lqb2weekly #204 (6 mar 2025)

Mar 06, 2025

hey,

preface: because it’s been a while since the last newsletter, this one is jam-packed. as always, i hope you’re able to navigate in a way that doesn’t create overwhelm! give it a skim, skip around, stop reading early, take what sparkles for you, leave the rest.

wellllllll i drafted this early in feb and now it’s march but i’m not gonna edit it that much so…. happy (belated) black history month. here’s a cute video.

also, in honor of black history month, check out this EPIC buy black guide.

next newsletter, i’ll be on the actual month it is, women’s history month. i hope.

ok so last newsletter i previewed this so here’s the full feature.

this is a little project i had called “coaching, in our own words.” it came to me in a moment of having several back-to-back conversations with people who were wondering what coaching was and what made liberatory coaching different than other coaching. after sharing a few times i knew i had thoughts about this. but i also felt like a conversation with some other voices would be even better. so i rang up two other liberatory coaches and asked if they wanted to share in this convo with me and here we are!

this project comes in two parts. part 1 is a conversation between the 3 of us about liberatory coaching. part 2 is each of us sharing individually responses to these three questions:

in your words, what is liberatory coaching?
what is the experience of being coached by you like?
can you share a few experiences people you’ve coached have moved through?

trio video

nisha

sól

lawrence

my guess is that most of you who read this newsletter don’t need these videos right now. but at some point may need them or may share them with someone else who does.

some hopes i have for this:

other liberatory coaches will make their own videos answering these questions (or their own questions)! i think as coaching continues to be democratized and popularized, more people will become politicized coaches and more folks will get access to coaching.
people who are curious about coaching will find these videos useful resources.
people who are interested in working with me, nisha, and/or sól can use these videos to help them decide if they want to work with us or not.

ok, that’s all on this!

now for some briefer things:

re: wicked… i said i was going to write a whole wicked newsletter. and i have started it. and i just haven’t yet gotten up the energy to really write into it. for now, i’m releasing myself from that commitment! (sorry mikaela!!!) but maybe just saying this will create a lil energy for me to do it. who knows…
are you in the boston-area and interested in the intersection between music and direct action/civil disobedience? check out this project that a beloved of my partner is building…

Sing for Justice - BVOCAL

Social justice movements are stronger – more joyful, more resilient, and more powerful – when they sing.
the next group rehearsal is march 12 so get in if you want!
better selves fellowships: for the past several years, i have been co-facilitating a weeklong rest fellowship up on a beautiful farm in vermont. here’s a lil description.

The Better Selves Fellowship is a week of care and support for BIPOC leaders and their allies working for environmental and social change. It’s a chance to rest, replenish, network with others, take risks and go deeper. It propels you to go further with the change work that matters most to you and your communities. This fellowship is about restoring and building people power in a time when people power is essential for liberation and health.

if you’re interested, check out more info and apply! it’s a simple application and the app deadline is march 25.
an old friend and spiritual development buddy, tara roberts, has just come out with a book and it’s dope. i haven’t read it but it’s about the hidden history of slave shipwrecks and more. check it out! Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging
another friend and consultant buddy, ora grodsky, just released her book: Justice, Love, and Organizational Healing A Guide to Transformational Consulting. i’m about 70% through and it’s SO. GOOD. i’m about to buy 5 more copies for folks in my life who i want to have this knowledge because i think it’s good for all of us and our communities! check it out. and don’t buy it from amazon (but do leave an amazon review if you read it).
this one is a little random but i got shared on this Know Your Rights Training for Massachusetts Faith Leaders in this trump moment so if you’re interested or know someone who might be, please forward.

on to the things!

(!!) pick of the pack

writing

some things i’ve written since the last newsletter:

quotes

there is nothing new under the sun. also, full transparency, many of these quotes come from james clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter (which i love).

If you do not actively choose a better way, then society, culture, and the general inertia of life will push you into a worse way.
The default is distraction, not improvement. — James Clear

It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company. — Hunter S. Thompson

The common narrative is that kids learn faster than adults, but if you watch any toddler they spend a large portion of the day attempting things that are on the edge of their ability.
How much time have you spent on the edge of your ability today? — James Clear

At any moment, you are one good choice away from a meaningfully better life.
— James Clear

Savor the little victories as much as you criticize the little mistakes. — James Clear

The end of a melody is not its goal. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Two simple rules:
1. You get better at what you practice.
2. Everything is practice.
Look around and you may be surprised by what people are “practicing" each day. If you consider each moment a repetition, what are most people training for all day long?
Many people are practicing getting mad on social media. Others are practicing the fine art of noticing how they have been wronged. Still more have mastered the craft of making plans (but never following through).
But, of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.
What are you practicing? — James Clear

Never sacrifice momentum. I might know a better path, but if we’ve got a lot of momentum, if everyone’s united and they’re marching together and the path is O.K., just go with the flow. I may eventually nudge them down a new path, but never stop the troops mid march. — Ben Chestnut

Be humble after but not during the action. — Ernest Hemingway

You have to work hard to discover how to work smart. You won’t know the best solutions until you’ve made nearly all the mistakes. — James Clear

In my whole life I’ve never been good at something I wasn’t very interested in. It just doesn’t work. There’s no substitute for strong interest. — Charlie Munger

The test of beauty is not that it is perfect, but that it always attracts. — Alice Wellington Rollins

Caring about everything is a disaster.
Caring about nothing is also a disaster.
Nurture the small pocket of things that truly matter to you. — James Clear

People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will completely change everything. There is no single magic bullet. Progress is about bridging the gap between what we observe and what we can imagine — one careful step at a time. — Temple Grandin