Grounded in mindfulness. Guided by wisdom.

About ten years ago, I discovered an album of the poet David Whyte called “Solace: The Art of the Beautiful Question.” At the time I was leading Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International I had helped to found, and so the title intrigued me. Yet even as I’ve transitioned to new work and new stages of life, listening to this album has become an annual ritual, part of my practice of preparing for the High Holidays. (I wrote about it last Rosh Hashanah too. Like any good work, it repays regular visits.)

One of the leadership teacher Stephen Covey’s most famous observations is that “relationships operate at the speed of trust.” It’s a line that has resonated with me for a long time. To me, trust is everything–at work, at home, in life. When I keep my promises, I feel like I’m upholding trust, depositing it in my account; when I fail to do so, I feel like I’m reducing the balance. When I have trust in the account, I can draw on it to ask other people to trust me as we head into uncertain situations; when my balance is low or overdrawn, that’s pretty hard to do.