I am grateful for the extended break from global travel–which largely consumed 40-50% of my time for the past 5 years. This break allows me way more time to hike in our beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York (loving the Gaia GPS app), grow and harvest veggies in the garden, read, meditate and cook more with all those fresh veggies.

At Humentum, I am working with the team to pivot all of our programming to a digital-first orientation. We are actively exploring strategies for localizing and decolonizing global development and humanitarian work. And, of course, I am thinking about leadership and reflecting on ways to re-energize with my leadership approach for the remainder of 2020.

I just finished in a six-week online course, The Quality of Attention, with Ven. Dhammadipa from Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery.

Summer reading so far: for fiction, I just read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. For non-fiction, I have competed Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, North by Scott and Jenny Jurek. I am working on Mindful of Race by Ruth King and am reading (slowly) Being Time by Shinshu Roberts.

Empathy matters, but is just the first step to Compassion in Leadership:

1. Being fully present to someone(s) anger, fear, anxiety, or overwhelm.

2. Asking yourself “Is there something I can do to help?”

3. Having the wisdom to recognize and accept that sometimes the answer to question number 2 is no. Yet committing to being fully present anyway.

Updated August 10, 2020 from Ithaca, NY USA

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)