For many of us, deeper understanding comes only in conversation with another. That is often the case with my friend Paul McAleer and me. After meeting at the 2013 IA Summit, we immediately realized that many of the same topics were on our minds and questions in our hearts. We started having some pretty spectacular [Keep Reading…]
Season 2 of Designing Yourself
Guys, so much awesome stuff is going on, I just can’t contain myself! You know Paul McAleer and I host a podcast called Designing Yourself, right? On March 3, we finally released our first episode of 2014, titled Good Intentions and featuring an AMAZING interview with Gina Trapani. Gina is the founder of Lifehacker, Todo.txt [Keep Reading…]
Where Compassion is Born
An excerpt from my dialogue with Paul McAleer on our podcast Designing Yourself, Episode #9: Embracing the Suffering (originally aired October 1, 2013), with minimal editing for readability. The things we don’t like in others are the things we don’t fully understand. It’s a sign we haven’t gone out of our way to develop empathy [Keep Reading…]
Listeners of Designing Yourself: We Want to Hear from You!
As Paul and I head into our second season of Designing Yourself, we want to bring new voices into the mix. We’ll be interviewing guests, taking audience questions, and finding new ways to extend the conversation beyond Paul and me. If you have a question you want us to answer on-air, a topic for a [Keep Reading…]
I am a Writer
An excerpt from my dialogue with Paul McAleer on our podcast Designing Yourself, Episode #8: Sam I Am (originally aired September 24, 2013), with minimal editing for readability. I was a Professional Writing major in college — after I switched from Computer Science and before I picked up Human-Computer Interaction as a double major. Writing [Keep Reading…]
Nothing is Permanent but Change
No man ever steps in the same river twice for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” — Heraclitus We talk about change as though it’s something that happens once in a while, we’re “going through a period of change,” as though it isn’t happening all of the time. Change is [Keep Reading…]
Confidence on the Inside
I don’t want to be invulnerable. I don’t want to be in a state where I can’t be penetrated, where I can’t be influenced, where I can’t be molded in some way. I want to be vulnerable. I just want to be at peace with that vulnerability, and that’s something I haven’t been able to [Keep Reading…]
You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)
Other People’s Podcasts! What what! Hosting your own podcast is a heck of a lot of fun (or co-hosting, in my case, with Paul McAleer!), but every now and then it’s nice to be on the other side of the mic, so to speak. I’ve been lucky to be a guest on a few great [Keep Reading…]
A Little Bit
One of the assignments that was given to me in the first session of my coaching course is a daily meditation or “sitting” practice. The assignment, as it is written on the sheet of paper in my binder, is to sit for 30 minutes in a chair, eyes gently closed or looking down in front [Keep Reading…]
Empathy for Ourselves
We’re in this situation where we have a finite period of time, we really need to pay close attention to this person. We need to concentrate. We need to focus. And we need to go into it with the intent of gaining understanding, of challenging our assumptions, of teasing out the problems and needs and [Keep Reading…]
