On Saturday, I dropped my son off at a birthday party, and then found a bench in the sun, where I read for 2 hours, finishing up Your Brain on Art while soaking up the rays.
I could have closed the book, given myself a pat on the back for finishing yet another book, and gone on my way. But I didn't. Last night, in community with others, I took my SOLO READING into a SOCIAL ENDEAVOR. We didn't talk about Your Brain On Art -- we EXPERIENCED it.
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Yesterday, I finished off a book circle with a group of leaders and invited them to give me honest feedback about the process.
"Change the title." "The book was interesting, but not the key." "Reading is not at the center." It's part of the reason that I don't call my work a book club - we don't really even talk about the book all that much 🤣 Instead, we EXPERIENCE the book in a myriad of ways. Have you ever walked down the street, listening to a book or podcast, and had tears streaming down your face?
If so, we're in the same club. If not, I invite you to listen to Reunion by Jerry Colonna. Inspired by Dani Saveker and her Visual Synopsis, I started it last week and am floored by how much I am taking in, and how much my heart is opening to those around me, including those it's very easy for me to judge. I wasn't sure what to expect when I used my Audible credit for this one.
It was recommended to me by Danielle Kayal , SPHR, ACC to read as part of our Emerge Leadership Book Circle, and although it wasn't chosen, I still was intrigued. It reminded me of Brené Brown's saying, "People are hard to hate close up. MOVE IN." (from her book Braving the Wilderness) In our polarized world, I wonder how much we spend judging people from afar, as opposed to getting closer to them, and truly knowing them. I've never considered myself very artistic in the traditional sense.
Creative, yes. Artistic, no. When I was at university, we had a mandatory art class requirement. I waited until the last semester of my last year to take the class. You know it's been a good session when you get off the call with more energy than when you went into it.
And when your face is sore. Yesterday, I hosted my first NeverDoneBefore session with my co-lead of the month, Tanja Murphy-Ilibasic and we had such a great time! The monthly theme at NDB is MOTIVATION, so Tanja and I planned around that theme combined with book reading. (It was a BYOB, after all.) Each of the participants brought a couple quotes with them to the session, and after a "Quote Quiz" to determine if we could identify the books, we put on our creative hats and wrote poetry. "Can you start your stopwatch?"
Every Sunday night, my son pulls out his reading fluency worksheet, and asks me to pull out my stop watch. His goal is to read as many words in one minute as he can. He has 5 tries. As you can guess, he gets progressively better as he re-reads the same text over and over again. Last night, I was "regular" reading with him and realized that he is so predisposed to read quickly, that he doesn't pause at the commas. This afternoon I will have my last session with an organization's exploration of the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Although the book focuses mostly on individual habit creation and deletion, throughout our work together, we expanded to the organizational level, and looked at the collective habits that are impeding their progress to meet their goals. These are some of the "bad" habits that they outlined when we started:
When I was in my teacher training during University, one of my students was shot and killed in a drive-by.
That was the kind of neighborhood I worked in. I was young, white, and totally naive, working in a disadvantaged, and predominantly black community of Boston. It was where I wanted to be, but I had so much to learn. To say that my first few months were a struggle, would be an understatement. Inside this little square is a list of people whose opinion of me matters. It only has a handful of names -- including my own. I made this list over a decade ago after taking an online course with Brené Brown. Today I have a slightly different list. The names have shifted, but there is still only a handful. Even though it's a short list, that doesn't mean that these are the ONLY people whom I go to for advice or feedback. |
Hi there!I am Theresa Destrebecq. |