Tag: experience

How to Share Insight

Posted in howtoshareTagged , , , , , , , 56 Comments

“We teach each other things. People take this for granted, but it’s actually unbelievable.” – Nicholas Christakis

Last weekend, my five-year-old son got two moon balls. They are cratered like the moon and bounce like they are going to leave this atmosphere. That bounce combined with my son’s determination to hit as if he’s aiming for the Green Monster at Fenway Park meant we lost both balls in pretty short order.

He was bummed when we lost the first… and really sad when we lost the second. I sat next to him on the steps and asked, “Do you want to know what I know about being sad.”

“No,” he replied.

It’s all about timing, isn’t it? 🙂 It is one of the keys about sharing insight that I talk with customer experience strategist Karl Baisch about on the How to Share Podcast.

Nicholas Christakis, sociologist from Yale, has this really hopeful view of humans based on our ability to interact and cooperate with others. He says, “We teach each other things. People take this for granted, but it’s actually unbelievable.”

In this episode of ‘How to Share’, Karl and I explore the nuances of how we teach each other things and share insights effectively. We discuss the importance of asking the right questions, the challenges of navigating data, and the significance of context in delivering actionable insights. Our conversation also touches on parenting and how to instill curiosity and critical thinking in children, drawing parallels between data synthesis and everyday experiences.

Here are some takeaways from our conversation:

  • We teach each other things.
  • Real change happens when there’s enough curiosity.
  • Groups have to want an answer to hear it.
  • You gotta share your work product somewhere.
  • You want to avoid analysis paralysis.
  • How do you synthesize it into a story?
  • Insights should breathe new energy and life into anything.
  • You have to contextualize it.
  • You have to ask the right questions.

This is a great episode about the practice of creating insight. Join us as we dig into the who, what, when, where, how and of creating and sharing a-ha moments!

Here’s a short clip from our episode to give you a taste of the great conversation with the bright and engaging Karl Baisch:

Here are some ways you can listen and watch to the full episode:

Please listen, watch, provide feedback and subscribe.

How to Share Our Luck with Gil Gillenwater – How To Share

In this enlightening conversation, Gil Gillenwater is with host Wynne Leon and shares his experiences and insights from over 35 years of philanthropic work along the US-Mexico border. He discusses his book, 'Hope on the Border,' which highlights the transformative power of education and community service. Gil emphasizes the importance of enlightened self-interest over traditional charity, advocating for a model that empowers individuals and fosters dignity. He explores the duality of poverty, the need for sustainable opportunities, and the joy found in serving others, ultimately presenting a vision for a more connected and compassionate world.TakeawaysEducation is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.Enlightened self-interest can lead to personal and communal growth.Charity should not be viewed as a sacrifice but as a mutual benefit.Volunteering provides a sense of purpose and fulfillment.Welfare can disempower individuals and communities.Community service fosters connections and shared humanity.The disparity in wealth is a significant issue that needs addressing.Experiencing poverty firsthand can change perspectives.Creating opportunities in one's home country can reduce migration.The joy of service is a pathway to personal happiness.Links for this episode:How to Share homeHope on the Border at AmazonGil's organization: Rancho FelizGil Gillenwater on FacebookWynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith; Blog: https://wynneleon.com/; Substack: https://wynneleon930758.substack.com/
  1. How to Share Our Luck with Gil Gillenwater
  2. How to Share 1970's Chicago with Doug. E. Jones
  3. How to Share Feedback with Dr. Vicki Atkinson
  4. How to Share the Next Generation with Mari Sarkisian Wyatt
  5. How to Share Impactfully with Social Media Friends with Amy Weinland Daughters

Links for this episode:

Karl Baisch on LinkedIn

Learning From Experience

Posted in meditationTagged , , , , 19 Comments

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey

Ten years ago (I know because I found the picture), I was walking my dog on a busy neighborhood street and he found a stuffed animal. A cute little tiger with a soft white belly and my dog proudly picked it up and carried it all the way home until he could stow it away on one of his dog blankets.

While I didn’t think much of it at the time, I now realize with great horror that it likely was some child’s precious stuffy that got tossed out of a car in a moment of great emotion. I’ll never actually know if the family went to look for it but by allowing my dog to carry it home, we certainly made it unfindable.

Before bed, my 6-year-old daughter and I take turns reading. She practices her reading skills and then I read a few pages of something longer we are working on. We just finished J.K. Rowling’s The Christmas Pig in which a child loses his most precious friend, a stuffy that his step-sister throws out the window in a moment of rage. The child then takes a precarious Christmas Eve trip to the Land of the Lost to try to retrieve it. In J.K. Rowling’s incredibly imaginative tale, there are several places the things we lose go – Mislaid (think eyeglasses), Disposable (e.g. batteries), Bother-Its-Gone (that poem you penned on the back of a napkin), The Wastes of the Unlamented (the tchotchke you never wanted to buy in the first place), The City of the Missed (where we meet someone’s Principles) and The Island of the Beloved (where Santa lives).

In the story, she includes not only things that we lose like a diamond earring but also the intangibles – the bad habits, the tendency to bully, our pretenses, ambition, power and hope. It is so incredibly insightful that it is one of those books that was a pleasure for me to read as much as my daughter to listen to.

Which brings me back to the stuffy I let my dog take home. Often it’s only through experience that we can relate to someone else’s pain. This is the case now that I realize that stuffy was likely a well-loved object of a kid’s affection. Fortunately, my kids have not (yet) thrown a stuffy out the car window, but I have spent many fretful moments in a full sweat looking for the item that we just HAVE TO HAVE before going to sleep.

Suffering, as much as we might not like it, helps us to know each other.

The Verdict

Posted in authenticityTagged , , , , 9 Comments

“Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn’t change, even though the life that carries it may change.” – Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man

Elizabeth Holmes, the tech entrepreneur and founder of Theranos whose trial has fascinated me for the last 4 months, was found guilty on 4 counts of fraud and conspiracy for lying to investors and not guilty on 4 counts. The jury was hung on 3 counts.

As I’ve written about this, I realized that it’s triggered my past experiences with money in tech and the question of how to develop character when people are throwing money at you. Listening to the jury’s decision, I don’t disagree with their findings but I’m flooded with empathy for her.

That’s probably because I can relate in a very small way to her experiences. The specific incident I’m thinking of was in 2007 when my two business partners (one of whom was my husband) and I were buying a small office building for our little company of 19 people to use as an office.

On the Friday before the closing, the bank realized that we all had one more paper to sign – a personal guarantee of the bank loan. It had to be received by Monday and my husband and the other business partner were traveling to a client’s wine tasting weekend. My husband wanted me to forge our other business partner’s signature on the document. The other business partner wanted me to forge his signature on the document. Neither of them wanted to be bothered to find a FedEx office from which to overnight the document in question.

I felt immense pressure to do it. The two of them, my husband and our other partner had made many business and personnel decisions that I didn’t agree with and I thought I could insulate myself by just focusing on my part of the business. But this was over the top. I held my ground after repeated phone calls and texts and refused to do it. There was no way I was going to forge a signature on a personal guarantee for a bank loan.

Two years later after the market crashed in 2008 and real estate prices dropped significantly so that the valuation of the building was under water, the bank put the loan into a special assets group. We had never missed a payment (and thankfully never did) but they felt the loan deserved additional scrutiny. Fortunately, my business partners had eventually figured out how to FedEx the personal guarantee document so it was on file.

By this time both the business partnership and my marriage had fallen apart so I was the one handling all the details. To say I was so relieved I didn’t forge that signature is an understatement. I shepherded the building through those tough years until we could sell it for what we bought it for and gratefully walked away.

But all this happened when I was almost 40-years-old and had almost 20 years of business experience both working for others and for myself. I doubted myself. I felt the huge pressure. I thought it would have been so much easier to not have the values I was raised with. I’m not so sure I would have been able to hold out to what these guys said was “business as usual” had I been in my 20’s like Elizabeth Holmes.

We don’t often get to see what we are able to avoid when we don’t do something risky. In this case I did and now with the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, I’m reminded of it again. If it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do, don’t do it. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you it’s how it’s done or makes it seem like how sophisticated and experienced people act. Thanks for raising me with these values, Mom and Dad!

(featured photo by Pexels)