One of my coaching friends asked me to sum up 2024 in a word, and set my intention for 2025 in a word, so I’ll start with that framing rather than the more stream-of-consciousness format from the last few year-in-review posts. 2024: Full For more context on why 2024 felt full, here’s what I did […]
Becoming more trauma-aware
My professional development investment for 2024 was completing the Trauma-Informed Coaching Certification program (TICC) with Thomas Hübl and Amy Elizabeth Fox, after hearing both of them multiple times on the Coaches Rising podcast. While I was familiar with many of the concepts shared in the program (Immunity to Change, Internal Family Systems (covered in chapter […]
The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Amazon link I hadn’t read any of Coates’s books since Between the World and Me, but I heard his interview with Trevor Noah, and knew I had to read his newest book, The Message, in part because the description of his visit to Palestine was controversial. Disclaimer: I recognize that Coates is only telling a […]
Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity, by David Bessis
Amazon link I wish I could remember who linked to David Bessis’s Twitter thread explaining that we teach math wrong, as that thread and this one on why math talent isn’t primarily driven by genetics convinced me to buy his book, which was a delight to read. Bessis believes that the way we talk about […]
What would make “founder mode” effective?
Paul Graham’s essay on founder mode has gone viral this weekend, with people I follow sharing their takes like Shreyas Doshi and Cedric Chin and Ed Batista. I felt like chiming in as well, as it draws together several threads of thinking I’ve had over the years, and ties into my current thinking about the […]
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, by Dr. Peter Attia
Amazon link I’ve had several friends recommend Attia’s book to me over the past year as a way to live a longer and more healthy life, so I recently read it as part of my 50th birthday activities. Attia’s main premise is that current medical practices are about delaying death, figuring out how to keep […]
Reflections from an aspiring elder
I turned 50 this week, which has prompted lots of thoughts and reflections. I won’t offer 100+ pieces of advice like Kevin Kelly or 50 thoughts like this guy, and I don’t know if I qualify as what Chip Conley calls a modern elder, but I did want to share a few principles that have […]
The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks
Amazon link I had heard of the work of Gay and Katie Hendricks, including Gay’s idea of the Zone of Genius (as opposed to the Zones of Excellence or Competence that most of us spend our lives in) or Katie’s idea of integrity as energetic wholeness ((which I heard described by Jim Dethmer). So when […]
Conversations for Action and Collected Essays, by Fernando Flores
Amazon link “Conversation is not merely a prelude to action, it is its very essence. … People don’t merely use language to communicate their desires about the future; they create the future in language together by making commitments to each other.” Reading The Unaccountability Machine reminded me of this book of essays by Fernando Flores, […]
The Unaccountability Machine, by Dan Davies
Amazon link I read an online excerpt of this book and was immediately intrigued by the idea of an “accountability sink”, which is a mechanism by which “The communication between the decision-maker and the decided-upon has been broken – they have created a handy sink into which negative feedback can be poured without any danger […]
