Category: Empowerment

  • The girl from the holler who showed us how to live

    Sadly, Dolly Parton – country music legend, movie star, philanthropist, businesswoman, daughter, wife, friend, and all-around amazing human – has sung her last song. Headlines flood our feeds all day, every day, but the unexpected news that 80-year-old Dolly had passed stopped us all in our tracks. You could almost sense the audible gasp that…

  • The quiet work holding us all up

    Michael Lewis is best known for turning obscure subjects into stories we love: baseball statistics, mortgage bonds, offensive linemen. In The Blind Side, Moneyball, and The Big Short, he told the stories of hidden systems by finding the people who understood them best. His latest bestseller, Who Is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service, does something quieter but…

  • Long game, big cathedral energy

    When news reports in mid-June showed Pope Leo conducting a historic mass at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral to mark the structure’s official completion, I did a double take. When I visited more than a decade ago, it was “almost done.” It had already been under construction for well over a century, so why had it…

  • Why Japanese fans clean the stadium after every game

    Have you ever seen the stands of a major sports stadium after the game is over? Water bottles, soda cups, and half-eaten food left under the seats. Napkins and paper strewn everywhere. Beer trickling out of cans that were kicked over as people leave in a hurry. Most of us step over that mess on…

  • The best commencement speech that was never given

    Author Sharon McMahon was scheduled to give the commencement speech recently at Utah Valley University, where Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk was killed last fall. But just days before graduation, the school cancelled her speech, citing safety concerns, so she never got the chance to deliver it. McMahon’s speech, titled “Durable Hope,” reminds graduates…

  • Good news about what sticks with kids into adulthood

    After dinner at a friend’s house, the young mom followed her three-year-old around, trying to keep him occupied – and making sure he didn’t break anything. When she mentioned that his birthday was coming up, I asked whether they had any special plans to celebrate. “We really need to organize a birthday party for him,”…

  • Kicking my two-day habit

    Last week, I ordered a harder-to-find book online. Three days later, I got an email from the vendor saying the book had shipped, but it would take another six days to arrive. What?!? I couldn’t get the book locally, but I didn’t urgently need it. Waiting several days for delivery used to be the norm,…

  • No one expected this guy to win

    American Nathan Martin (wearing blue) shocked the world last Sunday by winning the Los Angeles Marathon in a come from behind finish, crossing the line a mere 0.01 seconds ahead of Kenya’s Michael Kimani Kamau – the narrowest win in the race’s history. Yet how Martin managed to pull off the win was even more…

  • When you’re stuck in the middle

    Several years ago, to honor our grandmother and raise awareness (and $10,000!) for breast cancer, my sister and I walked nearly 60 miles over three days. I expected the physical demands to be intense, but what surprised me most was the profound, lasting emotional impact of those three days – and how powerfully the experience…

  • The map to freedom began with a book

    As a kid, poet Reginald Dwayne Betts loved books and developed an early fascination of speed reading. He couldn’t afford formal lessons, so he checked out a book on the subject from his local library instead – the last book he borrowed before going to prison. But it planted a seed. At just 16 years…