I don’t like de-escalation.
I recently shared some of our trainings with a big company. Their employees are struggling with an increase in incidents related to homelessness. After we watched a video together, we had the following conversation: De-Escalation vs. Conflict Prevention Our approach to de-escalating conflict is 90% around preventing conflict in the first place. The other 10% […]
Emotions are contagious.
Our emotions are contagious. That isn’t a metaphor. Emotions are LITERALLY contagious. Let me give you the science behind it. Researchers at the University of Parma—which is in Italy and was founded in the 10th century—discovered that we have these things in our brains called “mirror neurons.” These mirror neurons fire when you experience an […]
The Migrant Crisis
When I was in my 30’s I took a couple years off from homelessness to work on other issues. For about a year I was the Executive Director of a nonprofit law firm for immigrants in Washington D.C. That experience taught me that my calling is homelessness. Perhaps just as importantly, I learned a lot […]
No one wants to yell at you.
When I ran the shelter, I was yelled at…A LOT… Sometimes first thing in the morning (before I was even awake). Sometimes in front of an audience (residents and my staff). Sometimes by people twice my size (and scary!). Next time someone is yelling at you, I want you to remember one thing. No one […]
How do I handle repeat offenders?
Dear Ryan, I work at a coffee shop. There is a guy who lives in the woods nearby. Most days he will come in and buy a small coffee and sit around for a while. That is cool. What is not cool is that he keeps asking other customers for money. When we ask him […]
I never understood the term “neurodivergent.”
Next week I am doing a live interview with an expert on autism. Carly Danesh-Jones is a British autism advocate (who is on the spectrum herself). She even received an “MBE” for her work on autism advocacy. It is one of those cool things that the British Royal Family does like making people Knights and Dames […]
The problem is not what you think it is.
I am doing a training tomorrow for McDonald’s national security team. By the way, I’ve been working with McDonald’s for about a year, and I have been REALLY impressed with how committed they are to a compassionate approach to homelessness. In preparation for training their team, I was reviewing our old training on “How to […]
Billy the Kid was mad at me.
It was too cold to be this foggy. Maybe the weather was different in Salt Lake City. I didn’t know. I had only been there for a dozen hours. The motel had promised a “full breakfast,” but the waffle maker was broken, and the eggs were greener than even Theodor Guisel would eat. I settled […]
De-escalating conflict is like typing without looking at your hands.
Can you type without looking at your hands? If not, this newsletter won’t be very helpful. Do you remember learning how to touch type? It was REALLY hard. First, someone had to teach you where to put your fingers. Then, you had to think about every single key very carefully (“’J’ is my right index […]
Damage is fast. Healing is slow.
I had two hip surgeries during peak Covid. (I don’t recommend it). I followed all of the surgeon’s instructions: I did physical therapy. I stretched daily (and still do). I stopped running and playing Pickleball (giving up running wasn’t as hard as I expected, but I’m still bitter about Pickleball because I was pretty dang […]
