As we reach almost three and a half years 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.
Read moreThe Joy of Choosing Courage and Aliveness
My heart is so full today, friends.
It's been 7 months and 11 days since the inaugural meeting of the Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness, and while it's still very new and there's so much I want to build and grow in the community, yesterday I had the overwhelming feeling that it's doing what I hoped it would do.
It's inspiring people to be courageous.
And it's causing people to feel aliveness.
That is bringing tears to my eyes.
Read moreIt's OK to Have a Boring Job.
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.
Read moreI wasn't prepared for this at the local school board meeting
Tonight I went to my first local school board meeting. There was a recent incident (educators being removed from their classrooms for social media posts on their personal accounts) and the group I organize with was asked to show up in support of the educators and their 1st amendment rights.
I spent the day preparing myself for a potentially combative environment (it’s been quite wild in the past) and another experience with MAGA supporters up close, but I don’t think I was prepared for what I ultimately encountered.
That room was filled with dehumanization…
Read moreThe peril of a “should” value
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.
Read moreDoes kindness really have an impact?
Today I'm digging into a new book, Radical Kindness (written by the creator of Blues Clues and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, and protégé of Fred Rogers!) and I want to share one theme that keeps on emerging in our secret society.
Kindness is deeply connected to awareness, to noticing, to attunement.
Random acts of kindness, or confetti kindness as the book Deep Kindness calls it, is fine, but the unreasonable kindness we're cultivating is far deeper than that. It requires skills and intention and being aware of and attuned to ourselves and the people around us.
Here's the section from Radical Kindness that inspired me today and almost reads like a poem:
Read moreIt’s not your career, it’s your life.
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.
Read moreThe deeper meaning behind the Secret Society of Unreasonable Kindness
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:
Read moreYou are not the only one with a never-ending pile of unread books
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:
Read moreThe freedom of being decided
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.
Read moreKindness is Community Care
"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.
What if you didn’t have to quit?
“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.
Read moreSpoiler Alert: People who like Unreasonable Kindness are... unreasonably kind
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...
Read moreOne framework we've created to help us practice self-kindness as a community
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...
Read moreBeware the soul-sucking force of reasonableness
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
My lane is speaking up about injustice.
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.
Read moreRight For YOU Awarded “Must Read” Rating
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.
Read moreThe beauty of the “Affirmative No”
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.
Read moreWhen a promotion is a trap
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.
Read moreOne framework to rule them all
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.
Read more