be sure to look for meaning markers in all areas of you life, not just a few corners.

Noise-check your life.  Check to see if information coming in meets the criteria of noise:  unusable, untimely, hypothetical, or distracting.  If so, eliminate it.

Give yourself a head start.  Design your goals with some progress already worked in.  For example, if yo have just started exercising and you wan tot continue it by making it a habit chart, design the exercise checkoff list wiht several days already checked off instead of starting at day 1.

Make your goals visible.   Create a realistic and meaningful digital slideshow or wall in your office wiht pictures or words representing goals you would like to accomplish.  Remember, thes goals must be (1) realistic, (2) meaningful, and (3) possible in the near future.

Book: Shawn Achor, Before Happiness;  The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change (New York, Crown Business 2013).