It’s been a little over a year since I published my book, Making Conversation. …

A way to turn your half-baked ideas into pretty solid ideas — I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for a workshop on writing effective op-eds with a group of academics. Maybe we would all take turns standing at a podium, playing intellectual defense as people searched for holes in our arguments. But what ended up taking place was…

There’s no shortage of noise around what’s wrong with workplaces. Zoom burnout. Call-out culture. Fatigue. Failing frameworks. You’ve heard it before. Again and again. I believe building culture and community are creative practices, a practice for which conversation is the core component — and Dust&Co has had a lot of…

Aspen Ideas has always been gracious about inviting me and giving me the freedom to experiment with and test the limits of dialogue. This time was no different, but it challenged our Dust&Co team in a completely new way. …

Maybe Sundays should happen more often — It was Sunday morning. I was a little groggy from a late night and found some mindless task outside while the absolutely not “pandemic-puppy” played around my ankles. …

Be careful you aren’t taking on a diagnosis that’s not for you — I read an article in the New Yorker where they interviewed a noted communication expert on “why we’re feeling so much social anxiety as we reopen.” You know the ones I’m talking about, right? The plethora of pieces showing up that say you’re languishing, afraid, or experiencing PTSD. Maybe you…

No, I’m really asking — “You don’t follow through!” My husband said this about me during family therapy yesterday. Then, today, it came up again in a team meeting. You’d think I’d be used to it by now as people have been saying this about me my entire life. It’s an easy allegation. It’s also…

Or, why you may not want to be me when you grow up. — I woke up this morning at 8:00am to the soft sound of surf and chirping birds. “What should I do today?” I thought to myself while admiring the gorgeous morning light. “Maybe I’ll buy that boat.” After all, anything is possible. “Or maybe I’ll just go for a hike instead?” …

Or, how the pandemic changed friendships for good — Prior to the pandemic, our friends were mostly all, well, sorta the same. Great people with families and kids and upper middle class careers. All people who’d “made it’’ by any conventional measure. More importantly, all people who you’d consider yourself lucky to claim as friends. 14 months after the…