Last night, as I arrived at my brother's house for a family dinner to start the Rosh Hashanah holiday, I received an email from Irwin Kula, my friend and teacher. After expressing his wishes for me and Bari and our family for the new year, he concluded with a piece of Torah:
"...the key practice is shofar ...the job to get done ... hear the blast and wake up wake up to the gift of our life ...wake up wake up to our humanity ...wake up wake up to all we can be."
Read MoreIn June 2017, I was invited to visit the island of Osaki Kamijima as part of a delegation of AshokaU Change Leaders from College of the Atlantic, Brown, Cornell, Hamilton College and The New School. The delegation was hosted by Hiromi Nagao, a dynamic leader and former university president, who has partnered with the Mayor (Yukinori Takata), a business leader (Okamoto-san), and a religious leader around a vision to create a new college on the island.
Read MoreLast night I had the honor and privilege of witnessing a tribute to a great man. A man who lives by a few simple rules that have guided him as a leader in his work, his community and his family. And wow, his accomplishments are impressive. I was an honored guest at the retirement party of Eastern Bank CEO, Richard Holbrook. Although I had never met him, I left a fan. And inspired.
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I’m honored to be speaking tonight. In a way, it feels strange, because so much of this fellowship has been about the importance of closing your mouth and listening. So, I’m going to close my mouth now and ask you all to give this speech tonight. Nah just kidding.
If future me had told past me that one day I’d be standing here graduating from the Social Innovation Fellowship, I would have laughed and then googled “social innovation.” But here I am. And here we are. And what a journey it’s been.
Read MoreAt the end of Tuesday’s class, one of the students asked if the profit motive in hybrid organizations necessarily created conflict between the social goals of the organization and the profit / financial sustainability goals. I quickly jumped in with an advertisement for the module on business models - and promised that this question would be explored in greater detail during that module. Aarish pushed back because he interpreted the question through the lens of the individual’s motivations to enrich themselves - and he felt that mixing mission and personal profit motives is difficult to navigate and more so to justify
Read MoreWhenever I attend an celebration for a close friend or family member - a bar mitzvah, a wedding, or an important birthday party - I try to mark the occasion with the "right" outfit. I try to find something that reflects my relationship with that person, the people who will be invited, and the location and tone of the event. I want my outfit to show how excited I am for the event and often buy a new outfit so I can remember them whenever I wear the outfit. I don't think I could ever articulate what I was looking for before I arrive at the store but somehow I always "feel" that my selection is "just right" and arrive at the event excited to begin the celebration.
I sometimes tell this story to students who are trying to sift through dozens of career options as they plan their first job search. The decision feels important and consequential and they want to make a start choice. I try to help them reflect on different experiences they’ve had as a student leader, in internships and from their own research to identify fields of work, functional roles, and modes of working that they feel they would enjoy and that are well suited to their skills and personality.
Read MoreA few months ago, I watched an episode of Chef's Table on Netflix about Grant Achatz, the chef of Alinea. Our family visited the restaurant during a college visit in 2010 and the experience transcended any expectations about going to a restaurant. The show added additional layers to my experience and further, defined for me what it means to be innovative. Grant Achatz creative leadership of Alinea illuminates better than any other story the potential of innovation to completely transform - in his case, what it means to visit a restaurant, to dine, to eat. Alinea is a fully immersive experience that engages visitors (for me, "diner" doesn't do it) with all of our senses and then some ... for example, curiosity, surprise & silliness.
Read MoreIt's been two months since Mom has been on Tarceva and the turnaround in her health is nothing short of miraculous. Her recent scans showed significant reduction of cancer in her body and her symptoms from the disease are gone. Are family is approaching another milestone next week when we gather as a family to "unveil" Murray's headstone and mark the end of the formal mourning period after his passing.
Bari and I are hosting the family at our home after a brief graveside ceremony and Mom has kicked into action to make sure every detail is ready. Mind you, she's doing this to minimize the work we need to do to host the event - but Mom can be a bit compulsive about completing tasks when she's got them on her "list". First a phone call to ask if we need paper plates, then an email with the same request, followed by a nudge to remind me to respond. I should be able to respect her urgency to finish the planning and a) respond quicker or b) not get annoyed about the whole thing - but I react as is my nature with a bit of attitude and a touch of frustration.
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