A few years ago I had the good fortune to work with some amazing folks in Japan. We took a train from the hustle & bustle of Tokyo to a very quaint little city nestled in the mountains. When we arrived two hours later in Nara, Japan, the sun was just beginning to set behind [...]
At a meeting with a colleague the other day, I was asked an insightful question, “How did you manage the strong personalities that surely emerged during board meetings at your agency, especially when you were planning to resign?” My colleague was referring to the time in my career when I transitioned to a full-time consultant [...]
I like healthy competitions as much as the next person. Of course these days, competition takes on the form of an RFP (Request for Proposal) or a vote driven-crowd funding campaign to support programming for one of my non-profit clients. But back in the day, I was a fierce tennis competitor who had dreams of [...]
This past Sunday, my daughter and I donned our thermal underwear, our pussy hats, (thanks Christy Hallas) and our warmest sweaters and headed downtown to the 2nd Annual Women’s March. We weren’t trekking to a big city like Manhattan or Washington D.C., we like to attend smaller marches, ones that are eight miles from our [...]
Are you burning bridges without even knowing it? Are you confused sometimes when you get a less than enthusiastic reply from a donor, grant funder, supervisor, colleague, direct report or a vendor? Have projects that you thought were on course, suddenly explode, leaving you flabbergasted and defeated? If so, it may be time to examine [...]
Last weekend at the end of a two day video shoot, my tired tween spoke up and said, “I want my mom! I don’t want the producer, editor, or entrepreneur… I WANT MY MOM!” There was no need for clarification about what she was articulating. She had been patient, accommodating, helpful and pleasant even though [...]
In a recent meeting with a board member of an international non-profit, I was asked a question that stopped me in my tracks. “Grace, have you ever lived in a third world country?” My initial response was defensive, and mumbly, and I was immediately ashamed as I blundered through an explanation that was part apology [...]
Two experiences from yesterday are the impetus for this blog post, demonstrating that we have further work to do as a society to create places for respectable discourse and the exchange of opinions and ideas, and to eradicate sexism in all of our workplaces. In a meeting yesterday with executives who have high level positions locally [...]
Aaron Burr Jr. had some free advice for Alexander Hamilton in the now all-too-famous musical “Hamilton” created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. In Scene One, Burr states immediately upon meeting Hamilton, “Talk less, smile more,” encouraging Alexander to become more of an observer and less of an over-communicator. Great advice in this day and age when everyone seems [...]
Spinning, spinning! Many of us have been dealing with an increasingly turbulent atmosphere that has presented as violent hurricanes, the announcement of the ending of the DACA program, a healthcare system in dangerous limbo, and public demonstrations of racist, threatening and viciously unkind human behavior. Even if we are not affected personally, many of us [...]