The deeper meaning behind the Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness

October 16, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

Last year, I had a strong, visceral sense that Unreasonable Kindness was my next direction in life. It was so clear to me that I wanted to create a community of practice around that concept.

It's been almost a year now since I first had the idea, and I've come to a new level of realization of why I feel it's so important.

The Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness is a place to practice our creativity and imagination to resist injustice.

Here's what recently became clear to me, a hypothesis of why this work is vital from my perspective:

You are not the only one with a never-ending pile of unread books

October 13, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

I have a problem.

Well, let's call it a "problem".

It's possible you can relate.

The number of books I own seems to be growing at a rate faster than I am reading them...

"But it's not my faulttttttt..." I can hear my brain screaming on the inside, as if I am being asked to defend myself.

If I did have to build a defense, here are two key pieces of evidence I would provide:

Kindness is Community Care

October 6, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

"You'll never know how much it means that you showed up."

We heard this sentiment twice in the past week, once at the ICE offices to fight a neighbor's detention (and ultimate deportation this past weekend) and again at the vigil to honor the life of Percy Lee Hawkins III, a neighbor murdered by the Las Vegas police a year ago on Saturday.

Both the daughter of the neighbor who was deported and the parents of the neighbor who was killed couldn't put into words what it meant to them to have the community show up. To know that suffering in their families was felt as suffering for our entire community.

Kindness isn't just fluffy "random acts of kindness" actions. Kindness is deep community care and showing up when our neighbors are suffering. Kindness is letting neighbors know that they're not alone. Kindness is resisting injustice that is happening to people around us.

It's also resisting the seductive promise of individualism that says, "I'm fine, I don't have to care if it's not directly happening to me". That's not actually how it works when we're a web of humanity all sharing the same home on Earth.

May we start imagining a world where every single neighbor shows up to support all community members and we get to show up together in our joy, not only our grief.

Spoiler Alert: People who like Unreasonable Kindness are...unreasonably kind

September 15, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

This might seem obvious, but one of the best things about creating the Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness is being surrounded by unreasonably kind people.

Kind people understand the value of kindness towards other humans and are drawn to being in spaces with other kind people who are thinking about how to create more kindness in the world.

(That's a lot of kind in one sentence.)

The folks in our little experiment are wired for kindness.

Whether they're sending notes and goodies in the mail...

One framework we've created to help us practice self-kindness as a community

August 14, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

We're continually uncovering myths about kindness in our little secret society or places where kindness feels stuck or icky, based on what we've been taught by society.

One we discovered pretty early on is that self-kindness is one of the hardest kindnesses to give. It feels selfish! It doesn't count as kindness! It's easier to do kindness for others!

Buuuuuut, turns out (from multiple books), self-kindness is actually incredibly important.

Here was a quote from the book Keys to Kindness on the topic...

Beware the soul-sucking force of reasonableness

July 21, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

When I dreamed up this secret society, there was never any question that I wanted it to be specifically about unreasonable kindness. I don't think I could fully put it into words at the time why it was so important that it was unreasonable, but I recently found a phrase that made it crystal clear.

I was reading the book The Power of Moments (because my kind of Unreasonable Kindness wants to have hospitality and delight as part of it!), and they talk about the four kinds of moments we can create: Moments of Elevation, Moments of Insight, Moments of Pride, and Moments of Connection.

They share a collection of incredible stories where people have created special moments, including:

The Magic Hotel in Hollywood, CA that offers its guests a Popsicle Hotline where they can pick up the phone located at the pool at any time and order a free popsicle that gets delivered on a silver platter

The End of an Era

March 6, 2025 Lindsay Gordon

After sharing my thoughts about career twice a week for 8.5 years (!), I felt my attention shifting a few months ago and knew I needed to be quiet to listen to what was emerging.

I started feeling the pull of spontaneity, variety, and creativity, along with the pull to scale back my business and ramp up the work I do in my local community to fight for racial justice and our democracy.

During those few months of quiet and community focus, I found a tiny new bud of an idea that grabbed all of my soul. And so, I'm giving myself grace to evolve into my next era.

Today, I hang up my career coaching hat as my main thing.

It's been an incredible honor to work with so many courageous folks and discover what it looks like to truly do what's right for you in your career. (And let's be honest, I'll never stop talking about doing what's right for you).

But now it's time to evolve into that tiny idea...

I'm creating the Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness.

YOU HEARD ME. It's kindness time.

And here's why.

Cruelty blows and the level of cruelty blatantly on display in the US right now is making me pissed more than ever.

Cruelty against immigrants.
Cruelty against trans people.
Cruelty against poor people.
Cruelty against Black and brown people.

What a f*cking tired game that's played out over and over again by people who are set on dominating others.

It's time for a new game where we infuse strategic amounts of what I'm calling "unreasonable kindness" into this world. It's not random acts of kindness and it's not a cutesy naive 'can't we all just get along?'.

Unreasonable kindness is subversive. It interrupts the fear, disconnection, and loneliness that convinces us we're separate and out to get each other.

It restores faith in humanity.
It breaks the false narrative that no one cares and we're out here doing life alone.
It interrupts default cruelty.

And the thing I love most about unreasonable kindness is it's one of two things that reliably exit people out of white power groups. Kindness is powerful enough to disrupt the drug of white supremacy.

So that's... ya know... a 180 from career coaching :D

But that's who I want to be in the world at this phase. And honing your craft of creating unique ways to delight other humans in the face of cruelty is the evolution of what it looks like to have a life of options. To feel resilient and powerful in this moment rather than overwhelmed and frozen.

I'll be bringing together:

(1) Joyful people
(2) Ready to move from passively observing cruelty to actively creating kindness
(3) So that we can hone our craft and design unique moments of unreasonable kindness and delight that reconnect humanity

If that's you and you might be interested in being a founding member... send me a sign via invisible ink or pigeon (or DM)... I'll be on the lookout.

To the next chapter...

Celebrating the Journey: Right For YOU

July 19, 2024 Lindsay Gordon

As we reach a year and a half since the publication of Right For YOU, I want to take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the incredible journey this book has taken. It’s been an honor to see how it has impacted readers and garnered recognition in the literary world. Here’s a look back at some of the most memorable feedback and accolades Right For YOU has received so far.

My lane is speaking up about injustice.

May 28, 2024 Lindsay Gordon

If you think I shouldn’t be speaking up about the injustice I see in the world, I want to be very clear that I am not the right fit for you.

We aren’t a match, it’s not a good fit, and I’m definitely not right for you. That’s everything I advocate for in my business, you know how I feel about something not being right for you, so I honor your exit from my space if we’re not right for each other.

I have intentionally chosen to use my business platform to speak up for injustice when I see it for the past 8 years and will continue to do so.

It's OK to Have a Boring Job.

October 4, 2023 Lindsay Gordon

It’s OK to have a boring job.

(Am I even allowed to say that?)

I don’t think anyone ever tells us that it’s OK to have a boring job. It definitely doesn’t work for everyone. And it definitely does work for some people.

I only just recently noticed how revolutionary this message seems to be. I’ve been sharing it more and more often, the most recent time was at a workshop I co-hosted a few weeks ago. Participants kept coming up to me afterward saying how grateful they were to hear someone say that it was OK to have a boring job.

So now I’m on a mission to tell people that it’s OK to have a boring job if it works for them.

The peril of a “should” value

June 15, 2023 Lindsay Gordon

A participant at my workshop said one of the wisest things that I can't stop thinking about... "The peril of a "should" value can't be overstated."

When I've done values exercises in the past, it's usually involved picking values from a list, which for me, is the surest way to end up with a big ole list of "should" values.

But when you're making choices in line with "should" values, you're creating a recipe for disaster. You're taking action based off of external definitions of success that will never allow you to feel fulfilled in the ways that are meaningful to you.

Right For YOU Awarded “Must Read” Rating

April 20, 2023 Lindsay Gordon

I’m so grateful to Book Nerdection for reviewing my book (and awarding it the Must Read seal!) and for highlighting what I hoped for when I published the book.

It’s not your career, it’s your life.

December 9, 2022 Lindsay Gordon

I often get asked what makes me so passionate about what I do and I always give an unexpected answer.

I do my work so that people get to feel alive in their lives.

Not their careers. Their lives.

And yes, I'm a career coach, but I find that being unhappy in your career is one of the biggest barriers to feeling alive and engaged in your LIFE. So I help you move through the career challenges.

The freedom of being decided

July 26, 2022 Lindsay Gordon

I have a strong viewpoint that when you are undecided about what to do with your career, your life is on hold.

I have seen people waffle for 10+ years on all kinds of career questions.

Should I quit?
Would I actually enjoy going back to school?
Have I stayed at this company for too long?
Do I want to be on this career path?

And it's crushing, exhausting, and energy-draining to be undecided.

The good news is there's immense freedom in being decided.

What if you didn’t have to quit?

January 10, 2022 Lindsay Gordon

“Our fears make us forget how many safe steps you can and should take before you even think of leaving behind what you have.”

As someone whose entire focus is helping people know whether it’s time to move on from a company where they’ve invested a significant amount of time, I love this quote from the book Refuse to Choose.

As evidenced by the Great Resignation, many people are choosing to leave their jobs this year. Sometimes that is absolutely the right next step for someone, but based on my work with clients, people often quit because they have no idea what they want. And when that’s not clear, quitting can seem like the only choice you have.

The beauty of the “Affirmative No”

December 1, 2021 Lindsay Gordon

I recently came across Jeanne Safer’s concept of the “Affirmative No”.

She defines it as "the refusal to pursue a course of action that, on serious reflection, you discover is not right for you." and it immediately resonated with me and the work that I do.

When a promotion is a trap

November 29, 2021 Lindsay Gordon

A promotion is often a cause for celebration - more money, a better title, more responsibilities, etc - but when is it not?

For several of my clients, a promotion actually feels like a trap.

One framework to rule them all

October 11, 2021 Lindsay Gordon

In a coaching call this week, a client let the words slip that she was going to create a silly spreadsheet as part of her job search and I had to jump in and interrupt. I invited her to drop the word ‘silly’ to describe her spreadsheet as she was in the company of someone who LOVES a good spreadsheet.

Honestly, I get overly excited about a framework... and I’m assuming you do too. It's just so darn satisfying to see a beautiful framework with structure and process and a plan and... *swoon*.

I've been doing my work for years now and although I've created a lot of frameworks in my day (I was once called a framework creating machine and I loved it), I didn’t have a big unifying framework for all the work that I do until recently.

Why is there only one option for contribution in your job?

September 4, 2021 Lindsay Gordon

One of the biggest reasons that people often hover around a job search, wondering if they really need to make a change, is missing a sense of contribution in their role.

Here’s what it has sounded like to a few of my clients:

“What is important for me to do in this world before I go, and what are the strengths that I want to contribute toward that important thing?”

“I feel quite sad that I’m not realizing the potential I have. I’m wasting precious time on this earth with wasted energy that I could be contributing.”

“Now my pressure centers around the question of what am I doing with my life? What do I want to spend my time doing? This constant questioning of life’s big questions and feeling inadequate has me feeling overwhelmed and frozen.”

When your body is deemed unacceptable in the workplace

August 5, 2021 Lindsay Gordon

A lot of my work is (1) helping people make decisions they know they’ll be happy with and (2) helping people do what’s right for them in their careers. This can sound overly simplistic because there’s often much more at play than just what they get to decide.

The question we also need to ask is, who doesn’t get to be themselves at work? Who doesn’t get to make decisions that honor their values and preferences? Who has to abide by what society deems “professional” which is usually the values of white and Western employees?