The Ordinary Impact

There’s a strange pressure we carry to get it right  and to do it quickly. We celebrate clean wins and polished outcomes, but we rarely talk about the messy middle: the missteps, the restarts, the moments when effort doesn’t lead to clarity. When progress feels clumsy instead of confident, many of us quietly decide it’s a sign we should stop. But what if that discomfort isn’t a warning at all? What if it’s evidence that you’re actually doing the work? That’s why I keep coming back to a line from Samuel Beckett ...  not because it’s comforting, but because it’s honest: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” At first, it sounds almost bleak. There’s no applause in it. No promise that the next attempt will finally be the one . And yet, beneath the bluntness is a quiet kind of hope. Beckett isn’t praising failure.  He’s normalizing it. If you’re trying anything meaningful, learning, leading, creating, loving, you are going to fail. O...

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” — Socrates Most of us were taught that wisdom comes from answers. From knowing more. From being certain. From having things figured out. But Socrates suggested something quieter, and far more unsettling. Wisdom doesn’t start with certainty.  It starts with wonder. Wonder. That  moment when you pause instead of rushing to explain.  When you notice instead of label.  When you admit you don’t fully understand, and you stay curious anyway. But somewhere along the way, many of us learned to treat wonder as childish. Questions became inefficiencies.  Curiosity became a distraction.  Not knowing became something to hide. So we replaced wonder with speed.  With opinions.  With conclusions that arrived before understanding ever had a chance. But wisdom doesn’t grow in crowded certainty.  It grows in open space. Wonder slows us down enough to listen.  It keeps us humble enough to learn.  It reminds us that...

I got it wrong. Not in the dramatic, headline-making kind of way. But in the quiet, frustrating kind. The kind where you miss something you wish you’d caught. The kind where you replay the timeline in your head—trying to figure out how, when, why you didn’t see it. I care deeply about the things I commit to. I try to be prepared. Thorough. Attentive. But I missed something this time. And that miss had consequences. It was humbling. Embarrassing. Disappointing. And it meant having to step away from something I genuinely wanted. Not because I didn’t have the passion or the experience— but because I missed a step that mattered. And that part was on me. So I did what I’ve had to do before—what most of us will have to do at some point: I owned it. I apologized. And I reminded myself that doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good in the moment. But it’s still the right thing. Here’s the thing I’m learning: Messing up isn’t the end of your integrity. But hiding it—or pretending...

I grew up in Illinois—the Land of Lincoln. I learned about the Emancipation Proclamation in school. We took field trips to Springfield. We walked past bronze statues and read plaques in the Capitol. We were taught that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But no one told us the whole story. No one mentioned that it took more than two years after Lincoln’s proclamation of freedom to finally reach every corner of the country. No one told us about June 19, 1865 —when the last group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free. No one said their freedom had already been signed into law, but it was withheld. Delayed. Denied. That day—Juneteenth—was missing from my textbooks. But it matters. Deeply. Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom, yes—but it’s also a call to honesty. A call to look again at the stories we were told and ask,  “What was left out?” "Who was left out?" It’s a day to amplify Black joy, history, culture, and resilience. And for those o...