Here’s the quick monthly roundup for what I’ve written over the last few months, organized by subject. I’ve provided links to make it easier to read the articles.
General
- You’re So Talented! Let’s stop telling people they’re talented and start acknowledging the work they’re putting in.
- Start With The Feelings: A Guide for Customer Service and Support. Guidelines for doing good customer service and developing strong rapport quickly.
- The Grief Closet. Sometimes, people stash their grief in the closet instead of dealing with it. Bad things happen later on.
- Humble, humility, humiliated… a meditation on words. Looking at the relationships between these concepts.
- What’s Wrong With Your Savings Account? Looking at savings accounts in terms of their real value–and avoiding their pitfalls.
- Of Mice and Mindsets. Cultivating a growth mindset and letting go of “initial success” fixation.
- Why You SHOULD Get Chills From That “Homeless Veteran Timelapse Transformation” Video. Examining some core themes underlying the video of Jim Wolf and thinking about where we need to go in caring for veterans and homeless people.
- Try The Honey Badger Diet! A humorous look at dieting and body acceptance, provided by honey badgers.
- Triangles and Pyramids: Playing Math! Math is fun. This time, we play with triangles and pyramids and find some interesting mathematical relationships peeking out.
Crisis hotlines
- Pathologizing Language. Lots of people in the MH world use pathologizing and distancing language that bothers people. Here’s how to avoid it. (explained with honey badgers!)
- Fears In A Hat: A Facilitator’s Guide. A facilitation guide for an excellent team-building and group-process exercise, with examples.
- Getting Their Best: Performance Improvement at Crisis Centers (NASCOD 2013). Notes from my conference talk on how to help hotline workers deliver their best and fix it when they have problems.
- Hotline Directors’ Reading List. List of books recommended by national hotline directors.
- The Pillar Metaphor. Looking at resilience through a new lens: support pillars.
Music
- Using Metronomes Effectively, Part 1. A discussion of how to get the best practice value out of your metronome, starting with examples of what not to do.
- Jay O’Hara of Bourne (tune). A tune I wrote for my friend Jay, played on mandolin with Bob Mills.
Cooking and herbalism
- How to Make Dandelion Tincture (whole herb). Making a dandelion extract at home, with photos.
- Alcohol Tinctures – How Much Alcohol Is Needed? An exploration of folk-process tincturing, with questions and theories.
Technology and fun
- Honey Badger Empathy Survey. Mellivora capensis was surveyed to assess empathy levels. Results varied.
- T-Rex and Honey Badger Drawings. I like to draw pictures. Features T-Rex attempting information and referral work, plus the start of my honey badger series.
- Why Are Tweets Missing? Twitter has some strange privacy settings; this helps explain them.
- In The Digital Forest. What would the #woods sound like if all the #birds Twittered?
