On what values can do, what virtues can do, and the identity that forms when you practice both I recently found myself coaching a business leader through articulating their company values, a process I've guided many times at MAC6. We identify what matters most, then build behavior statements: "We do X" or "We do Y," [...]

Some thoughts on election-night speeches, and what comes after Of all the things I read after Tuesday’s election, the line I remember best came from someone who lost. Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew had just lost his South Jersey seat to Democrat Zack Mullock, the mayor of Cape May. He conceded in Sea Isle City [...]

On agency, responsibility, and the privilege of having a voice Next week, Americans will go to the polls. We will make choices about the people who represent us, the policies that shape our communities, and the direction of our shared future. I hope we recognize what an extraordinary privilege that is. We live in a [...]

Nobody who signs the Human Flourishing Pledge knows how to do everything it asks. Neither do I. I think that may be the point. When Dave and I got engaged, we made promises about a marriage we had never lived. We had no evidence that we knew how to keep them because, of course, we [...]

Dave and I have been married for more than three decades, and there are things we are still working on. I mean still. There are tensions we first encountered years ago, have talked about more times than either of us could count, understand much better than we once did, and have not resolved. Some have [...]

Dave and I have been married for more than three decades, and I cannot give you the story of the fight that almost ended us. There isn’t one. That is not because we learned how to avoid rupture. We hurt each other’s feelings. We got angry. We walked away. There were tears, sometimes sad and [...]

Last week we went underneath the argument and looked at identity, at what happens when something we believe gets tangled up with who we think we are. Emotion lives in that same territory. It can arrive before we have had time to decide what we think, and once it does, it changes what we hear, [...]

Nine weeks into this series, you know a lot more about what a good conversation asks of you. You know to get curious, to remember that the person across from you may see something you don't, to listen long enough to understand, and to catch yourself when you start defending. And then someone says one [...]

My son was thirteen when I finally said something I had apparently been saving up for a while. People were always telling me what a wonderful kid he was. Teachers loved him. Coaches loved him. Other parents would tell me how polite he was, how thoughtful, how helpful. I heard some version of What a [...]

I have a policy I never remember making. It shows up when someone says something and I have a real response, but before I can give it another thought comes in: What good would it do? Usually that is enough to stop me. I say something easier instead, or ask a safer question, or let the subject [...]