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Schools or Students? Education Reform in Alaska

It sounds really altruistic and selfless to forgo a PFD in favor of education. I mean, after all, it’s all about the children. And a cut to education seems very much like an affront to children everywhere. How could Governor Dunleavy be so cruel? 

But let’s calm down and take a step back for a moment. When we use the word “education” what are we really talking about? As a former public school teacher, “education” brings to mind to a myriad of activities— only a fraction of which were devoted to actual learning. I used to think, “If I only had enough time to actually TEACH as a teacher, I could accomplish so much more.” I realized that teachers like me were doing the best they could under the circumstances. It was the circumstances that bothered me. There were extra-curricular responsibilities, there were very detailed expectations, there was school spirit, there was new technology, new school wide initiatives, meetings, the inevitable behavioral issues— the list went on and on. I realized that much of the theory I had been taught in my college courses was very difficult to actually accomplish in this type of environment. 

The problem I found was that the educational system I was a part of had become somewhat of a beast. You know how it is. Most of you have attended public school at some point in your life. School is generally all about the system. All about getting to your class on time, all about getting the assignments in, all about the grade, understanding expectations, surviving socially. Only precious few moments was it about your interests, your capacity, the rate you needed to learn, or who you were going to become. I know it sounds like I’m dogging on schools, but I’m not. I’m sure there are many great public schools and maybe some of you are part of them. We should reward thriving schools, and I’ll get to that in a bit. 

In industrial age of our nation, public schooling was patterned in such a way that its purpose was to train people to work in factories. Everyone learned the same basic skills and were put into neat little rows with cookie cutter expectations. Today, as much as we try to spice up the system, the system (as systems do) has remained largely the same. The more the system grows, the more money we feed it— the more of a beast it becomes. Subtly the children, and even parents, are there to serve the beast and not the other way around. 

I know we don’t like to talk about it, but there is very real politicking that goes on in schools, such that it makes it hard for educators or parents to make bold changes in favor of student outcomes. As the monolith beast grows, more rules and red tape gets rolled out. In order to put all those directives in place, more support staff are hired. The more support staff are hired, the larger the beast grows. 

I am a valley girl— from the San Fernando Valley in LA county, California. For my first four years of school, I attended the LA Unified school district. A school that poured tons of finance into their schools. And yet, you wouldn’t know to look at it. We had short blue pencils with no erasers. There was one eraser on a rope that 5 desks of students shared. The soap in the bathroom was grainy and rough—they couldn’t even afford liquid hand soap. The playground was more like a war zone and I was terrified to enter the bathrooms during recess. This was not a place where I could thrive. I realize that this is extreme, and not at all what schools are like here.

My point is that I’ve seen firsthand how more money does not equal better education. We have seen that we as a state that have invested more money into our education than most states in the union— with very little to show for it. If you hired a mechanic to fix your car and saw no change, but actually left your car worse off than when you handed it over to him. You wouldn’t agree to give him more money, you’d take your money elsewhere. 

It’s time that we parents and citizens alike stop falling for the line that funding “education” is the same thing as funding learning. Let’s call it what it is. What we are really talking about is school funding, and in many cases “beast feeding.” And it’s not that we should halt all funding to all schools, but we should begin thinking about new strategies for student success. We should be funding the schools where parents see their kids thriving. Yes, I’m talking about school choice. I know we have great school choice options in Alaska. Great! I am thankful. But we can do better. We can leverage school choice to solve our educational crisis. 

What do we have to really measure public schools? Test scores. Test scores have their place, but test scores are limited. Who knows whether their kids are thriving in their environments? It’s the parents. When we move toward school choice options, parents get to put their money where the learning is. 

Instead of blindly relying on the failure of the beast, it’s time for us independent Alaskans to roll up our sleeves and begin opening our minds to creative possibilities for how we are to train the next generation of thinkers. I applaud Governor Dunleavy on his commitment to empowering students and their parents with school choices. Maybe now is the perfect time for a radical overhaul of the system that has become the beast. 

In Alaska we spend upwards of $20,000 per child for one year- the second highest in the entire US. Parents, can you imagine what you could do with that money if you had the choice to educate your children the way you saw fit? Or even half of those funds?

Instead many of you are made to feel guilty if you don’t seem as though you are “supporting the school.” Never feel guilty for putting your child’s learning concerns ahead of the school system. Alaskan parents of public school students need to rise up and say, “Enough is enough. We should have the rights as individuals to decide where and how our kids our educated, regardless of our resources.” 

We know that Alaska is very supportive of homeschooling. If you register with a homeschool charter, you can get funding for your child’s education. It’s only a few thousand a year (a mere fraction of what the public school spends), but it’s very helpful for struggling families. A few years ago a study followed Alaskan homeschoolers who were low income and what they found was that, compared to higher income families, the low income students gained the most from those homeschool funds being directed right into their homes. Think about it. They are surrounded by books and curriculum that hasn’t been there before. The results are particularly pronounced in reading, which is the area that has been our biggest educational deficit. Maybe parents opt to use the funds to take an online class or get a tutor. Maybe it’s just peace and quiet that they need away from all the school drama, to get a chance to get more rest in the mornings— that they are really able to thrive. We don’t have all the reasons for why they excel, but the data is clear that they do. 

And it’s not just homeschoolers. All over the nation, we find that the more school choice options there are, the better lower income students fare. See this simple slideshow for the data. Countries around the world are benefitting from the success of schools who are competing for the privilege to educate each child. Many families cannot put the time into educating their children at home, but they could be empowered to choose any school they desired that was the best fit for their child. 

Now, let’s join that conversation with the one about PFDs. The fact that PFDs are given to every person in the state is rare but wonderful part of our way of life here in Alaska. It celebrates the empowerment of the individual. In Alaska, the PFD empowers families. Some families put away their PFDs for their child’s continuing education. Some families use the PFD to go to work right away to pay bills and put food on the table. PFDs benefit families, benefit the economy, and give power to the individuals INCLUDING the children of Alaska. 

Making cuts in school funding is not hurting children— not unless we let it. Sure, it might hurt administrators and superintendents and all those who’ve come to rely on the school for its financial reason for existing, but it won’t harm our students unless parents decide it will. It doesn’t need to hurt teachers, unless teachers buy into the line that it will. As a teacher who cared about real education and real learning outcomes for students, I longed to get out of “the system” and work in a place that was on the cutting edge of educational strategies. I longed to leave the establishment and embrace a long overdue step forward in educational advancement for a new generation. 

It doesn’t have to be all about the government or the school board or even about test scores unless we want it to be. It’s about educational outcomes for each individual student. Some students thrive on competition, while others loathe it. Some students are made for engineering while others are made to stand on a stage and perform. If we continue to feed the voracious beast, who knows what genius we will have left untapped? Who knows what passions will be silently snuffed out? Let’s feed our kids what they need instead.

We are in both an educational and a financial crisis in Alaska. Perhaps this is a great opportunity for the government to agree with our willing Governor to step back a little and give power back to Alaskans and watch us solve each of these crises for ourselves. 

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The Top Tog/Underdog Phenomenon

Show Notes for Podcast Season 1, Episode 3

How People Live Around the World

Check out how your income measures up to people in the rest of the world.

Here’s an article on why virtually everyone thinks they’re middle class.

If you haven’t listened in yet, listen here:

The Top Dog/Underdog Phenomenon

Many thanks to Dan Jurusz for being a brilliant sounding board for all of these ideas!

If you’d like to send me a clip telling me how it became a disadvantage for you to be so advantaged, you can email me at leigh@leighsloan.com. Or visit me on my Facebook page and message me there!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and rate it on iTunes!

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Blacklisted

Show notes for Season 1, Episode 1.

Click the link above to listen to this episode.

Or Koran 4:47 “O you who were given the Scripture, believe in what We have sent down [to Muhammad], confirming that which is with you, before We obliterate faces and turn them toward their backs or curse them as We cursed the sabbath-breakers. And ever is the decree of Allah accomplished.”

In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 The Apostle Paul says this, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. …” 

James Walpole says it like this: “Public shaming enforces outward compliance, not internal change.”

To learn more about my guest, Gene McConnell, visit his website, authenticrelationshipsint.com.

Click above to listen to the entire interview with Gene Mc Connell.

For more on Jack Dorsey eating at Chick-Fil-A, click here.

“Neuroscientists have found that social rejection is experienced much like physical pain — connected to the same neural circuitry. People who perceive that they have been rejected or excluded by a group are more likely to harm multiple persons if they become violent.”

The study finds that when we ostracize others, we suffer a similar degree of pain as the person being ostracized. While those being ostracized felt more anger, the one who did the ostracizing felt more shame, lack of connection, and especially loss of autonomy. So when we inflict pain on others, we ourselves suffer too. 

“The imposition of silence is a power play that expresses the ultimate contempt for the target: as George Bernard Shaw put it, “Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.” The one giving the silent treatment — whether it’s not answering email, turning away in the middle of a conversation, or pretending not to hear a question — gets to feel control. In not explaining the cause, the perpetrator delivers particular pain. The message is loud and clear: “You do not matter.”

Janice Harper says it this way, “Shunning is a non-action — to shun is to avoid, not to interact.”

To quote James Walpole again, “Shaming galvanizes opposition and makes people dig deeper into their own positions (to defend their egos, of course).”

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Talk is Expensive

Show Notes from Brave Conversations Episode 1

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to it, check out the podcast here.


Seinfeld Episode Clip: “Yada Yada“

7 English Words that Nobody Uses Anymore

According to dictionary.com, more than 300 new words (*correction: the actual number is closer to 1,000) are added to our vocabulary every year. Unfortunately the article I used is no longer available. However an updated list is here.

Here are just a few: woke, mom jeans, lumbersexual, manspread, intersectionality, and ghosting. 

There are 50 Eskimo words for snow.

The language you speak changes the colors you see.

How this tribal culture discovered a new emotion. Here’s a link to the explanation. In the article, you’ll find a link to the Invisibilia podcast episode.

Lera Borodiski’s Ted talk on how language shapes the way we think.

Michael Knowles: Control the Words, Control the Culture

Closing Thoughts to Ponder:

Words are the currency of the information age. He or She who creates the language gets to create the rules. Whatever your politics, think about this. What gets talked about and written about and tweeted about gets heard.

  • Which words are erecting unnecessary cultural walls and which are tearing them down?
  • Which words are persuasive and which words are ineffective?
  • Church leaders, educators, and bloggers, are the words you use really working?
  • Are you in control of your words or are you a victim of the words you hear?
  • Are they working to point out truth or to soften a lie?
  • Are there new terms or phrases we need in order to bring clarity where there is now confusion? 

Notice the words that you see or hear today. Do they make your blood boil or do they draw your attention? Could it be that those “trigger” words for you don’t even mean the same thing to another person who uses them? 

Chris and Liv talk about the word “privilege.” View the entire conversation here.

If you’re ready to participate in our private Brave Conversations group, join us here!

Thank you to Chris Mellen and Live Davis for entering into this brave conversation.

Special thanks to Dan Jurusz, Portia Noble, and Jake Sloan for helping me get this first podcast off the ground!

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The Rise of the Underarchy

It is part of the common human experience to feel rejected, to feel on the outside, to feel as if we don’t belong. Even, Jesus, the God-man had a very poignant experience of the rejection of people, even his closest friends and relatives. When we feel rejected, it becomes common to seek out others who understand our pain. We don’t want friends like Job who just say, “Get it together, man! There must be some hidden sin in you, which is why you are suffering so much.” No, in those moments of fierce rejection, we tend to find misfit companions just like us. Like the young David, running from his father in law, King Saul…who should come to him, but the outcast, dissatisfied and disenfranchised young men of his day. The knew that David could identify with their pain and so they ran to him. They fought for him. They were willing to risk their lives for him. It is natural and human to want to band together according to the common experiences of rejection that we share. 

But there is something that concerns me about the way modern society is choosing to band together. There has been much said in recent days about the merits and woes of what we have come to label “identity politics.” It’s this idea that we tend to frame our political conversations around the groups that we identify with. Most of these groups are characterized by their felt levels of disenfranchisement by mainstream culture. Examples of such groups can include: women, minority groups, LGBTQ individuals, etc. Because many people in these groups have felt rejected by the rest of society for different reasons, they feel that their identification with these groups gives them an authority in the conversation that others do not have. To a large extent, that is true. It’s hard to talk about a social experience that is not your own. Your group identity, especially if you appear noticeably different from your peers, gives you a unique voice. 

However, there is a subtle danger here that can shut down conversation and it can shut down the process of moving us in a positive and unifying direction as a culture. “Intersectionality” has been introduced as a fairly new concept on college campuses, though it was first coined in the 1980s. It describes the layers of societal barriers that arise when someone belongs to more than one of these disenfranchised groups. For example, a black American woman would presumably have more to contend with as far as barriers to her success than a white American woman. I understand the logic behind this concept completely. We are trying to figure out and grapple with what makes some people lag behind and other people more successful. We are trying to even the playing field as much as possible, which is very noble of us. 

The problem comes when we begin to view “The Hierarchy” as an inherent problem— that people in power, only by virtue of their power, are inherently the problem. Instead of having the burden of pointing out the specific ways in which the hierarchy has been a problem, we jump to the conclusion that the hierarchy is a problem just because they exist. Many people have risen to the higher ranks of society, not because they were a problem, but because they are actively solving problems. If we have no hierarchy at all, we have no values, we have nothing to do, and nothing to strive for— no goals to improve our current state of being.

We know that the problems of the hierarchy will always be something we need to guard against. We know that the human experience of absolute power has the risk of corruption, which is why we need to be watchful of people in power and to hold them accountable. At the same time, I see an equally suspicious class pop up, and that is what I’ll call the rise of the Underarchy. I am giving this group a name because we cannot notice something we do not name. 

The Underarchy are the people who so identify with the disenfranchisement of the groups to which they belong, that they wear their under-privilege as a badge of honor. The more stamps they can get on their  “underprivileged” card the more a sense of entitlement they feel. They use the word “privilege” as a byword to eliminate people from a conversation that they don’t want to engage in. 

There is something very dangerous about over-identifying yourself by your negative experiences alone. It causes your senses to become heightened to the negative experiences around you and you begin living a negative and learned helpless existence. You subtly begin to assume that only people who belong to your disenfranchised group can really understand you. It is very seductive because the wounds we have really do hurt, and the last thing we want to do is to open ourselves up again to someone who identifies with a group that corresponds with the last person who hurt us. It can be a real struggle. 

But in fact, history tells us the danger that this kind of thinking can lead to. In fact, it was the marked success of the Jews that were rising to the economic and academic hierarchy in Germany that first led the Germans to a feeling of jealousy, of rejection, and of disenfranchisement. They felt that in order to feel safe as “true Germans,” they had to push the power of their choice identity: white nationalism—something that the Jews could not fully claim. 

You know that you are in dangerous territory when you begin using your identity group to silence another person in a conversation, when you believe that your identity card allows you to play by different rules of morality and conduct.

These days, those who have more points of “intersectionality” or who have more points in the Underarchy can say things that those who have zero points, namely the white straight male, cannot. When this begins happening in a society, it is a sign that we are getting away from the whole “all men (and women) are created equal” thing. It means that we’ve unknowingly shifted the pendulum too far the other way. The Hierarchy can be corrupted for sure, but the Underarchy can be just as corrupt and can cause damage as well. Maybe the playing cards of the hierarchy are most often money, power, and professional opportunity, but the Underarchy can deal in social and political threat and can even incite violence. 

If you do find that you afford the “intersectionality points” because of the person you happen to be, realize you too have power and you too have influence. Please use your influence wisely and lovingly. Do not be deceived into thinking that you get to live by a different moral standard than others. Do not attempt to climb the ranks of the Underarchy so you can hold it over people’s heads. Do not use your group identity to silence, belittle, or to dismiss anyone who does not share that identity. If you do, you will become part of the problem you hoped to solve. All I ask is that you please, identify responsibly. 

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You say you hate Labels…or do you?

Labels. We are surrounded by labels. Our businesses depend upon labels: from demographics, to political affiliations, to fan likes. There is such a “niche market” today that we have become very label happy. Once we discover a new label, we are quick to apply that label liberally to anyone who might fit. And I totally get it. Labels help us make sense of the world around us and connect the dots. Labels don’t only convey an aspect of reality, they can, in fact, create reality. A label on a pair of jeans might not seem like much, but it ends up translating a social construct into real behaviors—which amount to real dollars and cents.

Labels are essentially categories. The original Greek definition of the word “category” comes from the word “kategoros” which means “accuser.” The Greek word “kategoria” meant “a statement or accusation.” Now, I understand that over time this word has evolved into a nicer more neutral word, but I wonder if there is something in the essence of the word category that subtly accuses others and undermines us as human beings.

Categories are like the little organizational boxes that we put things into when we are trying to make sense of all our stuff. If we are really organized, we wield that empowering label maker with glee, deciding which category to put all our little doodads and then shoving them in the appropriate drawers. It is a feeling of power and control that we get by creating a place for the things we own. It is even a way of setting boundaries with our stuff in order to dominate our stuff so that our stuff doesn’t dominate us. We are essentially “accusing” our pens of belonging where we want them to belong. We are making a “statement” about their identity. Our pens don’t mind if we categorize them by color or separate them from the sharpies or not. They don’t jump out of the boxes and say, “I don’t want to be labeled and put in this box here with all these sharpies!”

But people are another story. A large company of influencers in society have created categories for people in an effort to help us make sense of the world. I was elated when someone finally told me that I didn’t have to choose between being an introvert or an extrovert, but I could now become an “ambivert,” who is basically right in between an introvert and an extrovert. After jumping in and out of the “introvert/extrovert” categories, I realized that I could reject the two categories that were offered me and find solace in a third category. It never really occurred to me that I could reject the man-made categories all together.

We as people all want the ability to choose our own categories. Why? Because, counterintuitively, it gives us a sense of belonging. Some of us even reject obvious categories that are put upon us (ie: trying to not to be lumped in with our age peers and working ever so hard on a youthful appearance). It makes us feel powerful to deny even the most basic of categories, categories that are ordained by God and nature, not by man, such as the category of age.

Even as independent as we claim we are, we all want to fit into some type of people group even when, and especially when, that people group is marginalized or beaten down. In all our pain and rejection, we just want to know that we are not alone. And so we add another initial to the LGBT…. Or we create another diagnosis in the psychological textbook, another foundation to support another cause.

The downside of categories and labeling people is that human individuals are not really made for labels. Labels comfort us, but they also stifle us. They are the security blanket that claims we belong to someone or something. There have been people who have even killed themselves because they were living under a label that they could no longer endure. Every so often someone will lament, “Why can’t we just get rid of all the labels?” Well, we’ve tried but it hasn’t worked yet. Some of the people that say they reject labels the most are also the most adept at creating them. Take tattoos for an example. Tattooing is essentially an attempt to reject all previous labels and to express one’s own labels of choice, quite literally.

These days words as simple as “liberal” and “conservative” have become, not just descriptive, but so electrically charged that they evoke instant feelings of kinship or contempt depending on the audience. Assumptions are made instantaneously, and along with these assumptions come…you guessed it— accusations. Maybe there is something to that Greek etymology after all.

The ideological war we are engaging in begins with the art of conversation. In our conversations, I don’t pretend that we can get away from labels altogether, but I do think we need to take another look at how we are using them.

Using labels to ask someone how they would describe themselves is fine. As I said, I am now a self-proclaimed ambivert.  I may be one, I may not be one–if in fact ambiverts really do exist at all. Nevertheless, it’s the word I’m choosing for now to define what I think about myself. So, what does one do with this information? Asking people clarifying questions as to what they mean by the use of the label is a helpful way to go, as it causes the person to examine the use of the label and it causes you to understand that person better. We always need to keep in mind that a label is only a feeble attempt to describe something.

Using a label to write someone off and end the conversation is counterproductive. Labeling someone while in the midst of a heated debate is also not helpful. Denying someone their equal voice in a discussion through the use of a label does nothing to move connection forward.

Talk about labels with your friends, coworkers and families. Use them if you need to describe something, but please don’t fall into the trap of using labels to accuse. Don’t use labels to control people just because you are uncomfortable grappling with the complexity of the person standing in front of you.

Also keep in mind that in this label-happy world, if you say anything of consequence, you will definitely be labeled. If people don’t know what to do with you, they will stick a label on you to make themselves feel better about your existence. But no matter what labels you choose for yourself, or no matter what labels others choose for you, only your Creator knows the truth about you. I hope you will begin a lifelong pursuit of your true identity and I hope that you will no longer live and die by the tyranny of the label.

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What’s Up with Distancing Ourselves from People Who Don’t Agree?

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in society… one that goes pretty much without being questioned. It is one of those cultural practices that gets imbedded in to the fabric of society. I see it in the entertainment industry, among people of faith, and in the political realm.

It all starts with some kind of behavior or point of view that we consider unacceptable. Such behavior is not new, we have run into it throughout history. In the days of the Spanish inquisition it was what the church deemed as “heresy.” For the Salem witch trials, it was any behavior or suspicion of the practice of “witchcraft.” In the McCarthy era, it was anyone who could possibly be associated with “communism.” There was so much fear around these unacceptable ideas that people were blacklisted and treated as if they had a plague for even being associated with people who might be associated with such ideas.

They were ostracized and sometimes even killed, whether or not they truly were communists and witches or heretics. And so, because of the pandemic fear in larger society of certain brands of evil, we made grave mistakes. In an effort to uproot possible “monsters” of deception or harm, we in turn, became the monsters ourselves. Hot button words like “communist or heretic” would push those buttons of fear in people. When others were labeled with these words, the stain was hard to erase, no matter how true it was.

Today, we are passionate about certain issues, as many of them we should be. There is real truth that we desire to protect. Our hot button issues and buzzwords have changed. Now these might include words like, “racist, homophobic, and misogynist.” As much as we despise the viewpoints that some people with that label might have, ostracizing and blacklisting people is not going to solve the problem. It feels good and safer to distance ourselves from people that we deeply disagree with— the only problem is that when we distance ourselves, we unintentionally deepen the grooves of division and strife within our nation.

If we are not willing to engage in conversations with people that we think are “the problem” how will the problems we perceive ever be solved? Are we so weak minded that we are afraid that their racism or misogyny or homophobia will “get on” us as if it is a disease to be caught? If there was a word for the fear of being labeled as such, I’m sure it would apply here. If our ideals have any strength at all, they will surely stand even when tested in the crucible of brave conversations.

Yes, there is risk in reaching out to someone who is different from you. You may yourself be labeled as something you’re not. You may be considered a heretic, whatever heresy may mean in your circles. But I encourage you to ignore the labels and to keep engaging the “other side” intentionally and deliberately.

Facebook won’t show you how to do it. In fact, most social media platforms will lead you away from it. In a world of likes and affirming emojis, we prefer to only have conversations with people who are nodding their heads and giving us the thumbs up. But it’s the conversations where silence ensues and where there is a furrowed brow that really invoke change. There is pain in change. Change goes both ways. We have to invest in change, willing to be the first to change if we discover inconsistencies within ourselves. So today, I plead with you, stop distancing and start a purposeful, intentional, brave conversation.

To join our private conversation group, ask to join here.

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How Your Conversations Shape Your Life (bringing back the old-time salons)

Salons have not always been known as places that specialize in hair and beauty. Once upon a time, salons were important influencers in culture and politics. The Wikipedia definition of a Salon is “a gathering of people under a roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.”

Influential women of the 1700s and in other periods of history would host these salons in their homes even when they had no votes and no formal power of any sort. They were inviting philosophers and artist and writers and other influencers of their time to have conversations. They would gather around food and drink and art and the host would suggest a topic to discuss. But the whole of the event centered around the beauty and transformative power of the Conversation. These women quietly, but effectively shifted culture around the intentional pursuit of powerful conversations.

The art of conversation has all but been lost in this generation. Instead of talking we are more familiar with watching passively. Instead of forming connections, we are accustomed to merely forming judgements. But people still crave the conversation. We still need it.

We don’t need just any conversation. We need to talk most about the things that scare us most. We need to come out from behind our labels and our personal branding and be honest about our struggles. We need to be open enough to utter the words, “I don’t know,” and, “Here is why I disagree with you.” Even more, we need to learn to master the art of asking great questions. Men need to get beyond the sports and shop talk and women need to go beyond wedding and baby showers. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with showers or sports, there’s just so much more.

I have a dream that having conversations would come back in style. That gathering around real issues, real stories, and real people would happen more often. I want to see modern day salons gathering not just in the homes of wealthy women as they did centuries ago, but in coffee shops and churches and regular living rooms.

Entering into a purposeful and inspiring conversation can have a transformative effect on our lives.

Here’s five things a Real Conversation can do:

1. Conversation connects.

Addictive behaviors stem from a lack of connection. Depression is born of a lack of connection. The reason Starbucks is what it is today is not because they offer coffee. It’s because they really are in the connection and conversation business. There is nothing our human souls crave more than a face to face conversation.

2. Conversation increases the value and dignity of human beings.

People need to be invited to a “table of conversation.” They need to know that their personal experiences, their viewpoints, their voice matters. In a real conversation there is as much listening a there is speaking. There is a validation of the human experience. Studies have shown that talking about a personal experience and sharing a struggle validates that experience like nothing else can. It does more to bring healing and wholeness than many drugs or other therapies.

3. Conversation increases intelligence.

We are much smarter when we consider the opinions and experiences of others alongside our own. We are exposed to ideas we’ve never before considered and as we immerse ourselves in the conversation experience, we become more informed and more aware.

4. Conversation challenges.

Along with new information and new ideas, we find ourselves challenged with the choice of adopting new paradigms. And here’s the rub: because most people want to have better connections and they want to be more intelligent, but most people don’t want to consider that the concepts they encounter might actually demand a response to live differently, to take responsibility for a new aspect of their lives. A person who never wants to grow and change will not come back for another brave conversation. But people who are looking for growth at every turn are hungry to have the conversations that few are willing to have.

5. Conversation shifts culture.

Certain cultural buzzwords and euphemisms may annoy you. But the reality is that the use of these words was initiated by people who were invested in the conversation. If you don’t like the way that our cultural conversation is being framed, then begin having your own conversations and begin using the words that you think will make a difference. Many think that talk is cheap, but it’s only cheap when we are having counterfeit conversations. For conversation to have meaning, it must be felt, fully entered into, and fully owned. Authentic conversations are not cheap. They come at the cost of vulnerability. But Authentic Conversations change the world.

What’s the next conversation you need to have?

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10 Signs You Might be a Stress Junkie

There’s no shame in realizing you might be addicted to stress. Some of the best, most well intentioned and “productive” people are stress junkies in disguise. It’s just a really good idea to take assessment of your life from time to time to find out if there are any unhealthy habits you have that could be preventing you from an even greater impact you could be having in your life. Check out this list, be honest with yourself and see if you can relate. I’ll try to keep it short, since you’ll likely get bored and want to move on to something else. 

1. You wake up in the morning with a feeling of dread or anxiety over what you might have to do that day. 

2. You often skip eating or sleeping in favor of getting something done. 

3. You find it hard to focus on someone when they’re talking about personal things without rehearsing all the other things you could be doing while you’re listening. 

4. You cannot relax if you are aware that something in your life is left undone. 

5. You wonder why drama seems to always follow you around, but secretly you thrive on it. 

6. You constantly “multitask.” For example: reading with the TV on, listening to a book while doing other things, etc. 

7. It’s been a long time since you’ve asked yourself the deeper questions concerning the motivations behind your actions. (Hint: You had to read this item twice before understanding what it was saying.)

8. You filter out any information that doesn’t immediately apply to your life in the here and now. 

9. You inadvertently find yourself holding your breath, biting your cheek, clenching your jaw, or taking shallow breaths frequently throughout the day.

10. You watch other people slowing down and enjoying life and think, “That would be nice, but I don’t have a choice in my life.” 



Congratulations, you’re still reading— which means that you might not be beyond recovery. If this list has freaked you out a little bit about the pace of your life, that’s good! Here’s a quick prescription you can follow to help you re-connect with yourself and get you on the road to recovery. 

Prescription for Stress Addiction: 

1. Schedule 10, 20, or 30 minutes you owe to yourself. Decide on a time and a place and set it in your calendar. Tell the people around your about your plan so they don’t interrupt. If possible, get away from all people. Make sure you schedule time enough to get to your destination. 

2. When your calendar reminds you it’s that time, drop everything and be in the place. Turn your phone and all other devices off immediately. You may want a clock available to help you with the time. Being in your car can work great. 

3. During that time, practice mindfulness. Close your eyes and feel yourself breathing, hear the sounds going on around you. Talk to the self inside. Make a conscious effort to be kind and compassionate toward yourself. You may want to have paper and pen available to help you focus, draw or release whatever is inside. If you believe in God, you can direct your thoughts in the form of a prayer. 

Make it your goal to work your way up from maybe once a week to once a day for 10-30 minutes. 

Did you try it? If so, let me know how it goes and what insights you gained! 

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Perfection or Connection?

George Costanza from Seinfeld is one of my favorite love/hate TV characters. What you might not realize is that many aspects of his character is based on the show’s creator, Larry David. Larry identified so much with self-doubt and classic aspects of perfectionism that he was able to showcase the malady very well in the character of George. In a behind the scenes interview, Larry talks candidly about the fact that he was not happy that the hit show got picked up because he was terrified at the prospect of writing another handful of episodes even though the first had been a huge success. Rather than being encouraged by his success, he was panic stricken because of it. Thoughts flew through his head like, “What if I never do anything better than what I’ve done? What if I maxed out on my talent and he’d never perform as well ever again?” Perfectionism got in his head and caused him to think completely irrationally. Thankfully, he laughed off his fears and allowed these fears to give him fodder for comedy rather than letting those fears get the best of him.

At the root of perfectionism is the belief that I’ll never be enough. It’s this insidious belief that even if I do something great, sooner or later I’m going to mess up and everyone will see that I’m really a fraud, that I don’t belong here and that I don’t deserve a place at the table.

Moses displayed it towards God when he said (loosely paraphrased), “I can’t even talk. You must have the wrong guy to be the spokesperson for Israel, God.” Abraham and Sarah had it when they laughed at God’s proposition of having a son in their old age. Mary had it when she became “greatly terrified” after an angel had told her “you are highly favored among women.” Such reactions may seem irrational and silly, but very very real.

There is something about weakness and so called “imperfection” that is very beautiful to God. Otherwise, he would have never chosen the people he put into Jesus’ family tree (a prostitute, an adulterer, an unwed mother, several people who were at one time out of the chosen tribe of Israel).

One common lie of perfection is that only perfection will lead us to success and excellence. We think that if we try really hard to be perfect, we just might get there. There is a subtle but important difference between the pursuit of excellence and perfection. Perfection is about performance. Excellence is about connection. 

When I go to the theater to see something that will really stir me, like the movie Les Miserables, I don’t want to see a perfect performance, I want to see one that connects with me. I can watch Anne Hathaway perform her passionately imperfect performance with sweat beading and spit flying or I can watch a perfectly polished version that is void of connection. Which one would you prefer? There is a reason I cannot give you the name of the perfect performance, whoever gave that performance is not remembered.
You could make the argument that it is possible to produce a flawless product, whether it is in the way you present yourself or in the work you do. But maybe a better question to ask is not how perfect your work is, or how flaw free it it, but how much of an impact it makes? 

I once saw a beauty article about a certain actress. It made the case for her beauty by listing how beautiful she was based on itemized aspects of her appearance. Her hair was perfect, her skin was perfect, her proportions were perfect. The question it left me was this: do we now define beauty based on chopping ourselves into segments and examining the perfection of each segment? Is that what we’ve reduced beauty to in our “advanced” world? In this age of air-brushed images and edited productions, maybe we’ve lost sight of what it is that is beautiful and what it is that human nature is really longing for, which is connection over perfection. Maybe the Mona Lisa is beautiful not because of hair and proportion and lighting, but because the whole of the composition and how she connects with onlookers.

If we change our focus from perfection to connection, then everything I’m doing, from how I dress to how I execute my work speaks of something. It either will promote that connection, or it will shut it down. When we pursue excellence, our entire goal is to get our hands dirty, and take big risks in order to connect big. And when we learn and grow to attain higher and higher levels of excellence (getting better at our craft, etc.) it is only so we will remove all the roadblocks to more and more connection— connection between us and God, connection between ourselves and others who walk this planet with us. The point is not to say to God or to anyone else, “Look how mistake free I am.” The point is to say to God and the world around, “Connect with me. Connect with the message I’m bringing.” 

How does this connect with you? What ways have you found helpful in getting you out of the rut of perfectionism?