Currency of Empathy – Podcast with Minter Dial
A wonderful conversation with Minter Dial about my book Currency of Empathy: The Secret to Thriving in Business and Life among other topics viewed through the window of empathy, including leadership, work/life integration, emotional triggers...and cancer. #Empathy...
Home with a Capital H
John, Sophie, Grant, and Jackie; May 2021 Home is where the heart is…held safely, lovingly, and earnestly. Home is where empathy and love flow. One month from today, I will be Home for the first time in 6 months. I dreamed of returning fully well, triumphant,...
I Am Still That Girl…Integrating Our Lives
John and Jackie at Kadikoy Market Integrating life experiences can be tricky. People come and go. Locations change. We grow up and out of certain mindsets. We move on from relationships, sometimes necessarily. Perhaps one of the hardest things of all is to...
The Gift of the Present
Galata Tower Steps Living in the present can be a challenge. We replay the past, fantasizing about what we’d tell our younger selves to make life easier. We imagine enjoying the future if we do everything “right” and catch some breaks…or we imagine adjusting to a...
Will Western Medicine Change?
Yes, one nanometer at a time. I had an encouraging zoom meeting with a University of Chicago oncology team and a brave friend who ultimately lost her oh-so-healthy-until-he-got-cancer husband last year. He put up a good fight, within the boundaries of western...
Treat Yourself Well – “Kendine Iyi Davran”
Sharon and Jackie enjoying Istanbul, March 2022 While living in Istanbul, I’m learning Turkish. It’s not an easy language to pick up, but it’s a fun, rhythmic, and poetic language to practice. It’s also succinct. A few words say a lot. People appreciate that I try and...
The Power of Empathy to Heal Our Polarized World
This discussion of the power of #empathy to heal our world is one of the most thoughtful I’ve had. Timely too. Longtime friend Daniel Stid* poses some excellent questions as usual, and I did my best to answer them....
Is it Empathetic to Treat Cancer as a Chronic Condition?
Jackie and John, Istanbul, March 2, 2022 (2nd anniversary of ovarian cancer surgery) Maybe. At the beginning, those of us with difficult cancer diagnoses hope to do the unlikely: survive the treatment, ring the bell, and be in “remission.” We imagine all the ways and...
If Only Cancer Science Were as Brave as Cancer Patients…
Jacob Butze, on vacation in France, before being diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) As an ovarian cancer warrior/survivor/patient/victim/thriver over 2 years, I’ve been told countless times to: Be brave! Be strong! Be positive! Here’s what I can...
Police Reform through Empathy
For the past 6 years, we have been successfully working with the Cleveland Police on empathy-centered cultural reform. NYPD and the National Fraternal Order of Police have inquired about this potential national model, which is unprecedented and widely needed. In a 6...
Appreciating the Simple Things
Wonderful Turkish cookbook “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” – "The fundamental question" of wellbeing according to economists Rakesh Sarin and Manel Baucells, in their book Engineering Happiness I should be dead by now. Talk about low...
Divine Inspiration
Jeanne and Jackie in front of the Bosporus “All will be well.” - Reverend Jeanne Leinbach undergoing treatment for breast cancer 2015 Growing up, I never imagined I’d have close friends who are priests (pastors/rabbis/spiritual leaders). It’s not that I don’t...
