Musings – Shift and Scaffold

May 30, 2026

Are we there yet?

“How was the move?”

I keep getting this question, keep dreading it, and keep fumbling through an answer each time.

From behind a kitchen counter, we see a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese next a sink and a knife block. Beyond the counter are boxes and furniture and packing supplies strewn about the living room, and lit by sunlight coming in from the full length windows.

For those of you don’t know (or whom I missed in the chaos of relocating internationally with a toddler), I recently moved back to the United States after living in Japan for nearly four years.

Well. For one, my family and I are currently living in a temporary furnished place until we can move into our next place and until our sea shipment with 80% of our stuff (furniture, kitchenware, books, and apparently all my cozy sweaters) can arrive. Don’t get me wrong—it reduces so much stress not to have to sign a lease for something sight unseen or to have to scramble (while jetlagged) to apply for, get approved for, and sign a lease for housing as quickly as possible while living out of a hotel room with a small creature who enjoys climbing, but it also means that we will need to move again.

We moved countries but we’re not finished moving apartments. So the move is…ongoing?

As of this writing, it has been about two months since we arrived in the US.

If you have ever uprooted your life (to a new city, state, country), you know that even after the boxes are all unpacked (if you ever even unpack all of the boxes!) and you’ve updated your address on all of your accounts, it still takes a while to feel like you’re settled. Even if it’s a place where you’ve lived before. Things change. You change. Besides, what does settled even mean?

In change management, it’s helpful to have timeframes and milestones and indicators. That’s true in life and in work.

When we moved to Tokyo, I kept putting things off and would think that I would do them when we were more settled. When we moved into our new apartment (we spent the first couple months in a temporary place then as well). When our new apartment was fully set up. (I have lived without a bedframe before so perhaps this threshold required further refining.) When I had a regular daily routine. The goal posts either kept moving or were fuzzy at best.

One thing though, that I could articulate as an indicator (and did to someone who asked), was having a favorite local café or coffee shop. And we did indeed get to the point of having a favorite neighborhood coffee shop.

However, change is not linear. This, too, is true in life as much as it is when changing to a new database system at work.

The things I wanted to do after I felt more settled? Some I simply did, either by force of circumstance or because I just decided not to wait anymore. And some I never did get around to doing.

In Tokyo, I had friends, favorite neighborhood spots, routine things. Did I feel settled in Japan? Yes and no. (Ask anyone who has lived in another country and I imagine it is a complicated question for most if not all of us.)

The doing of things, reaching of milestones—they’re markers, but not necessarily permanent ones.

This is also true for things like changing to say, a new project management system. Maybe all the staff have completed the training and are using the new system (because you took away the old one). But chances are that people will still refer to the old processes for a while, may still jury-rigg things to make the new system act in the ways that they’re used to and that work well for them. And even if you are really thorough in your discovery, you get all the right stakeholders involved in designing processes and in planning the configuration—you’re still going to run into situations where real life and the system interact in ways you didn’t anticipate. And you’re going to need to adjust the process or reconfigure things—and then correspondingly update how-to guides and retrain people and manage the continued changes. (Change management: This is the actual song that never ends.)

While kilograms come easier to me now than pounds, I never did shift my brain over to Celsius so I was always looking up the weather and toggling back and forth between Celsius and Fahrenheit.

I had wanted to write a blog post about relocating before I left Japan. It seemed like the kind of thing one should do. It felt like something that a previous version of me would have made sure to do. Then we got on the plane and, well then I thought I should write one after I got settled. Or until I knew what I wanted to say. Or until I felt less…emotional and overwhelmed by it all. I kept waiting, waiting, waiting.

One could wait forever to be ready. (And there are many things for which I’m still not ready—ha!)

So here I am anyway, in an attempt to let go of being there yet. To let go of having some new next thing to share with you (I am still coaching and consulting), of feeling like my mind and my body are consistently in the same place, of having reached some mythical steady state where things won’t change for a while. (And yes, I can imagine everyone who has ever been a parent of a young child just going, “Ohhh, honey…”)

I’m still here. And also there. And also not there…yet. (Depending on your perspective and what we’re talking about.)

I’ll leave you with this excerpt from a podcast episode that really resonated with me recently and that I think may resonate with some of you, too.

Oliver Burkeman: One quick thing, that it was a big liberation for me, both in terms of writing techniques, but also in productivity, organizational, everything, to realize that there was nothing wrong with always experimenting and modifying, and that this wasn’t all supposed to be leading up to the perfect system.

And that actually, I’m one of those weird people who finds it quite enjoyable to tinker with what I’m doing there. And as long as that doesn’t become your entire life and take over from doing the writing, which it doesn’t when you accept it into your work like I do, increasingly. That’s great. And if you’re the kind of person who likes, overhauling your systems a bit and experimenting with new apps and things like that, fine. It’s just the problem is thinking that you’re going to find one eventually that’s going to be your salvation. That’s not going to happen.

Parul Bavishi (London Writers Salon): I feel like if there’s one thing anyone takes away, I’ve certainly taken away from reading your book is that there’s no arrival. There’s just a continuous.

(Here’s the full episode: London Writers Salon Episode #130: Oliver Burkeman – An Imperfectionist’s Guide to Overcoming Distraction and Finding Creative Flow, Writing Nonfiction)

September 18, 2025

Change and impact: Not just for other people

Side view of me speaking at a lectern, with a laptop open to slides and speaking notes in an open binder. I am an Asian woman, and I’m wearing a blue blouse and a yellow skirt. — Here I am speaking at a conference for the first time, at the 2017 Nonprofit Technology Conference. Photo credit: Marci Soifer

The first time I spoke at a conference, it was not because I thought I had something useful to contribute. In fact, my first thought was: “Me? I’m not an expert. I’m not a speaker.* I can’t possibly be the right person to do this.”

Someone requested help (the conference had a two-speaker per session requirement). Someone else believed I could do it. And because I often doubt myself, I also doubted whether I was correct about not being the right person to join this conference talk. (Turns out self-doubt can occasionally be useful. Also, thank you Ash Shepherd for letting me borrow your confidence in me!)

So I talked to the person leading the session. And then my excitement in coming up with ideas and delving into the topic overrode my fear of public speaking and doubts about my ability to do a good job (until like, the day before the conference, of course). I was nervous during the presentation. But I did it. And people got useful things from it. (Thank you, Marci Soifer, for being a great co-presenter/session leader!)

More importantly, I got something extremely useful out of it: Speaking at my first conference changed how I saw myself, and the experience challenged the things I thought myself capable of doing.

“So today, you’re writing 1000 words. And you will write many more words after that. Those words will matter. They may not change the world, but they will change you.” — Roxane Gay

It can be transformative to do things we’re not sure we can do–or we’re not sure we can do them well (calling all perfectionists). Not everything is going to be a hit out of the park, but we carry forth what we learn from the experience and what we learn about ourselves.

Why does that matter?

Not everything we do needs to change the world. Most of the things we do won’t. But in the aggregate, they add up. There are enough people in the world who are confident without basis. We don’t need more confident people. In the face of complex challenges, what the world needs is more people who can handle doing things while being uncertain, who have an accurate understanding of what they’re capable of and can contribute, and who are willing to share those.

It’s not about public speaking or raising your hand for that role or publishing that story publicly so much as it is about what gets unlocked within you once you do it. Because without shifting things inside of ourselves, we won’t be able to do the things that shift things outside of ourselves.

Do I love public speaking? No. I still get nervous and self-conscious. I just don’t let it stop me any more when I have something valuable to share. Because now, mixed in with that nervousness, is hope for what sharing that might unlock for someone.

If I hadn’t said yes (or really, “Um, okay, sure I guess?”) eight years ago, I likely would not have ended up giving a talk last year in which I referenced my upbringing and then had an audience member come up to me afterwards to say that she’d felt seen in a way that she hadn’t in a professional space before. Was that world changing? No. But it mattered to her. And that matters to me.

So that thing that you’ve been nervous about doing, about putting out into the world?

Maybe it won’t get any responses or it gets rejected or it never leads to anything external. But doing it will make you a person who didn’t let fear get in the way of doing that thing. Isn’t that worth it?

I would love to cheer you on, if you’d like to share. Or, if you are interested in having a thinking partner as you work on these things, let’s find a time to talk.

*Yes, even though I had taught courses and my job at the time involved leading classroom-based staff training, those were still new things for me AND it’s different to facilitate an interactive training than to present to people for 30-60 minutes. Or at least it is in my head.

P.S. I’m still a scaredy cat and lots of things still scare me or make me nervous! But there are people who benefit from us playing smaller than we are, and there are people who would benefit if we were to live at our actual size. Think about who those two groups of people are.

August 7, 2025

Feeding myself from an empty bowl

A couple weeks ago, I pulled out a bowl, set it on the table, and then walked away to go do something that I just remembered I had forgotten to do. Half an hour later, I sat down at the table and looked at the empty bowl. In my quest to do the one more thing before I forgot about it again, I had forgotten to actually make lunch or put anything into the bowl.

empty white ceramic bowl with blue and brown lines around the edge, on a brown fabric placemat

I laughed and thought to myself that it was funny that I literally tried to feed myself from an empty bowl.

Last week, I had some type of respiratory thing that evolved into a sinus infection/ear infection. And then on top of that, I got pink eye. (I imagine those of you with small humans in your life can relate to what happens when someone is always sneezing or coughing in your face after spending lots of time with other small humans who also put everything in their mouths.)

It has been a very long time since I have felt so physically walloped, as if I’d been drenched in a solution of germs and then wrung out to dry.

The thing is that I’ve been operating in some varying state of sleep deprivation for the past 7 months. Sometimes I am not great about eating balanced meals during the daytime, being a bit of a lifelong grazer. (Elevensies, anyone?) And sometimes, you know, our bodies decide that we need to be sat down and given a stern warning because we have not been listening to them. And also that most things are not actually as important or as urgent as they seem when are brains (and society?) are yelling, “Go, go, go!”

It was a humbling reminder that most of us probably need to ask for help more often than we do. And even if we could do it on our own, there are times when maybe we should ask for help in the name of doing things in a sustainable manner. (Thank you, David, for not once saying you told me so.) There are times when asking for help is a way of letting people in, as well. And while that vulnerability can be scary (and while some people certainly have not earned the trust for that), I’ve found that people’s responses more often than not show me how limited my imagination can be sometimes for someone’s capacity to show up in a way I didn’t know I needed.

Anyhow, the question I have for you right now is:

What’s in that bowl you’re feeding yourself from?

If you’re open to sharing what’s in your bowl, I’m curious to hear about it and how that’s been working out for fueling you. Or if you’d like to make a change and don’t know where to start, then let’s have a chat and find out if I can help with that.

July 7, 2025

The spoons we carry

Stainless steel teaspoon with a slightly bent handle on a brown fabric placemat

“Who doesn’t bring a spoonful of fear to the first day of a new job?” – Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry

Years ago, I participated in a teambuilding event where one of the things we had to do was to fill a cup with water from a bucket—which was about 10 feet away—using a teaspoon.

I recall that there was no explanation for why we did this activity exactly (to infuriate us?!?) and that it was a competition to see which team finished filling their cup first. Trying to carry a teaspoon of water anywhere without spilling it is an exercise in frustration unto itself. I’m not sure how turning it into an internal competition was supposed to help our team cohesion either. It felt a bit counterproductive. (Unless the point was to unite everyone by our extreme irritation with all of the activity facilitators by the end of the day? I also recall some shaming by the facilitators about how we were supposed to collaborate and be creative.)

However, the quote above from The Light We Carry reminds me of this activity. Of how difficult it was to get from point A to point B while carrying this spoon of water and desperately trying—and failing—not to spill it. Don’t let them see you sweat! That’s advice I remember hearing, particularly as a woman and nearly always from other women. Even if you’re scared, you’re not supposed to let anyone see that. This is a message I’m sure many of us have heard (or at least it’s a common one in the US).

But we are sweating! And we’re carrying around it in a damn teaspoon, trying not to spill it while moving towards a destination. And we’re supposed to look good while doing it, too?

There are many metaphors for fear, and there is much advice about it. (Some advice seems much healthier than holding it all in. For example, using fear as a form of fuel, as the former First Lady suggests, or recognizing that fear can be an indicator that something or someone is important to us.)

Why not spill it?

The first time I went to a networking event in Tokyo, in 2022, I was super nervous. I hadn’t really gone to any such events since 2019, I’m always nervous around new people, and here I was trying to do it in a new country and in a place where I didn’t know anyone. After the host asked me a fairly innocuous question (probably what I do) and giving a rambling, probably nonsensical answer, I was sweating through my shirt.

Then I heard the person in front of me wonder out loud about what we were supposed to do, whether to get in line for the drinks, or how does one even introduce themselves to strangers anymore. It was as if I just heard all the thoughts in my head spoken out loud! Because I had. She turned to me and introduced herself, and that’s how I made my first friend (who wasn’t introduced to me by someone I already knew) in Tokyo.

Instead of trying to figure out ways to transfer the water if you can’t move the bucket or the cup, we ought to be questioning whose cup we are filling by carrying this water across this distance in these tiny spoons.

Are there still spaces in which letting them see you sweat is going to be something that others will use to undermine you? Unfortunately, yes. It’s their form of sweating in public – undermining others based on something that’s irrelevant because of how insecure those people are. But admittedly, it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes those people still have more power within certain spaces.

Still, I’m finding that there are more and more places where it’s better (and more rewarding) to spill it. Rather than trying to fill the cup that society tells us to fill, it’s better to water the ground around us. The point is not to carry the spoons, to carry the water, or to fill some arbitrary container. To continue to carry our true feelings and our humanness and our uniqueness in a tiny little spoon across the playing field is to continue to play by rules that were never meant for us, because the people who set the rules always intended for us to remain on the sidelines. And that’s the point of carrying the spoonful of water (or fear, or whatever) and trying not to spill it.

When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness.

Screw the game. We’re each of us more powerful than we realize, sometimes even in those spaces that run on insecurity. When we focus on not letting them see us sweat, we collude in their false narrative that vulnerability is weakness. But if you think about the strongest people you know in life, I’m willing to bet that they’re actually the people who are secure enough to admit when they made a mistake, to choose courage in spite of how scared they are, and to be a whole human in a world that would find it easier if we could be tiny little machines that just stayed in our lanes.

But it’s not about what I think either. What do you think? What do you know to be true?

Are you here to play a game? Or to grow and create something?
What spoons are you carrying? What’s in them? Whose cup are you filling with them? And who benefits from that?

If you’re interested in a thought partner to help you unpack these questions, please reach out and we can find a time to talk.

Note: While I did not directly reference Spoon Theory in this post, it’s worth noting that, while the metaphor may also work for people without disabilities, that the concept of spoons and how many spoons you have available to get through your day comes from and is primarily used by the disability community. If you’re unfamiliar with Spoon Theory, I encourage you to give the linked article a read!

May 26, 2025

Letting go to move forward

*Okay, I know it’s almost summer in the northern hemisphere, but bear with me as I try to recall the chill of an ice rink as the weather in Tokyo gets warm and humid.* | Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

Have you ever watched someone try to ice skate for the first time?

Often when people are ice skating for the first time, they want to hold on to something, like to the wall around the ice rink, or to someone’s hand. This makes sense. They don’t want to fall!

But here’s the thing: When you hold onto something that’s not in the direction you’re trying to go in, you will keep veering towards whatever (or whomever) you’re holding onto. Even if it’s a person who is skating alongside you.

In order to skate forward (fully forward), you have to let go.

Holding on doesn’t mean you won’t fall. (I say as someone who has gone down multiple times when the person holding onto me has fallen.)

It’s not actually necessarily safer. (You can definitely tweak a muscle during your attempts to hold on while falling!)

Of course, it’s instinctual to want to hold onto something or someone that represents safety when we feel insecure, when we’re worried about falling. Just think of a new manager who is still stuck in execution mode, the bilingual partner who is the constant interpreter without even being asked, or that friend or family member who remains in a place (or a social circle) they’ve long outgrown.

But as anyone who knows how to ice skate will tell you: Falling down is part of the process.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been holding onto that seems safer, but isn’t necessarily, or that perhaps was safer once upon a time but that I now need to let go of in order to move fully forward.

This feels especially salient as a new parent and as one who is coming back to work. I feel like I’ve been slow to relaunch as I’ve been trying to figure out how to integrate things in this new configuration–and as someone who is not entirely the same person I once was.

In past transitions, I’ve had to let go of things like being the expert, of how I needed to act in certain ways while in certain jobs, of needing to fully understand things in order to make a decision (definitely can’t hold onto that and do anything in a foreign country!), and many more things. Some of these (okay, many), I am still working on letting go of.

I don’t have an answer yet this time (my kid is not even 6 months old yet at the time of this writing and I only took off my out-of-office on my work email a few weeks ago) but here’s the question I’ll be pondering:

What is it I need to let go of in order to move fully forward?

If you’re open to sharing, I’d love to hear what you’ve previously let go of in order to get to where you are now. If you’re also in a transitional space at the moment and curious about partnering with a coach to think through this question, please reach out and we can find a time to talk.

Author’s Note

I’ve been struggling to write my first blog post after quietly coming back from parental leave. (Although perhaps coming back is not quite the right phrase either as I get ready to take some time off again for family time?)

There it is again. That belief that there is a right phrase. That there’s a perfect sequence. That there’s a right order of doing this–integrating life and work and reintroducing myself and communicating that externally. As if I should process map my whole life.

But life isn’t linear. Most things are not dichotomies, not A vs. B but points on a continuum that has more than two dimensions.

Sure, there are things that can be sequenced for a smoother process. But even if you’re designing a service that is largely automated, and you have created a workflow that works for most people most of the time, you’ll still need to consider various conditions. There will likely be branch off points. What about the person using assistive technology? What about the person who has to pause and restart later because it is during the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. window and the washing machine repair person has finally come? What about the person who is trying to pay the bills for their parent who has dementia?

I digress. Few things have been as loud reminders that there is no one right way of doing things as much as having a baby. There’s what works for this kid, for our family. There’s what’s works best for right now. There’s lots of discovering that what worked last week or worked in before times no longer works. And there’s a lot of…well, that’s really not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Is it still a struggle to keep that in perspective? Daily. Sometimes hourly. Is working to let go of things a lifelong practice? Yes. But it helps to know what is important to me, what it is I’m moving towards, and it helps to have a good team. (I am so grateful to be navigating this together with my amazing partner!)

August 12, 2024

The opposite of stress isn’t rest — it’s play

A playful bakery in Tokyo makes little dough people for decorations.

While listening to an On Being episode where Krista Tippett interviewed Jacqueline Novogratz (founder and CEO of Acumen), I heard Novogratz say that the opposite of poverty is not wealth but dignity.

And I love that. Working towards dignity is much more constructive and outcomes-oriented than simply working towards wealth. (Because what is that wealth about? What it affords us. But what it affords us given the current systems we live within is the real goal, not the money in and of itself.)

Beyond the immediate example in that statement though, is the concept that sometimes the literal opposite is not the actual opposite. It’s easy enough to find statements of what people are against, and so much rarer for people to state what they are for.

In a broader context, sometimes we try to solve a problem by doing its literal opposite. And often, that’s not a particularly useful strategy.

Have you ever tried to tell a stressed-out person to relax?

Have you ever been the extremely stressed person who snaps back at the person who told you to relax because when has relaxing ever solved ANYTHING?!?!?!

*Raises hand for both*

While relaxation is the goal, we don’t get there by relaxing—by resting or lounging around doing nothing. At least, not if we’re already stressed. Because let me tell you from personal experience: you can absolutely lounge around in pajamas doing nothing all day and be highly stressed the whole time. (Or basically, this is relaxing as the verb without the outcome of feeling relaxed.)

I once worked with someone (thanks, Joe!) who told me that the key to getting someone to stop doing something is not telling them to stop, but to get them to replace it with another behavior. Ideally, the replacement behavior is such that you cannot do the behavior you’re trying to stop at the same time (think chewing gum and smoking).

So think about the last time you played. If that feels hard because you can’t remember the last time you had fun (or trying to figure out what constitutes play is stressing you out), think about the last time you had a good laugh. The kind of laugh where you’re holding your belly, gasping for air, and maybe even tearing up a little.

Could you be stressed at the same time? Did your body feel looser afterwards?

That’s what fun feels like.

Play forces us to be present. If we’re not present, we’re not having fun, and it stops being play. Meanwhile, stress is usually about something upcoming—not the present moment.

If you can’t remember how to play, then start small. Take a play break with your pet (or a friend’s). Have a 5-minute dance party. Draw some terrible art. Play with your food and make a scene on the plate. Make silly faces at a baby. Skip down the street because you can. Use a picture of your dream house as a background for your next video call. Get creative with your outfit for no reason besides feeling like it. Step outside and blow some bubbles. If there are ways you like to play, go for it!

But all work and no play makes us all very stressed out and no fun to be around.

During 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, when lots of people were doing daily walks around the neighborhood, some of neighborhood kids (in Baltimore, Maryland, USA) created this hopscotch course to make the walks a little more fun. Because, why not?

April 19, 2024

Behind the curtain

Photo of brick buildings in downtown Portland -- across the top of one of the buildings in tall block letters reads, "Long live the wildcards, misfits & dabblers"

The past month or so, I’ve been having tons of conversations with people formally and informally, short and long, structured and meandering. I talked with former clients, mentors, colleagues in various forms, faculty and classmates in my coaching training cohort, people I had just met at the conference I was attending, and longtime friends.

In some cases, I particularly sought advice from someone—whether I’d specifically reached out hoping for advice or simply asked in response to a topic of conversation. And, tactical questions aside (like, where should I eat in your city), the answer was almost always the same.

“There is no advice.”

That was what my extremely real, dear old junior high school friend said. But that’s basically what everyone else said, too. And these are brilliant people. People I respect and have learned from. People whom I saw as further ahead on the curve. Who perhaps, at most, shared what they did in a similar situation, and then that they really weren’t sure but it had seemed to work. And that they were still figuring it out.

One person I had intended to ask for advice actually opened the conversation by wondering out loud about something with me, and the conversation took a lovely turn I hadn’t expected.

In other cases, I observed someone do something in a particularly skillful manner (ways I wanted to be able to emulate)—only to hear them afterwards share that they had been very uncertain of themselves the entire time. I have taken mental notes of what someone did or how they handled a situation to squirrel away for future reference, and then heard them question how they could have done it better.

To be fair, I’ve also had my share of being on the other side. Getting complimented or having people think that I’ve got it all figured out feels…scary. Like they’re going to find out* that I’m just making it up as I go along. (Even if I have a pretty decent track record of figuring things out.) And yet.

The most valuable conversations were those where we let each other behind the curtain and reveal the rest of what’s really happening.** Where we let go of anyone having the answers—of there being right answers, of answers being some sort of magic passcode that unlocked the door to some secret garden. Where we could sit in those questions together. Be curious. Be real with each other. I am forever grateful to all the people who let and continue to let me behind the curtain. And I am grateful to have worked with a coach who taught me to ask whether there a right answer actually exists when I am exasperating myself in pursuit of one. (Not that this isn’t a lesson I continue to work on!)

No matter how much someone seems to have it all figured out – we’re all just figuring it out as we go along. And in my experience, the people who frequently wonder about how they could have done something better – those have been the people I’ve learned the most from, whom I’ve witnessed be the best at what they do. They are the people doing tremendous things, because they keep asking themselves that question. Because they care to question if they are doing the right thing, and if they are doing it in a way that they can feel good about. But they don’t let it stop them from doing the thing.

Are there people who are, perhaps, objectively better at a particular skill or more knowledgeable in a certain area? Sure. There are certainly service designers who are more skilled at designing digital services or knowledgeable about designing experiences. But I’ve actually implemented programs and services, and specifically within a nonprofit and community-focused context. There are more skilled instructional designers and teachers than me, but I’ve actually had to answer customer support questions and besides, people always come away learning something they can apply—and that’s my goal. Doesn’t mean I can’t get better, or that I won’t.

So I’m going to change tack.

Instead of asking for advice, I’m going to ask people how they would think about a situation. What are the questions they ask? What are the factors they consider? When do they take a particular type of action? Who are the people they learn from? To ask them what goes on behind the curtain in their brains as they work on a problem.

In fact, it’s the kind of thing I’ve seen time and again in coaching others – people know more than they realize. And that includes you and me. The trick is in clearing the other muck out of the way first so we can see it.

What do you think about this approach? Have you had similar experiences? Take a different approach entirely? I’m curious to learn more.

*While, yes, this feeling is the feeling of being an impostor, I no longer believe that impostor syndrome truly exists. Rather, after learning more (I suggest reading “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey), and after reflecting on multiple previous experiences where I was told that I didn’t know what I was talking about—sometimes publicly—by people who had significantly more power in the relationship, and the ways in which I’ve seen others knocked down for similar reasons, I’ve come to see this feeling as a preemptive protective measure against the ways in which insecure people attempt to maintain superiority. At least, I know that in my head—but I still feel it!

**(Spoiler alert!) The phrase “behind the curtain” comes from The Wizard of Oz, in which there is a scene where they find the big, scary wizard, and it turns out to be just a regular human guy behind a curtain operating a machine for special effects. While in the case of the movie (I don’t recall if that scene is in the original novel), the curtain is used for deception, I’m not talking about people putting up facades intentionally—although that happens, too, of course, and is simply human. But what I’m referring to here in terms of “what’s really happening” is that it’s easy for any of us to see things on social media or hear fragments of what’s going on with someone in a short, passing chat and come up with an image in our heads that is at best incomplete and, at worst, very skewed or completely misreading a situation. It’s natural to fill in any blanks and to want to connect the dots we can see—but important to remember that there’s always a lot that we can’t see and don’t have access to.

March 27, 2024March 27, 2024

Highlights and takeaways from #24NTC

While I don’t pick up much swag when flying internationally, I do always love stickers, and small things like this bookmark courtesy of Big Duck from their great presentation about inclusive project management.

There are still many things I am processing from NTEN’s 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference (and all the wonderful, expansive conversations I had before, during, and after). However, writing is a good way to process learning and reflect on things so, here we go…

As I walked into the Oregon Convention Center to pick up my badge, there were signs of the ways in which NTEN is intentional about supporting the community (e.g., local vendors from the craft market) and making sure the conference is inclusive and supports us humans attending as our full selves (e.g., designated spaces for lactation and prayer and racial affinity, a table at lunchtime for those fasting for Ramadan).

Hallway that shows 3 rooms with signs outside of them: prayer and meditation room, lactation room, racial affinity lounge

While I unfortunately missed Sabrina Hersi Issa’s keynote (and am hoping I can watch a recording later), the other two keynotes really shifted the lens for me, even in topics that I thought I knew a little something about.

Though I’ve been mulling for a while on the dominance of English online, in academia, and generally in traveling the world (even though I benefit from it daily), Anasuya Gupta (Whose Knowledge?) somehow managed to elucidate the depth and vastness of this – tracing its roots back to colonization and somehow, lest we feel overwhelmed, also sharing very tactical ways we might go about decolonizing the internet. I am still mulling over her questions:

Whose internet?
Whose knowledge?
Who owns and controls the infrastructure?
Whose structures and classifications? (e.g., in structured data)
Who and what is invisible?
Whom do we learn from, listen to, cite, and speak of?

(See my sketchnotes of Anasuya Gupta’s talk on “The Internets of Liberation”)

Actually, invisibility tied into Amber Case’s keynote as well, which made the case for calm technology – and for invisible technology, which allows you to focus on the task rather than the tool. For example, a window is invisible technology. Mind already blown. How did I not see that before?! (Pun not originally intended but now I feel compelled to leave it in there.) And bananas – their peels change color to indicate when they’re become ripe and when they’re going bad. It made me feel hopeful that we’re not doomed to drown in the proliferation of noxious features and products clamoring for our attention—that feels like the water we are currently swimming in. While I am uncertain if a seal of approval is a strong enough incentive, it was a good reminder that all design is governance, and I will be thinking about how to apply the clear, compelling, and practical principles of calm technology that Case has laid out.

(See my sketchnotes of Amber Case’s talk on “An Introduction to Calm Technology”)

On the theme of what’s visible/invisible and who controls what, The Glass Room had an exhibit about the journeys of the personal data that countless companies extract from us each day. The one about “The Real Life of Your Selfie” particularly stuck out as throughout my trip, I’d been through (at that point) 4 different airports 5 times within 6 days and I’d had my face scanned multiple times by both airlines and government agencies. Do I have the knowledge and privilege to say no? Yes. Did I have the energy resources to refuse after many hours of travel through multiple time zones and after having been jostled repeatedly by passengers who had shown they were capable of navigating around trashcans but not me, an actual human? Not really.

Poster of The Real Life of the Selfie showing and listing examples of the data that can be extracted from the picture of face and the ways in which it can be used

This year, I gave a talk on “Strategic Team Meetings for Teams of One.” True to the laws of technology, I ran into some technology issues at the start of my presentation. However, NTEN being the community that it is, I had three people jump out to help me trouble shoot (in front of a room full of people, no less). People even got up to help close door to the noisy hallway. And that’s not even including the friends and acquaintances who picked me up beforehand, when I expressed my nervousness, and during, when I was trying not to panic that I couldn’t actually show my slides to the audience. (Thank you, Brian, Adrienne, and Alexa for your help to fix that!)

Janice stands, speaking and gesturing with her hands, while standing next to a large screen with a slide about a Meeting with a partner activity. The first row of tables appears empty. — My dad’s initial comment when I sent him this picture per his request: “It looks like you’re speaking to an empty room, Janice.” I promise there were people! I also promise that my dad is actually very supportive of me even though it is very on brand that this would be the first thing he blurts out. (Thanks for the photo, Mark!)

If you missed my session, I also got the opportunity to talk about the topic on the Nonprofit Radio podcast, so stay tuned for when that episode comes out!

There is never enough time to talk with all of the people you want to nor attend all of the interesting sessions—and it wasn’t made easier by having 3 workshops for my coaching training that were overlapping with the conference. (But, oh, were they three transformative sessions!)

Here are some other highlights and things I’ll be continuing to think about (in no particular order):

Getting to meet many people in person whom I’d only ever spoken with online before
Catching up with old friends and meeting new ones – including someone else form Queens!
Mark Root-Wiley’s workshop on “DIY Accessibility Testing” – Every person who is responsible for a website should go through this, truly. It was very easy to do and very eye opening. If you’re attending the Washington State Nonprofit Conference in May, he’ll be presenting that workshop there!
Bettina Sferrino, Dani Faulkner, and Tristan Penn’s thoughtfully put together fireside chat on “Things We Wish Our White Colleagues Knew” (I have since shared these notes with a number of people not at the conference but whom I’ve had similar conversations with)
The way in which conference attendees challenged each other and made valid points while upholding community values in several specific conversations that could have easily turned into complaining or pre-decided arguments – windows rather than mirrors
A great session on proactive accountability and an intriguing session on sociocratic decision making
Brianna Collins’s amazing framing of being each other’s professional wingwomen – may each of you have someone like Brianna in your life! (But also, if you need a visual storyteller to help you communicate the change you’re making at your nonprofit, reach out to Brianna!)
A session that reminded me that language justice is not only about thinking about access for non-English speakers, but also for Limited English Proficient communities, access for D/deaf and hard of hearing communities, and access for Blind and visually impaired communities
The deliciousness I had while in Portland, OR, at Tusk, Nong’s Khao Man Gai, Portland Cà Phê, GrindWitTryz, and Kachka
Stumbling across cherry trees in bloom at a riverside park – and someone I knew, making for a lovely walking catchup amidst the beautiful scenery

As seen from above, a park along the river with a winding path lined with blooming cherry trees, a bright blue sky and a bridge in the distance

February 7, 2024

Permission to feel bad

Cat sleeping face down on a blanket on the sofa. Her front paws are stretched out but folded in, touching her legs, also folded in, as if forming a triangle. — She’s here, okay. What more do you want?!

I used to try to look for the silver lining a lot – or worse, I used to try to get other people to find the silver lining. Now, in and of itself, attempting to find something positive in a bad situation is not a bad thing, nor is it wrong. It can often be helpful as we try to gain perspective, or try to motivate ourselves to keep going when things get tough.

But there are times when it’s hurtful.

There are times when we use the silver lining to ignore the warning signs. To convince ourselves to keep going in unhealthy situations instead of honestly evaluating whether it makes sense to continue on that path (e.g., stay in that job, stay in that relationship, accept being treated poorly) when we have a choice about it. Sometimes staying positive is about survival (particularly when maybe we don’t have a choice, or when the other options are worse). But there are times when it can be a form of giving up.

And it’s also a different thing to choose for yourself than for someone else.

When people are grieving, we want to take away their pain. But sometimes the best thing we can do is to give them permission to feel it. To grieve. To miss that person (or place, or life they imagined, or whatever they have lost). To hurt.

There is so much talk about empathy vs. sympathy and a fraughtness about how we should feel when we haven’t had that experience or cannot ever know what it’s like to be in the other person’s situation, can never understand its full depth. It’s easy to get carried away in one’s own head about the correctly shaped response, and how one could possibly contort oneself into that correct shape. It’s also easy to believe we can approximate someone else’s experience because something (we believe to be) similar happened to us. To fail to recognize how bad a situation truly is for someone, because we (believe we have) survived the same. Or fail to recognize structural and systemic differences. Which can be dismissive, or worse, lead to us potentially gaslighting the other person. I’ve done all of these, and I’m sure I’ll continue before catching myself—though I’m working on it.

Platitudes are about us, about easing our discomfort at not being able to do anything about this terrible situation that the other person is in. But to be a better friend would be to sit with that discomfort if it gives the other person space to grieve. To give them permission to feel bad, to be messy. To free them from feeling guilt about making you uncomfortable on top of whatever they were already feeling awful about.

Someone I respect a lot used to open meetings with a check-in and often led the way herself in what it means to be open and vulnerable, to answer the question of “how are you” honestly even when she was having a really, really tough time. What a gift.

What I’m working on these days is to get better at replying, “that’s really awful” or “that sucks” or in some way recognizing the situation and how someone is feeling. To acknowledge their reality. I’m working at making space for people to feel as they feel. To answer “how are you” as honestly as they wish to. Even when they feel bad. And also, to get better at sharing with the people in my life when I’m having a hard time.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, or struggling, then please reach out to your local lifelines. If you’re in the US, you can call or text 988, or find more resources at 988lifeline.org. If you’re in Japan, you can contact the TELL lifeline via phone at 03-5774-0992 or chat.

December 29, 2023

What I learned from 50 (mostly) first dates

It’s odd getting to know people as an adult, isn’t it? As a kid, it’s often by proximity – we make friends with the neighbors, kids in our class, or kids who take the same route home after school. As we get older, it’s often through school, perhaps a place of worship or an extracurricular activity, and then at work, or maybe kids’ schools/activities in the case of people who are parents. But what about outside of institutions?

A latte with latte art in the foam on the top to look like two hearts, with a spoon on the saucer, and a tall mug of black coffee to the right. Both cups are on a wooden tray on a wooden table.

Last month, I watched a friend’s six-year-old run around making friends with random children, all readily jumping in to play with each other even though none of the parents knew each other nor necessarily interacted with each other. Nobody had set up a play date. I envied his ease – their ease, I should say, since while he wasn’t shy to jump in, every kid he interacted with was eager to welcome another person to play with. They were simply happy to be playing.

I envied their seeming ease – but actually, in terms of what I saw happen, I’ve found that this generally resonates with what I’ve found as an adult attempting to meet new people.

Earlier this year, I set a goal for myself of having coffee (or lunch or a virtual chat, etc.) with 50 different people. Having moved to a new city (and country) in 2022, I figured that it would be good to get to know people, whether personally or professionally. This was not for romantic purposes (I’m fortunate to have already found a wonderful partner!), nor did I have any specific agenda beyond getting to know people.

As someone craving connection (a.k.a., a human), I also counted people that I already knew, though I tried to make a point to reach out to people I crossed paths with once and wanted to get to know better. So I counted every substantial conversation for the first time I met with that person in 2023, and I counted them whether we met for coffee, shared lunch or a beverage, had an extended conversation during an event, went for a walk in the park, had a virtual meeting. I counted any conversation where I felt like I came away knowing something about the person that I didn’t know before. They included people I met while in the US and while in Japan, and some I’ve only met virtually, but have included people from numerous countries.

Of the 50 conversations, 32 were with people that were new (new as in, we’d never really had a substantial conversation or talked 1:1 before). I’m proud of that. It’s easy to talk to someone for a few minutes at a networking event, connect on LinkedIn, and then never go beyond that. But what’s the point if you’re not even sure why you might want to stay in touch with them besides that they work in the same field? (On top of that, field being fields for me, and even then, pretty loosely defined in my case.) However, I’m also grateful to everyone who made the time and for the things I learned from each of them and along the way.

What did I learn?

People are generally pleasantly surprised when you have a great conversation at an event, exchange contact information or connect on LinkedIn, and then actually follow up to schedule a coffee or virtual chat.
It works best to reach out for a chat when based on a real connection, when it’s clear that this is not transactional (i.e., not trying to sell something nor use Meetup or LinkedIn as a dating service), and when you reach out within the next few days after meeting them.
In a couple cases, I met people through a mutual acquaintance and this can be another strategy for meeting new people. For example, if you’re interested in meeting people who live in a particular area or who say, share a hobby, ask your existing networks!
I felt most awkward reaching out to people whom I’ve known casually (in that we crossed paths once or have a mutual acquaintance, etc.) for some time but whom I don’t actually know well. But most of the time, the other person expressed that they had wanted to get to know me better, too, and they were glad I had reached out.
Like exercise, reaching out gets easier over time and with practice and remembering that the point is to get to know people – not to have every person you meet like you.
There were people I never heard back from. Maybe they didn’t remember meeting me, or maybe it got lost in a cluttered inbox, or who knows what else is going on in their lives – I didn’t take it personally. If I eventually hear back, I look forward to talking with them!
You won’t become long-lasting friends or end up working with or hanging out with everyone, and that’s okay. But even if we haven’t really talked much after that initial chat, I’ve still always learned something. I know more about that person and the things that they’re interested in, and hopefully they know something of me—both of which are always wins in my book. The conversations are interesting and sometimes I get to learn other things as well, such as about a field unfamiliar to me, or practical tips for life in Tokyo. (The latter has been especially useful the past year!)
Over time, I’ve gotten better at recognizing a genuine connection in the moment (it often involves a lot of laughter in my case) and where we might both enjoy having a more in-depth or 1:1 conversation.
There are few things that bond people as quickly as a common and emotionally intense experience. You know, like moving to a country where you don’t really know anyone and can’t really speak/read the language.
We are each of us so much more than a job title, or a family role, or our passports, or the things that happened to us. It’s a reminder I’ve really needed for myself this past year.

Someone I once worked with on a project shared with me that, when he worked in sales, he was trained on always having a brochure or something to physically hand a potential customer so that they would have to extend and open their hand to receive it. In doing so, the potential customer would be opening up their body language and, so the theory went, their mind would follow.

I’m not sure if that’s true, but it is human to want to connect with people. Often, people are interested in connecting or talking further, but they may be nervous about reaching out or simply haven’t had the time to follow-up. But that’s not the same as not being open to it.

If you’d like to get to know more people or get to know people better, reach out first. People are more open than you think. There are many kind, gracious, and generous people in the world. Be kind. Be curious. Be real and people will be real with you.

Thoughts? Done something similar? Have other recommendations for meeting people or getting to know people better? I’m open to hearing from you (and to having a chat)!