As the holiday season was approaching, I received a surprise gift in my email that supported my ongoing activity blogging about how the humanities can support education in management. Two enterprising recent graduates of Wheaton College, Julia Wittrock, and Grant Hensel, had sent me a copy of a book they had written together and distributed to faculty in schools of business and management whom they matched with their interest in leadership studies. What the Fortune 500 Read, was the collation and redaction of advice Julia and Grant solicited by writing to every Fortune 500 CEO: (http://fortune500booklist.com/). 150 CEOs responded and over several months the pair read and summarized the top 50 titles they deemed most useful. Their motive was to extend their learning beyond the completion of their formal education and to create a repository of wisdom that could be valuable to maturing managers.

As I read through the book Julia and Grant assembled with such care, my literary-critical instincts kicked in and my mind turned to a New Yorker essay from earlier in 2015, an adaptation of the speech Andrew Solomon gave at the Whiting Writer’s Awards. Solomon’s essay, The Middle of Things: Advice for Young Writers, offers sound suggestions, many derived from Rilke’s classic Letters to a Young Poet, that are as helpful to managers as they are to writers. (http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-middle-of-things-advice-for-young-writers). 

With this in mind, I came to appreciate much of the value of Julia’s and Grant’s effort lay not in the evidentiary outcome—what knowledge each CEO-chosen book imparted—but in the process, they engaged in and the approach that motivated their project. In this sense, the skills they most articulately engaged were not those conventionally assigned to managers but to writers. 

For example, for Solomon, the first caveat and most important position a writer can take is to be humble. “The worst mistake anyone can make is to perceive anyone else lesser. The deeper you look into other souls—and writing is primarily an exercise in doing just that—the clearer people’s inherent dignity becomes.” The approach that Julia and Grant took to their project was as Solomon describes. They positioned themselves in humility but risked asking others to not only look deep into their souls—a product of reading, not just a product of writing—to identify their core values. By beginning from a humble position of listening, they heard the wisdom of their elders, also a point important to Solomon in the development of writers. “Age and experience,” Solomon reminds us, matter in the advancement of business ideas and the development of our character but the young don’t always appreciate them. 

“While all old people have been young, no young people have been old, and this troubling fact engenders the frustration of all parents and elders, which is that while you can describe your experience, you cannot confer it.” 

Understanding that experience can only be described not conferred, Julia and Grant applied the faculty Solomon that advises for writers but that is available to everyone: imagination. “To exploit the imagination’s curiosities,” to understand one’s world is the task of the writer and the challenge these young authors took up. They imagined a way to acquire the wisdom they sought; they dived into the suggested readings and applied their best analytical skills to interpret the texts; and they produced a text of their own that advanced their belief that “we have a responsibility to guide and mentor the next generation,” underscoring a responsibility Solomon is adamant is shared by writers: “Writing has a moral purpose…you can make the world a better place.” 

Grant and Julia accepted upon graduation their responsibility as they entered the business world and approached their professional development with humility, seeking to learn from others how they could develop their leadership and managerial skills in conscious and ethical ways. But they also applied standard tools of research, critical thinking, and effective communication in achieving their goal. While they seldom filter or question the knowledge received from the books they read, their “appreciative inquiry” approach recognizes their position in life as young but eager to aspire to maturity in thoughtful and principled ways. Moreover, they did so not motivated by their own aggrandizement but out of a practical curiosity and moral sense of how best to have an impact in actual, not theoretical, settings. Indeed, the young authors have taken the time to organize their book in a thematic arrangement that lends itself to easy reference and also chose to include action steps readers can take to apply what they learned. With 52 entries or chapters, this means a book a week, a task a week for a year, a measured and productive approach to career development. 

Julia and Grant expressed these and more observations when we shared about an hour-long conversation. They concluded with a note of gratitude not only for the content and tools they acquired along the way but also for how the encouragement they experienced gave them confidence in current leaders who took the time to answer questions posed by those who will follow them. The process of redaction and synthesis engaged Julia and Grant more deeply in the material than they might have achieved without the goal of the book in mind, illustrating a good example for any reader or problem-solver. As they mature in their professional lives, Julia and Grant will develop as writers develop by Solomon’s standards. They will learn to “trust what is difficult”—like recognizing the absence of women and people of color from their list of CEOs asked for advice and the books they recommended—but understand encountering difficulty as part of the goal not just for writers and managers but for all humans. What these encounters teach is necessary for writers and managers and is better understood by those of us who have enjoyed more decades on the planet. Of the many differences “between having lived more and done more and being newly energized and fresh to the race,” is “patience.” Patience is the skill that supports the condition of humility, where we all begin as writers or as CEOs who recognize, as Rilke did, that “eternity lay before us,” as we read, write, and manage our way through the world.

I blogged for The Huffington Post for a few years on various aspects of how the humanities can benefit education in management and public administration at the University of San Francisco. Twice I featured examples of how one of my students interpreted an Ethical Will assignment as part of a required ethics class in all programs. I decided I would conclude 2017 by making this an annual tradition. To recall, an Ethical Will is an informal document that is often included with people’s estate planning papers. It is a letter to the future, in which you share the relationships, accomplishments, and values that made your life satisfying. This letter takes no special training to write, and does not have to follow any particular format; it is simply an opportunity to tell your beneficiaries what is important to you. I encourage students to think beyond the epistolary form and to exercise their unique creativity in generating a legacy. 

To prepare them for this task, students are guided through a series of meditations, readings, podcasts, and videos, all aimed at stimulating their reflection on their lives and how they have come to identify and live their core values. Among the resources students consult is 

David Foster Wallace’s now-famous commencement speech which he delivered at Kenyon College in 2005 This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life which covers subjects including “the difficulty of empathy, the importance of being well adjusted, and the essential lonesomeness of adult life.” 

Wallace begins with a parable: 

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?”’ Wallace elaborated on his parable for the graduating students: “The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about… The fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance.” 

And, nearing the end of his speech he instructs students on the purpose of their education and the value of reflecting in the way we ask them to do with the Ethical Will assignment: 

“The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water. This is water.” 

In response to Wallace’s challenge to embrace simple awareness, prior examples have drawn lessons from basketball and golf. Today I offer the following example for how to live a good life as derived from a daily commute on public transportation. Foster says, “This is Water.” Angel Xu says, “This is BART.”

In constructing her analogy, Angel followed the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit System) map and developed life lessons for each line. Believing that “life is beautiful,” and that “hardness comes in just to make you feel the joys after going through them,” Angel concluded that “Life is like taking the BART,” for the following reasons:

Red Line 

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance when you get lost. Even the most experienced rider can get confused. 
2. It’s never too late to do anything. If you miss a connection there will be another train or another route to take. And you might take an interesting diversion you would have otherwise missed. 

Blue Line 

3. The mistake is the best teacher. If you make a mistake on public transportation you pay with time, energy, and anxiety, and unintended consequences. But you also never forget to avoid that mistake again. 

Green Line 

4. Be nice, keep smiling. Some events and experiences on public transportation are beyond your control and can be disconcerting. Yet everyone is feeling what you are feeling. We all benefit when we keep up our spirits. 
5. Enjoy the scenery. The journey can be as important as the destination. Take time away from busyness and tasks and look around at the people and places that make up your world.

6. Be prepared. For your journey to be successful and rewarding you need to plan ahead but also be prepared to be surprised and have a plan for how to handle what you don’t expect. Because it will come. 

Yellow Line 

7. People get on, get off. We have small windows of time to make connections and to appreciate the lives of others. Consider where you and others get on and get off and take advantage of the time you have to explore worlds and lives. 
8. Think in other’s shoes. People travel and enter into our lives for all kinds of reasons and bring with them an assortment of moods. We don’t know the stories they bring, the troubles they bear, or the joys they feel unless we take the time to ask them and consider their point of view. 

Angel concludes her analogy by reminding us that:

“different lines arrive at the same destination.” 

We are all headed to the same fate—a mortal recognition the Ethical Will assignment encourages students to confront—but we can decide how we ride our trains to glory. So, the next time you feel frustrated with public transportation, consider that you may be sitting next to a better Angel of your nature.

 

An item from The Atlantic explored the reasons behind what is known as “the ambition gap,” wherein women express less interest than men in competing for senior managerial roles. (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/ambition-office-women/523443/) The article highlights a recent study undertaken by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to support its conclusion that how women are treated affects their career trajectory more than the commonly assumed reason: lack of motivation (https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/people-organization-leadership-change-dispelling-the-myths-of-the-gender-ambition-gap.aspx).

The researchers at BCG looked at survey data of more than 200,000 respondents from a wide range of companies, industries, age groups, and family statuses, with employees in nearly 200 countries. In their data, they found that women’s desire to reach the top ranks at work primarily varies by company, rather than by family status, as often presumed. In other words, it isn’t entirely choosing family over work that is limiting women’s choices to advance. Rather, researchers found that existing gender diversity had a big impact on how workers felt about pursuing more senior roles. 

In work environments where both men and women felt that the company was making progress toward gender diversity within its top ranks, all genders were more likely to aspire to a leadership position. But where the corporate culture was stagnant, regressive, or hostile towards gender equity, women’s choice to avoid advancement opportunities were viewed as a “rational response” to reading the circumstances and making adjustments, trade-offs, and choices, that would allow them to seek meaning and achievement in other areas of their lives that provided a more realistic chance at success. 

Among the advice offered by leaders at BCG is recognizing how “the little things add up.” The attitude of managers, the career advice people receive, and the comments they hear can all imply messages about the fairness of a workplace that in turn will motivate women. The main takeaway, therefore, is not to assume that women aren’t competitive or don’t want senior roles. Instead, companies should focus on creating an environment that feels fair and equitable and encourages women to thrive. 

When a work culture doesn’t support thriving, however, another result may be the inability to find not just external success but the internal meaning in one’s work. Stifled opportunities can limit the meaning one can derive from work and can interfere with finding meaning in other aspects of life. Emily Esfahani Smith, the author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters describes in an interview on PBS how in recent years, psychologists have started looking more closely at how the single-minded pursuit of happiness or success affects us (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/living-meaningful-life-simple-storytelling/). They have come to what seems like a counterintuitive conclusion, she reports: 

“Chasing happiness and obsessing over it, the way our culture encourages us to do, can actually make people unhappy and lonely.”

But it’s different when we set another goal for ourselves when we search for and pursue meaning in life. These same questions lie at the center of much great art, literature, and philosophy that we liberally apply in our management education at the University of San Francisco, as my recent blog posts have described. What characterizes this meaningful life is a sense of connection—of contributing to something beyond yourself. That could be your family, your work, play, nature, or God. When people say their lives are meaningful, Smith remarks, “It’s because three conditions have been satisfied: They believe their lives matter, they have a sense of purpose that drives them forward, and they think their lives are coherent and make sense.”

Smith suggests that a good way to begin identifying these criteria for meaning is by exercising “the simple act of storytelling.” Telling your story (and listening to another’s) gives meaning, or can at least clear the path to it. Smith even suggests that “the rise of rap and hip-hop and the popularity of the radio series StoryCorps,” forms that make a narrative out of the events in people’s lives offers a framework that goes beyond the day-to-day that helps people make sense of themselves and their lives. 

These observations about meaning in the workplace and how they are tied to the potential of women to tell their stories all come together in a recent Ethical Will composed by one of my MBA students, Mary Pham. Composing an Ethical Will is required of all students, although the form each story takes is up to the individual student. Many take Frank Lloyd Wright’s principle that “form and function are one,” and find a way to tell the story of the moral meaning of their lives through a metaphor that has personal value for them but universal value for all. In the first example of an Ethical Will, cited in the previous blog post, I chose to feature a student who compared his life lessons to basketball. I am ashamed to say that it never occurred to me that a female student would also choose a sports analogy, but Mary Pham did, taking her quest for meaning and equity just a step further. 

She writes: “I first picked up a club at the age of 7 and I can say that the game of golf has taught me valuable life lessons.” Included in those lessons are:

Etiquette: For example, showing respect by remaining quiet during someone’s swing.

Integrity: Playing the ball where it lies (not moving it from behind the tree to the fairway) and counting every single stroke on your scorecard.

Patience & Perseverance: Staying in the game for the entire 4 ½ hour round, knowing that it takes countless sessions at the driving range to work on your swing.

Mary then takes us through the different types of shots she employs during a round of golf. She shares what goes through her mind and how it relates to her personal values and the lessons she’s learned:

First Tee

Walking up to hole #1 and preparing for your first tee shot can be nerve-racking. Everybody’s watching you. You don’t want to be THAT guy who tops the ball or hits it up high into the air landing 30 yards in front of you, but everybody goes through that at some point. I’m always nervous and excited at the same time when it comes to the 1st tee. It’s very similar to that first day of school: you want to set a good impression and start off on the right foot. 

Takeaway:  As much as I want to look good by sending that ball straight and down the fairway, the real challenge is setting a PR or a personal record for myself. At the end of the day, I am really only competing against myself. This can apply to different areas of my life. The lesson I constantly remind myself is to “not compare myself to others.” I understand the importance of directing my focus inwardly and needing to care more about my personal wants and needs. It can be challenging for me to not become distracted by the successes of others. The whole point is to stay focused on what you want to achieve and not what others expect out of you. 

Fairway

After a tee shot, the best spot I can land on – is the fairway. It’s THE best lie and the shot that everybody wants because then you’re in a great position for your next shot. 

Takeaway: So you’re feeling great and confident after that awesome shot. Someone from your group may have given you a high five and you noticed that he or she is right there with you and you acknowledge them too with a “Good ball” or “Terrific Shot, Bob!” It’s the spirit of camaraderie and cheering each other on that makes this game or even life a little bit more special.  Whether it’s acknowledging your self worth or recognizing the small deeds of others – there’s something about finding joy in the little things because they always count in a bigger way than you expect. 

Rough

When you’re not on the fairway, you can end up in what they call the “rough” and they call it that for a reason! The grass is thicker and you’re at a not-so-great angle to the green, where the flag is. 

Takeaway:  Arriving in the “rough” has changed over my 20 years playing golf. While golfing with my dad growing up, he taught me a lot about how to carry myself in both the good and bad situations. When I hit a really good shot I’d celebrate hard and he’d remind me to be cool and obviously humble because nobody likes a bragger! And when I hit a bad shot, I would become angry and beat myself up for it every time and then my dad would have all sorts of sayings to say to me like “just focus on your next shot” “that’s ok, you’ll be fine” or “let it go and move on.” Over the years, after numerous amounts of shots from the rough, I’d like to say I matured and developed a more positive mindset towards life’s challenges. Sometimes being optimistic is the only way for me to calm down and think through a difficult situation. We each have our own ways of dealing with problems and stress, but finding an ounce of positivity somewhere can make things seem not as bad. 

Decision Shot

If you’re not on the fairway or in the rough, sometimes you’re faced with a “decision shot.” Imagine a small creek in between you and the green. If you land in the creek, you get a 1-stroke penalty added onto your score AND you lose a golf ball. So there are two options: you play it safe and aim right before water OR you go for the green with the risk of ending up in the water. 

Takeaway: I’ve played the safe shots most of my life, until recently. My immigrant parents worked hard to set up me and my brother for success. They were raised to work to provide for their family as opposed to staying at a job that they fulfilled them and provided meaning. They tried to instill in me the same attitude about work, insisting I pursue a career like accounting that was safe and lucrative. But the lack of meaning led me to finally take the risk to prepare for and attend graduate business school. And here I am trying to pave a new way for myself on my own terms. 

Bunker

Moving onto the “short game” when you land around the green and you’re so close, it’s time to pull out a wedge club and “chip” it onto the green. 

Takeaway: At this point, I’m scrambling and trying to make the most out of a situation. I’m hanging on, motivated to finish with a birdie, par or whatever it may be as I balance family, work, and school. Whether it’s coming in early or staying late to meet an unexpected deadline or needing to sacrifice happy hour to spend time fine-tuning that presentation for the next day, the dedication and extra effort I show will get me out of the bunker. 

Putt

Lastly, it’s time to putt. To me, this type of shot is the most difficult. It takes patience, focus, and lots of practice to finish. The undulation of the green requires you to adjust two main things – speed and alignment. If you’re uphill, you’ll need to hit the ball a little bit harder and if you’re downhill, you’ll do the opposite. Now if the placement of the hole is on a slope, you’ll need to aim to the far right or far left of the hole to take the slope into consideration. It can be complicated. 

Takeaway:  You know when you watch a PGA tour, the crowd goes silent, the players are under high pressure and then the winner sinks the putt in to celebrate. That moment is so emotional because all that hard work ends with that celebratory putt. Although it’s common to think of golf as a solitary sport, that moment of victory isn’t as sweet without your fans – your family, significant other, and friends who have been there with you every step of the way. Never forget your Fan Club and take the time to thank them for all they helped you to achieve.

 

In reflecting on life in an essay, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed that we characterize ourselves by two types of virtues, résumé virtues, and eulogy virtues. “The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral.” However, even though “we all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones,” our culture and our educational systems focus on teaching “the skills and strategies you need for career success,” leaving students clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character (http://nyti.ms/1IUsWxY). 

Recognizing the merits in Brooks’ observations, I adapted an assignment for students in my MBA and MPA ethics classes that asked them to reflect on and create their own moral bucket list. Coming near the conclusion of learning and applying ethical theory, have in their possession a body of knowledge you cannot pretend not to have. In other words, when taking a moral stand or making an ethical decision, they should be able to and are responsible to, use this knowledge. So I ask them, in the manner of a bucket list, to develop “ethical wills,” (for example: https://celebrationsoflife.net/ethicalwills/) much more common practice these days, with samples all across the web and progressive lawyers asking clients to include a list of intangible assets they wish to bequeath along with their tangible assets. Even the corporate world recognized almost a decade ago the value of an ethical will, as reported in Barron’s: (http://www.barrons.com/articles/SB50001424052970204883804575483921684638904). 

So I ask my students to consider what advice, values, experiences they would bequeath loved ones. I also ask them to consider types of knowledge (intellectual, emotional, spiritual) and apply what they have learned in class to their own experience.

I urge students to avoid speaking in broad platitudes and worn cliché. Rather they should make their examples and discourse personal and meaningful to their lives, but with enough universal application to make it meaningful to others. Finally, I give students the option of selecting the genre or mode of presentation their ethical wills may take. The choices students make are as eclectic as they are imaginative even when choosing a conventional media like writing or video. Students have filed their wills in sacred settings and wearing sacred objects; they have put together mixtapes and video mashups of favorite songs, photo albums, film clips, and literary quotes. The epistolary form is most common but the audience isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it can be to a child not yet born or a parent about to cross over. A student who was a chef who prepared and served a meal of evocative foods that he connected with comfort and love and another floral arranger made a tribute in which each botanical selection was associated with or served as a symbol of virtue. 

After the Warriors championship loss after a record-breaking season, an epic moment for my students in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as the teams prepared to return for the next season, I chose to share some redacted highlights from the ethical will of a former student who extracted his life lessons from basketball. Here are the recommendations from Tyler Morehead’s ethical will: Man-to-manifesto:

     Play Fast and Loose

Enjoy life, every moment of it. We are at our best when we can embody being fully present in the situation. Try to limit your multitasking but not your potential.

     Fearlessly take your shot

Do not let fear of failure hold you back.  Push your boundaries and use your ability to adapt and learn a new skill. Expand your horizons and get a new perspective.  

     Be able to dribble with your left hand

Do not shy away from your weaknesses; identify them and embrace them so they no longer can be used against you. Navigate the situation with the best skill set at that time.  

     Study the game film, Master your pregame warm-up

Eagerly prepare to reach goals; put in the time and effort when no one is watching.  Remember to avoid short-cuts and build a strong foundational knowledge, analyzing a situation multiple times.

     Defend hard in overtime

Be reliable. Meet deadlines and keep your word. Sustain earned credibility by working hard during the tough times and showing up when promised. Reliability builds grit and trust. 

     Remain in help-side defense – always keep an eye on the ball and your man

Demonstrate loyalty.  Family & my friends contribute to our success. Cherish time with my loved ones and honor their value.

     When caught in a trap, be strong with the ball and find the open man

Stay strong with your beliefs and resist the temptation to compromise during stress. Pivot your options and decide confidently and decisively what is the best solution without regret. 

     Don’t drag your pivot foot 

Do not take advantage of other people for your own benefit. Create followers instead of competitors, collaborators instead of critics.

     A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player

Prioritize team’s goals over personal goals. Listen more than speak and choose quality over quantity when providing feedback. Team goals are much more satisfying and enduring than individual goals.

     Learn from your coaches

Appreciate the mentors who show up in your life, from grammar school teachers to God. Each reveals a unique way to opportunity.

 

The School of Management at the University of San Francisco promotes its role in preparing students to enter the workforce by identifying three sectors in which they are most likely to exercise their talents: as public administrators in various levels of government; as small to corporate business managers in for-profit endeavors; and finally, in a kind of combination of the two, as employees of non-profit enterprises that often fill the gaps in government services but do so by applying business practices that build in sustainability and success. 

Non-profit administration is often undertaken by those who are motivated after recognizing a social problem that needs addressing or after appreciating a common good that could be shared more widely. But these organizations are also founded by problem solvers who recognize that their special skill, acquired not by conventional education in management, may meet a social need or produce a benefit. Previously I’ve written about how one can apply skills developed in humanities courses to the workplace, but here I offer an example of a non-profit that offers a technique derived from specialized knowledge of ancient traditions to create a socially engaged contemplative organization aimed at transforming the workplace itself.

I spoke to one of the co-founders and current president of the Courage of Care Coalition (courageofcare.org), Brooke D. Lavelle, who described for me how her long study in cognitive psychology and Buddhist contemplative theory came together in a vision for the organization aimed at providing training for people in caring roles and professions (educators, health care professionals, social workers, clergy, activists, etc). What Brooke and her co-founder, John Maransky–a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College–recognized was that those drawn to work that requires active and engaged compassion could benefit from an approach to their work that cultivates sustainable care and compassion as derived from Buddhism and other contemplative practices. 

While some in academia may scorn their approach as lacking theological purity, Lavelle and Maransky welcome the opportunity to adapt their understanding of Buddhist practices to secular contexts and to apply contemplative resources for social change. This approach to Buddhism’s practical application is not new; twenty years ago the Dalai Lama, along with a lawyer and an entrepreneur, created Mind and Life, a non-profit committed to building a scientific understanding of the mind as a way to help reduce suffering and promote human flourishing. What distinguishes the Courage of Care Coalition from Mind and Life, however, is its front-line focus. Unlike Mind and Life, which is a grant-funding body that also hosts annual think-tank dialogues with the Dalai Lama, academic institutes, and international symposia, Courage of Care Coalition seeks to operate on the ground, meeting the needs of workers who meet needs. While they aspire to see their practices widely adapted, they operate not on a global scale but on the neighborhood level.

As Brooke explained to me, her academic training in Buddhism coincided with a growing awareness among the public of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation as techniques for improving, discerning, and replenishing humans in their daily lives. “Compassion,” Brooke observed, is “a stance, not a feeling, an encounter or a perspective” that has multiple signatures. In a relational or dialogic approach, Brooke recognizes that some of the delivery methods her organization offers, like online workshops, may not only believe this to be a fundamental principle; but also a flexible tool that adapts to the schedule of busy professionals, even an online community can resist the belief that people can act autonomously to renew their compassionate spirits. 

Care for others involves an obligation to say “you are mine” and to hold each other in a “field of care,” Brooke explained. Courage of Care rejects the notion of compensatory or redemptive suffering and resists individual tendencies towards martyrdom by stressing the collaborative aspect of compassionate care. There are many ways to “create space” for compassion, from multiple portals and levels of entry, in workshops, seminars, and retreats. The sense of community generated by Courage of Care extends beyond the formal training in workshops and seminars and is sustained as a habit of being in a nuanced idea of self-care.  

Resisting the trend towards instant gratification from applying mindfulness techniques and veering away from stress as the main stimulus to practice, Brooke describes how we can scaffold our needs to build, develop and live empathetic lives and to reclaim spirituality as a safe, scientific, public activity. Where courage becomes part of the picture is when one chooses a professional life that requires daily acts of mercy. “Courage,” Brooke observed, “is the quality of our capacity for caring.” The Courage of Care Coalition believes that we are empowered by others whom we serve and that it takes courage to recognize the ability to be compassionate. 

This understanding of courage tracks with the research of Professor Neil Walshe in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. As an organizational psychologist, Neil tries to understand the experience of courage as it applies to the organizational realm. Neil’s work has tried to move past psychology’s tendency to fixate on people’s motivations towards courage and instead, address the experience of courage for individuals. As he explains, “There is a paucity of research that deals with the human experience of moral behavior and even less that looks at its absence. We know far more about the conditions that can bring about morally motivated behavior but relatively little about whether this is a positive or negative experience once enacted.” 

While the assumption has long been that being courageous is a positive experience, Neil, like Brooke, asks “positive for whom?” In the organizational context, while it is morally admirable that organizations might encourage courage among employees, they are exposed to little if any risk in the course of doing so. Ultimately, as Neil observes, “it is the individual who expends the moral and physical capital that comes with being courageous, yet it is the organization that ultimately benefits through an increase in their moral perception by employees and outsiders alike.”

Motivated by the sharp rise in academic research in the realm of positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship (2000 onwards) Neil has tried to understand what it feels like to be courageous as part of one’s work role and similarly, what the experience of cowardice is like. 

Despite the volume of research present on courage as an abstract construct, little if any attention has been paid to the experience of courage among those who perform moral and virtuous acts as part of paid employment. While organizational psychology has had quite the preoccupation with courage in the past two decades most of its attention has been directed at attempts to quantify or measure people’s capacity for courageous action (http://psycnet.apa.org/books/12168/012; http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cpb/59/2/135 ; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760903435224). These often exclude the role of context and circumstance from the act of courage itself. Indeed, Neil has observed that organizations have begun to use and screen employees for the construct of Moral Potential without really understanding the complexity not only of morality but of its application to workplace behaviors. 

Institutional efforts cited by Neil support of the work of Courage of Care Coalition, including the University of Michigan’s Centre for Positive Psychology and the influential CompassionLab, a research initiative that aimed to give voice to the potential that empathy and compassion could play, not just in understanding the challenges of contemporary employment and organizational membership but also to address the potential benefits that organizations might realize by way of efficiency, decreased absenteeism, reduced turnover and the simple possibility that people might enjoy their work more if the workplace was a touch more human. 

 

Those of us in the Bay Area who are concerned about the effects of gentrification on San Francisco communities often turn to a Facebook page titled “VanishingSF,” a collection of stories, events, and not-so-random facts started in 2013 by a thirty-year resident of the city, Julie Rae Levak. She began her first post with a quote from Hope in the Dark, a book by revered local writer, Rebecca Solnit:

“To live entirely for oneself in private is a huge luxury, a luxury countless aspects of this society encourage, but like a diet of pure foie gras, it clogs and narrows the arteries of the heart.”

Much of the ire of the blog is aimed at the tech industry and its workers, the biggest influence and easiest target in the class war erupting all over the city.

I am a regular reader of “VanishingSF” and welcome the perspective and reporting it offers in support of those most impacted by the wealth disparity in the city, particularly its Mission neighborhood. It is here where I volunteer weekly at 826 Valencia, a writing center established in the Mission in 2002 precisely because it was located where underserved students could benefit from our help. But as Google buses started taking over Mission streets and yet another independent bookstore turned into a high-end home furnishing mart, I found myself easily sneering at the tech workers and wondered if it wasn’t silicon, rather than foie gras, that was clogging their hearts.

826 Valencia is ever conscious of its goal to close the academic achievement gap for under-served youth in the Bay Area by providing the tools and resources necessary for success in school and beyond. In 2014 they opened an additional center in the Tenderloin, a struggling neighborhood not far from City Hall where some 3,000 underserved school-age children now live. As I participated in supporting the new center, I was chagrined to find out that much of the support for the project came from the tech community I had comfortably come to criticize. The support was not just monetary donations but also time, talent, and energy, with folks taking the best practices that made their start-ups successful and applying them to the planning, building, and marketing of the new center.

While support for the new center came from many places—including loyal volunteers and staff and partner organizations—826 Valencia’s staff described for me the role played by young adults who work at Pinterest, Dropbox, Goodreads, Spotify, Google and other tech companies I had come to demonize. They offered another perspective on some of the people who work there and how they have caught the community spirit generated by 826 Valencia’s goodwill. From the most recent annual data collected by the organization, corporate volunteer events are up by over 60% and include the participation of 19 corporations whose 151 employees have served over 454 hours. In addition to this “people power”, substantial grants have come from Google, Twitter, Dolby, and other corporations. Included among the volunteers are former 826ers, workers who as maturing students benefited from the programs offered by the writing center and now want to give back. 

Also among the corporate volunteers is a student from the Master’s in Public Administration program at the University of San Francisco that I teach in. I joined her and many supporters at the opening of the new 826 Valencia center in the Tenderloin. Although I was there as a volunteer supporter, my student and several others were there in their roles promoting community relations as part of their companies’ enactment of corporate social responsibility (CSR)– a business practice that involves participating in initiatives that create shared value for business and society. The University of San Francisco hosted a Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference that brought together more than 200 tech leaders, community members, and business students to discuss how technology can improve everything from health care to education. CSR is a rapidly growing field for professionals who are looking for impactful careers in sustainability, focusing on the balance between financial, social, and environmental benefits for both nonprofit and profit-seeking firms. Working adult students, professionals who recognize daily how companies and their employees can collaborate to redress social inequities, organized the event at USF.  

Promoting and providing employees with meaningful volunteer opportunities helps companies to attract top talent and further engage, develop and retain workers who demonstrate heightened productivity and skill development. While CSR boosts their public image externally, it also helps to develop pride in the company and build relationships among its employees. As a consequence CSR improves the bottom line for everyone involved. According to a 2012 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 88% of recent college graduates have gravitated toward companies that prioritized CSR programs. CSR Central, an organization dedicated to showcasing the best in CSR in Ireland, is currently studying the benefits of employee volunteer initiatives. Their preliminary conclusions can be found here: http://csrcentral.com/employee-volunteering-the-benefits-for-companies-and-their-csr-programmes/. Among their findings is that it is not just the companies and the nonprofits that gain in tangible ways but individuals too report greater life satisfaction and better physical and mental health.

Whether employees participate in an organized CSR event hosted by 826 Valencia at their original location in the Mission, in schools, and now in the Tenderloin, or simply take their own initiative to become involved in the development of young people’s writing skills; everyone benefits. The reward of volunteering reaffirms the wisdom of Archbishop Desmond Tutu who recognized that:

“A person is a person through other persons. None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are.”

That is the moral of the story told by the students, staff, and the volunteers—CSR folk and regulars like me—at 826 Valencia.

 

In Christine Porath’s essay titled Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace, found in Harvard Business Review she makes an obvious but often neglected observation: manners matter. Porath demonstrates how a study that documented “how incivility diminishes collaboration and performance in medical settings,” echoes results from her own research (https://hbr.org/2017/01/how-rudeness-stops-people-from-working-together). 

Supporting her contention that “people who lack a sense of psychological safety—the feeling that the team environment is a trusting, respectful, and a safe place to take risks—shut down, often without realizing it.”  Porath describes the outcomes: people are less likely to seek or accept feedback, experiment, discuss errors or speak up on any number of issues. This behavior generates “a cloud of negativity” that translates into negative conduct and continues as a miserable cycle of bad performance and poor outcomes. Recognizing that many lack the perspective or experience to acknowledge and adjust their comportment accordingly, Porath recommends that organizations take time to develop collective norms and agreed-upon standards for civil conduct. 

Another way of describing what Porath wishes to create in organizations is culture. While she suggests training and workshops to help employees develop “listening and feedback skills,” Jerry Wagner, founder of the Academy of Culture Ambassadors (Academy), takes another approach: look to role models—at work and afield. Then become a role model yourself. Jerry’s career has spanned academia and industry.  A prolific software entrepreneur, Jerry has served as head of research statistics with a Fortune 50 company and as a Gallup Senior Scientist and has held positions at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas A&M, the University of Nebraska in Omaha and Bellevue University.

 As Jerry recounted to me in a conversation, Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements from Gallup was the inspiration for the Academy. He also recounted the deep impression left when he provided a staff psychologist to support employee’s well being at this first software company in Austin in the early 80s.  What became the Academy first began at Bellevue University where Jerry started the Institute for Employee Wellbeing. While there he consulted with several organizations and paid attention when he noticed businesses with exceptional workplace culture. Imagining a way for others to be introduced to these organizations for admiration and imitation, he started producing the monthly online publication that became Culture ROLE MODELS and eventually progressed to include others in spreading the word to become the Academy. 

As outlined in their mission statement:

“The Academy of Culture Ambassadors is a community of socially-minded workplace culture ambassadors that have an exemplary reputation for sharing innovative practices for superior workplace joy, productivity, and innovation. The Academy supports workplace cultures where there is a relentless passion for kindness, empathy, dignity, trust, transparency, sharing, happiness, compassion, and love.”

Wagner seeks out organizational theorists, human resource professionals, management gurus, and role models from a variety of settings who “celebrate kindness, joy, and love as a business priority” and offer “spiritual leadership” shaped by a conscious capitalist model. 

The Academy sets forth the proposition that the essential elements that generate healthy and sustainable workplace cultures are known and measurable, as Porath’s research demonstrates. Jerry’s schema clarifies individual and corporate roles and responsibilities, implicitly suggesting that culture is what unites them. Each plays a role in promoting a place where employees want to come to work and collectively solve problems and advance their goals. 

Recognizing that an online presence was inadequate, Jerry began developing the concept of local grassroots organizations that could support professionals interested in organizational culture modeled on the essential elements. Fifteen months after starting, there are seven city chapters of Culture Ambassadors across the mid and southwest. Jerry describes the local chapters as the pillars of the Academy. Each chapter has a lead person with a planning team that operates as a self-managed team. 

With chapters thriving and plans for new sites expanding, Jerry raised his ambitions and in October 2017 offered a 2-day conference in Santa Fe on workplace culture and well-being: Wisdom for Modern Workplaces. Jerry intended for the conference to address the kinds of concerns raised by a registered conference attendee: “Our company has great aspirations for creating a workplace culture in which people look forward to coming in each day and are passionate about what they do.  We want an environment that develops and rewards high performers who are fueled by their accomplishments and contributions to the team.  We want to create a deep sense of collaboration and team spirit.  At the same time, we have some deep issues and challenges. I hope to gain insights, inspiration, and tools to fundamentally change our workplace.”

The foundation for the conference, the Academy, and the publications, which Jerry–who does not run his organization as a 501c3 non-profit but also does not accept donations and does not pursue grant monies—makes freely available, include the charming Ancient Wisdom for Modern Workplaces, by Graham Williams. Mr. Williams and others, like Marcella Bremer—who as a consultant in Europe promote positive leadership, inclusive change, and cultures of kindness and have developed an online instrument to assess organizational culture—are lending their support. All share Jerry Wagner’s hope that while creating civility is a necessary first step in changing the climate of a workplace, to build a sustainable and respectful culture requires more. Mark Twain recognized what does work long ago when he observed: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

As you can easily see from my USF Blog profile, I am an average-looking, middle-aged, white female academic, teaching aspiring capitalists in the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. What you can’t tell is that I am the author of a body of scholarship on African American religions and literature, have curated several shows of African American art, edited books on and taught courses on African American topics. Just as folks are bewildered when my rosy-cheeked Canadian friend orders dinner in impeccable Mandarin, also do they demonstrate an implicit assumption about my lack of knowledge about or interest in African American culture. But when the subject of the ethnicity of emojis came up in a recent conversation, I wondered if I was prepared to defend my choice to use a brown emoji thumbs-up and to explain why it mattered. Just because I possessed an informed rationale did not imply that others were excluded from having their informed rationale. Each can be interpreted as a considerate choice or a careless one depending on how you frame the argument and support your position.

As observed in a recent New York Times article, emojis are not morally neutral symbols (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/arts/design/hands-off-my-smiley-face-emoji-become-corporate-tools.html?_r=0). Unicode, the organization responsible for approving emojis, are making cultural, and sometimes political, choices in determining which new emojis will make the cut. “Emojis have emerged as cultural forces in and of themselves,” the author writes. “The crisp, candy-colored glyphs form a modern emotional palette,” which “soon took on new meanings as they made their way to new countries and subcultures.” These observations support the genially contentious conversation with my friend, also white, who declined to use any “emoji of color” out of “respect” for the ethnicity of others and also out of an acceptance that any attempt to portray ethnicity is bound to lead to imprecision and controversy. But what my friend didn’t recognize is that there is no morally neutral skin color. Even the default choice of Crayola “nude” or “skin tone” prioritizes a skin color and assumes that white indicates the presence of raceless monoculture that does not exist anywhere except in our unexamined minds. Lost in conversation was a recognition of how cultural choices and privileges are made for white people without their even knowing it, a point made by Peggy McIntosh in her extensive career arguing against the exercise, even unconscious, of white privilege.

Her ground-breaking 1988 essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” helped establish the language by which we can analyze these conditions and steered us towards recognizing implicit assumptions that shape our choices, including what crayon to use while coloring. Long before the color of an emoji was a topic, Peggy McIntosh, as she described in an Examining Ethics podcast (http://examiningethics.org/2016/01/6-burden-whiteness/), observed that realizing that she had a white advantage wasn’t enough for her.  She took action by writing to companies, including Crayola, demanding that they produce more variety among their skin-toned crayons, recognizing the embedded form of oppression that limited choice because of a systemic order that prioritized whiteness. 

Although I don’t have McIntosh’s perch to preach from, I realized that I could enact my own form of spending down my unearned bank account of white privilege (another metaphor McIntosh employs in her writings) by building into my MBA and MPA ethics and social responsibility course a component that asked students to undertake an experience of confronting their implicit assumptions that get repeated and played out in their professions in the private and public sectors. To do so I ask my students to participate in Harvard University’s Project Implicit, (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) which began simply focused on external traits of skin color and gender but which now “tests” participants for a variety of implicit assumptions. Founded in 1998, ten years after McIntosh’s essay, Project Implicit describes itself as “a nonprofit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition – thoughts, and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control.” The goal of the organization is to educate the public about hidden biases and to provide a ‘virtual laboratory’ for collecting data. 

After taking multiple tests students return to class reporting dismay at their outcomes which register an appalling vulnerability to a variety of implicit assumptions. So I ask the students to read McIntosh’s essay and also an essay from Slate titled “Can You Train Business School Students to Be Ethical?” so that they can appreciate the relevance of examining implicit assumptions and white and other forms of privilege, especially as they apply to their workplace conduct and decisions. (https://slate.com/business/2012/09/business-school-and-ethics-can-we-train-mbas-to-do-the-right-thing.html)

Among the conclusions the authors of the article arrive at, that is persuasive to my students, is that we should be paying attention, not to the spectacular examples of malfeasance and bad corporate behavior like Enron or Volkswagen but the “moral blind spots” and unintentional ways people commit ethical failings. Most people fall prey to a self-serving bias and discriminate unconsciously not because we lack the capacity for moral reasoning but because we make moral choices only using what is called “System 1 Thinking”—the thinking that is driven by emotion and intuition.

It is “System 2 Thinking,” however—the part of our brain that reasons logically through decisions, with a full appreciation of the many biases that plague our intuitions and instincts, that is most useful in moral decision-making and is appropriate for workplace management. 

Whether we use colored emojis or not, we are making a choice that carries with it a variety of implicit assumptions that vary depending on where we stand. While I cannot guarantee that any of my pedagogical efforts are successful in preparing my students to check themselves against unconscious bias, I live in hope that as they practice the art of moral persuasion in their workplaces, they will do so remembering the words of the entertainer RuPaul: “Life is about using the whole box of crayons.”

 

Teaching ethics and social responsibility in a school of management at a faith-based institution as I do provides opportunities for discerning leadership qualities not always found in secular settings. Providing spiritual growth opportunities for not just students but also faculty and staff, these experiences benefit students in ways that support the kind of instruction I provide at a Catholic university that is neighbor to Silicon Valley. As described a year ago in an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Catholic colleges are increasingly attracting not just cradle believers but students who are from unchurched backgrounds (http://chronicle.com/article/Catholic-Colleges-Greet-an/149327/). 

Students with little or no religious background are drawn to the religious mission of Catholic colleges as they articulate it into topics of broad interest, like developing a meaningful philosophy of life or pursuing social justice. Substituting “good” for “God,” students can apply the fruits of their spiritual inquiry to many aspects of their life and learning. Furthermore, because schools with religiously articulated missions explicitly encourage conversations about values, they implicitly promote a “conscious capitalism” model for doing business that supports my efforts to teach ethics to aspiring entrepreneurs and managers (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246478).

Conscious capitalism is rooted in four principles: conscious leadership, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture, and higher purpose.

Recently my university provided me with the chance to learn from someone who practices conscious capitalism, a man who built and guides an organizational structure of multiple social enterprises. His businesses apply commercial strategies to improve the well being of individuals while also making a self-sustaining profit. This authentic and inspirational leader also happens to be a priest who is known not by his corporate title but by his gang-conferred moniker: G-Dog. Greg Boyle, a priest in the Society of Jesus, was motivated by his faith to answer the need for employment and educational opportunities among youth in gang-controlled East L.A. and did so by building a complex and wide-ranging business model that also met an equally broad array of social needs; he recognized all the stakeholders. His supply chain of commerce is really a human circle of compassion that runs businesses that serve the communities while also transforming the lives of those who work for Homeboy Industries while also sustaining a values-based culture to continually support the work of the stakeholders. (http://www.homeboyindustries.org)  While Homeboy Industries makes a profit, its higher purpose contributes to affirming the true value of the citizens of Boyle Heights.

Although we were gathered at a religious retreat center and arrived primarily to share spiritual experiences with Father Boyle, I also came away with a deeper appreciation for what is required of a conscious leader. Most important and often repeated by Father Boyle was his insistence on the need for humility, a concept not typically associated with leadership in business circles. Father Boyle’s experience, however, illustrates the power of humility as an agent of growth. Or as he puts it, “If you are humble you never stumble.” Father Boyle suggests that those that find themselves in leadership roles “push the deflate button” and not shy away from humility. Humility helps us be disciplined in generosity towards ideas we don’t recognize as our own, resulting in innovations that benefit everyone. In this way, humility prepares a leader to appreciate the importance of relationships and one’s obligations to those she serves and represents.

Hence Father Boyle emphasizes kindness as a reciprocal activity among all who are working towards the same goal. Kindness is possible when one humbly approaches colleagues with recognition of what Father Boyle calls “kinship.” Just as he sees himself as equal to the gang members he seeks to help, so too does a conscious leadership recognize her kinship with all her stakeholders, understanding that any designation of leadership is not assigned by the presumptive leader but conferred by those she leads. Leaders don’t pick themselves; the people do. “Connect,” Father Boyd urges, “don’t compete.” 

In building a corporate culture based on relationships conducted with kindness rather than as transactions performed for achievement, Father Boyle is informed by his higher purpose but he is also firmly grounded in his obligation to reality. He will “cherish” rather than “cling” to his employees, understanding that their commitment to the corporate vision depends on them seeing themselves as stakeholders in their own personal development, too. A dream shared by one of his employees provided Father Boyle with the image he needed to explain this distinction between “cherish” and “cling.” When confused in the darkness, we can shine a flashlight on the light switch to help another find his way to the light; but we can’t turn on the light for others. A leader accompanies rather than guides, sustaining both humility and kindness in the process.

Humility, kindness, and accompaniment are all expressions of the higher purpose that serves as a kind of counter-imagination that prevents a corporate culture from only looking inside.

The social reality of life in Boyle Heights instructed Father Boyle that the only way to change it was to stay immersed in that reality, to “witness,” as he describes it, to the immediate context that seeks to be served. A humble leader practicing kindness and accompaniment Like Father Boyle uses his imagination to enrich his reality, not escape it. As a witness, one’s posture should be not to “send a message,” but to “receive one.” “Receivement,” Father Boyle observes, rather than “achievement,” allows one to “belong to the truth,” rather than merely speaking the truth. While conscious leadership principles may apply across professions, they are composed and enacted in context. For those who aspire to conscious practice of their profession, the example of Father Boyle demonstrates that leadership is not a noun but a verb.

 

Living in a city like San Francisco it’s hard not to be infected with some Christmas cheer during the holiday season. The famous Market Street is lined with Christmas lights and filled with the hustle and bustle of bundled-up shoppers hauling with them bags of goodies and simply exuding holiday joy. I walk past homes, that are lit up with colorful bulbs and meticulously decorated Christmas trees in their front windows and often emanating whiffs of delicious holiday scents. But this time of the year is not as cheerful for everyone, especially those far away from home and longing for their loved ones. This is usually the case for me being a transplant from South Africa whose fondest memories of Christmas involve sunny, warm weather and family around a swimming pool, a far cry from the chills of this city. But this year was different thanks to the immense kindness of one of our professors from this past semester.

For those who know Kimberly Connor, they have experienced the sheer kindness and warmth that she radiates, an energy that draws all kinds of people to her. Her class on ethics, so aptly suited to her whole being, consisted of an MBA group that was predominantly international students from a range of about 10 different countries around the world. Knowing this, she selflessly opened her home to any students who are away from their families over the holidays, for a Christmas Eve dinner.

Festim, a fellow student and Kosovan friend, and I head over to her house. I am carrying Christmas cookies, peppermint bark and a bottle of red wine that I wish was fancier than it was, and I am suddenly filled with child-like, excited anticipation that is oddly familiar although also a noticeably distant feeling. As we make our way up their staircase, I notice the many somewhat eclectic tributes of Our Lady placed on the walls and eventually arrive at a Matisse-inspired painting of Kimberly and her English Springer Spaniels. This followed shortly with a bombardment of love from her 8-month-old Springer delight, Harriet, who has a red bow on her. My heart instantly melts, and all the licks and cuddles are more than appreciated. Kimberly welcomes us and introduces us to her equally welcoming partner, Steve, whose worldly knowledge and appreciation for fine wine makes him instantly fascinating. Vu is there, also a fellow student from Vietnam with the purest of hearts and his friend Ai, equally lovely and also originally from Vietnam. Introductions are easy and void of any awkwardness typically associated with some first-time encounters. Adeep, the Mauritian in our class arrives fashionably late with some beer and cherry chocolates and his excitement for the evening is apparent in his toothy grin. The whole atmosphere is homely and relaxed.

As we help to slice what I assumed to be scones but in fact called biscuits, Kimberly explains that the holiday tradition from Virginia is to eat these with a Virginian ham that she has gone out of her way to find for this evening. She speaks of this holiday tradition with a fond reminiscence. She also points to a beautifully decorated table filled with treats and a special princess cake covered in glittery fondant to resemble Santa’s hat. The seven of us, all from different backgrounds, sit around their living area with a log fire burning on the tv to share stories and experiences. Mingling has never been this easy and my social awkwardness is long forgotten.

Kimberly suggests we draw Zen Cards. Something that I am not familiar with but quickly take a liking to as each card has a word on it that is intended to shine a light on something in your life that you can relate to intimately. Each one is uncannily applicable to each person who carefully selects theirs, reads it out loud and speaks of how this relates to them. This a wonderful way to share with others but also brings a new sense of awareness to oneself. We draw cards that read ‘experience, peace, compassion, tranquility, journey and patience’ and personally reflect on their significance. This leads to a somewhat natural progression to talking to a battery, although some may argue ‘Force’, powered Yoda figurine by asking him questions that prompt a wise response. Kimberly is an avid Star Wars fan. ‘Of course’ I think to myself, another reason why I like her. After giggling at some of the questions directed at Master Yoda, we tuck into the princess cake, which I could only describe as having puffy, rainbow-soaked clouds in your mouth. I enjoyed it so much I glutinously go on to eat both mine and Festim’s fondant. It was unnecessary but glorious.

Kimberly then hands us a bunch of pastel-colored chalk and turns to a floor to ceiling chalkboard in her kitchen and gives us carte blanche to decorate it. My inner child leaps with joy perhaps more obvious that I thought I led on. We immediately start writing things like ‘thankful’ and ‘grateful’ on it as those are the feelings that are overwhelmingly occupying our minds of this experience. I draw a shoddy rendition of an elephant, Vu draws to stick figures accompanied with ‘love is equal’ and Festim, a rather accurate drawing of the world, circled with the word ‘friendship’. We finish it off by writing ‘thank you’ in our different languages and the words from our Zen Cards and I reluctantly gather the chalk placing it back on the kitchen counter.

After being incognizant of the fact we were at our professor’s house owing to their comforting hospitality we realize it is getting closer to 11 pm and decide it is time to be on our way. We profusely thank Kimberly and Steve for the loveliest evening and for welcoming us into their beautiful home. We left there with the happiest of hearts and the fullest of bellies.