It’s hard to be a pioneer. It’s hard to create new things. Because if it’s something new, others don’t recognize it as having value. Create it anyway. If someone can do it better than you, can teach it better than you, or has already written it…it’s not your work. Your work is the work that…
The writer and playwright James Baldwin said, “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” These words carry so much truth and empowerment. It’s a reminder that the spaces where we truly belong—the ones that reflect our unique vision, voice, and values—don’t always exist yet. But that doesn’t mean they…
During the final hearing for my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, my advisor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi pulled me aside and whispered to me: “NEVER use the word heart in a job talk.” My Ph.D. dissertation was on how adults learn in everyday life and I’d mentioned the heart too many times. Mihaly could tell…
Spaces instigate transformation. During the civil rights movement, black churches were instrumental in creating change because they provided “free spaces” for people to meet. Churches were the places where people could come together to inspire one another, plot strategy, and catalyze change. Without those free spaces, the civil rights movement might not have happened. I…
I grew up in an ordinary, middle-class family in Iowa where I attended public schools. Through a stroke of fate, I was critically injured in a head-on collision in my 20s and received insurance money that allowed me to attend the Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. My fellow classmates were very different from…
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