Phone Notes Vo1. 1 | Lift Every Voice Be Free During my undergraduate degree, I enrolled in multiple poetry courses. My senior year, I took an intro to creative writing course with a friend who wanted to try something different in her final year. Usually we shared our poems with each other…

Phone Notes Vol. 1 | A thousand and one mornings — I wake up chasing sunrises on a quest for joy. The mornings have always been about chasing light. Light in the literal sense and light in a mindful sense. Now, approaching my 30s, I spent my 20s figuring out how to start my day. I gave my 20s a thousand…

Phone Notes 010: How are you showing up? — I resisted this and this title for a while, but what I’m interested in more than anything going forward is bravery. I just wanna be able to say that I showed up for myself? Is that okay for me to say? Two questions have been driving me forward since I…

Phone Notes Vol. 1 | Truth or Trade? — If you had to do one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? When I think of the word vocation I’m drawn to the dichotomy of the term. I think of vocation as a trade or craft that you commit to doing. Trade could be accounting…

Phone Notes Vol. 1 | More than just thanks — Gratitude isn’t just about being thankful. Gratitude is a practice of grace, patience, and thanks. The pursuit of gratitude is about alignment. Alignment places core values and daily practice into whatever the environment is. At times your environment feels good and at times it feels desolate. There are extremes and…

Phone Notes Vol. 1 | Won’t Live Forever — It’s no secret, right? We’re not going to live forever. So, keep on livin’ One of the most poignant stoic phrases that sticks with me is Memento Mori, meaning “remember that you will die.” I don’t find this statement morbid to say. It’s the reality of every living thing. The need for survival is…

On Education & Art — Creative Play All people need relative room for failure and creative pursuit. The scale of failure is relative to age, stake, and impact. Obviously, as those areas increase, there’s especially less margin for failure based on the context, but all people need the opportunity for creativity. As a former educator, I saw…

For those needing hope… — If I could set this to music it would be the Soul Meeting of Milt Jackson with Ray Charles except with Robert Glasper’s jazz on keys played by the hands of a tired single mother next to the side of her bed, pleading in the form of a prayer, with…

Phone Notes Vol. 1 | Get a uniform Sometimes the hardest part of a workout is just showing up and starting. Even the most dedicated and advanced gym goers struggle to go to the gym. So… when motivation fails when your morning routine fails when your discipline fails GET A UNIFORM I recently…