Image Credit:Lisa Congdon/Lisa Congdon Instagram

July 2022

Dear friends,

Every newsletter message we’ve written since we launched Illuminate Collective last fall has been grounded in embracing growth, beauty, and grace as we walk through a world that is challenging, painful, and imperfect. You may be feeling that the world has never felt as challenging, painful, and imperfect as it does in this moment. As a country, we’re experiencing wave upon wave of mass shootings, racial violence, and erosion of women’s rights as we continue to move through a pandemic. It’s not possible for us to write a newsletter that doesn’t name the fear and pain and heaviness that many of us are feeling this summer.

And. There is always an “and.”

We name the fear and pain and heaviness and . . .

• we take one step forward.
• we rest if we need to.
• we keep learning so we can show up in productive ways.
• we hold our loved ones close.
• we march.
• we watch for fireflies when it gets dark.
• we take a walk.
• we take action.
• we take care of our colleagues and our neighbors.
• we take care of ourselves.

At the mid point of the year, as we name and acknowledge so much that is hard, what is the “and” for you? What is helping you to lean into the second half of this year and keep growing?

We’ll be talking about this – and just checking in with each other! – in our Collective Conversation next Tuesday, July 19th. Please join us for this moment of connection and reflection. And let’s keep taking care of ourselves and each other.

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Embracing the Both/And

Tuesday, July 19th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – We invite you to pause, grab a cup of coffee (or a glass of iced tea!), and join us for this informal conversation about embracing a “both/and” mindset as we step into a new season.

Fall Coaching Opportunities

We’d love to add you to one of our remaining executive coaching spots for the second half of 2022! If you’re interested in learning more about how we can support you and your work through coaching, use the link below to schedule a 30 minute consult with us.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism Fall Cohort

White Leaders Working on Antiracism (WLWA) is a dedicated space for reflection, learning, and practice for white leaders who aspire to lead with equity. Through this four part series, white leaders engage in the internal work of rigorously reflecting on their impact as well as the external work of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully on issues of race and equity. Learning, reflecting, and practicing in community with other leaders can be transformative.

We invite you to join our WLWA email list to stay up-to-date on WLWA cohorts for Fall 2022 using the link below.

Partner Spotlight

Kelly Harris Perin, Little Bites Coaching

Our friend and colleague Kelly Harris Perin of Little Bites Coaching is dedicated to helping people and organizations work better and feel better. Little Bites has just launched Navigating Parental Leave, a course and coaching package for parents and a partnership for organizations committed to supporting a positive parental leave for everyone. As a mom of 3, transition coach for working parents, and advisor to human resources leaders on policies and practices, Kelly has seen it all – bright spots where parents and managers felt supported and productive, horror stories of bungled leave policy, team conflict, and long-term career harm – and everything in between. She believes that parental leave can be better for EVERYONE, including all kinds of parents, their managers, and their team members.

Find out more about Navigating Parental Leave here, and get the free resource “5 Ways You Can Support a Positive Parental Leave… for EVERYONE” here.

What We’re Reading & Listening To

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Marion’s Podcast Queue

Weekly listens:

• Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

• We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle & Abby Wombach

• Code Switch by NPR

• The Integrated Schools Podcast with Andrew Lefkowits, Val Brown, Courtney Mykytyn

• Everything Iconic with Danny Pelligrino

Can’t wait to dig in…

• History is Us with Dr. Eddie Gaude

Gratitude

We are grateful for long summer days, time with our families, and meaningful work in this season. And we’re thankful that there is always an “and.”

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Image Credit: Poets & Writers

May 2022

Dear friends,

At Illuminate Collective, the concept of “both/and” is central to our work with our clients and to our partnership as friends and colleagues. Exploring the “both/and” enables us to acknowledge complexity, think more expansively, and open up new possibilities. But embracing this approach – and holding ourselves back from rushing to find only one seemingly perfect answer – hasn’t always felt this central to us. This is something that we’ve learned over time and that we often have to remind ourselves to do.

We’re conditioned to view our world through a binary lens even though being a human in the world is messy and nuanced and layered. Reflecting on “Either/Or & the Binary,” Tema Okun shares that we “reduce the complexity of life and the nuances of our relationships with each other and all living things into either/or, yes or no, right or wrong in ways that reinforce toxic power.” Giving ourselves the space to hold two feelings or ideas at once, to get creative about alternatives, to take a step back from feelings of urgency and scarcity – this moves us from an “or” to an “and.” It shifts our conversations, transforms our thinking about what is possible, and leads to new ways of showing up and taking action.

With a commitment to shifting conversations and transforming what is possible, we’re continuing to collaborate with our collective partners to offer coaching and training on diversity, equity, and inclusion to leaders and organizations in every stage of the work. Maybe you’re feeling daunted about starting this work with a team that hasn’t centered it before. Maybe you’ve just begun to get below the surface of equity issues within your organization and it’s been painful. Maybe you’re ready to reimagine systems and structures and the way things have always been. We’re here to partner with you in this work and make space to consider where an “or” can become an “and.”

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Embracing the Both/And of a New Season

May 24th from 11 AM – 12 PM EST – Our Collective Conversations are a monthly opportunity to learn and reflect in community with others. This month we’ll be discussing how we’re leaning into the “both/and” of a new season. As summer begins, what are we welcoming and what are we releasing? How are we both acknowledging painful realities and staying open to beauty and joy? Where can we be thinking more expansively and creating more possibilities for ourselves?

We invite you to pause, grab a cup of coffee (or a glass of iced tea!), and join us for this informal conversation about embracing a “both/and” mindset as we step into a new season.

Fall Coaching Opportunities

We’d love to add you to one of our remaining executive coaching spots for the second half of 2022! If you’re interested in learning more about how we can support you and your work through coaching, use the link below to schedule a 30 minute consult with us.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism Fall Cohort

White Leaders Working on Antiracism (WLWA) is a dedicated space for reflection, learning, and practice for white leaders who aspire to lead with equity. Through this four part series, white leaders engage in the internal work of rigorously reflecting on their impact as well as the external work of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully on issues of race and equity. Learning, reflecting, and practicing in community with other leaders can be transformative.

We invite you to join our WLWA email list to stay up-to-date on upcoming WLWA cohorts using the link below.

Partner Spotlight

Keva White, VIP Community Services & John Kepner, Fenway Management Advisors

We’re excited to shout out featured partners in our Illuminate Collective community in every newsletter. This month we’re highlighting two of our colleagues, Keva White, Founder of VIP Community Services, and John Kepner, Founder of Fenway Management Advisors. John and Keva recently launched a podcast called The Race to Social Justice. Marion was honored to be one of their first guests, talking about her story and journey in DEI as a white woman. Marion is also thrilled to be joining Keva as a guest facilitator in his Power & Privilege course, part of a multi-year DEI initiative with Redeemer Healthcare System in the Philadelphia region. Learn more about the DEI Training Institutes VIP offers here.

What We’re Reading and Listening To

Here are some compelling reads to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. JR Thorpe writes, “One 2005 analysis found that of 100 Americans recommended as worthy figures for history curricula, only 4% were Native American, 1% were Latino, and none were Asian American.” This month, and every month, let’s commit to more deeply understanding our shared history.

Gratitude

Huge appreciation to the amazing Chelsea Kasen-Kells for her friendship and her marketing genius. And many thanks to our incredible colleagues and clients who inspire us to continue to live into the “both/and” and embrace the complexity and potential of people work every day.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Artist Credit: Danielle Coke | Wall Art | Instagram

“I know that the way to create the world we want, and the one we owe those who come after us, is only something that can be achieved in community.”

Mia Birdsong, How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

February 2022

Dear friends,

As we celebrate Black history – this month and always – and make plans for the spring, we’ve been thinking a lot about the power of community. As the two of us look back on our most impactful work and our seasons of greatest growth, the common denominator is community. Whether we’re making difficult decisions, designing learning experiences, or building our own capacity for change, we know we’re at our best when we do that in community with others.

This month we’re inviting you to reflect on what you’ve built – and are in the process of building – in community with others. In what ways have you called on community to take a risk or learn something new or make a dream a reality?

One way that we’ve experienced the power of community over the past year and a half is through the design and facilitation of the White Leaders Working on Antiracism (WLWA) series. In the summer of 2020, we were deep in conversation with our friends and colleagues Michelle Hernandez and Amber Mackay at Leading Elephants about how we could hold space for white leaders to do necessary internal work around antiracism. With advisory support and thought partnership from Lesley Brown Rawlings at Beloved Community, we worked together to create the WLWA series, a white affinity space for leaders who want to take more meaningful action to disrupt oppressive systems in their workplaces and beyond.

The sense of community we experienced in designing this program deepened and multiplied as we built community within each of our five WLWA cohorts. If you are a white leader or you know a white leader who is seeking to deepen their lived commitment to antiracism in community with others, please read more about the program below and consider registering for our March 2022 cohort.

Join us!

Collective Conversation: What does building community mean to you in this season?

February 22nd 11 AM EST – Our Collective Conversations are a monthly opportunity to learn and reflect in community with others. This month we’ll be discussing how we’re building – or seeking to build – community in our lives. We invite you to pause, grab a mug of coffee or tea, and join us for this informal conversation about the power of community. The registration link is below.

White Leaders Working on Antiracism March Cohort

White Leaders Working on Antiracism is a dedicated space for reflection, learning, and practice for white leaders who aspire to lead with equity. Through this four part series, white leaders engage in the internal work of rigorously reflecting on their impact as well as the external work of engaging responsibly and thoughtfully on issues of race and equity. Learning, reflecting, and practicing in community with other leaders can be transformative.

You can register for our March 2022 cohort below, and reach out to us with any questions.

Tide Risers Spring Cohort

There’s still time to join the spring cohort of Tide Risers, where Marion will be a facilitator. Learn more about this intentional community for women in our partner spotlight below!

Partner Spotlight

A community we love to be part of and to partner with is Tide Risers, an international community of women who come together to learn and grow while supporting each other. Marion had a blast doing her first Instagram Live chat with Lara Holliday, founder of Tide Risers, last week. In this chat they talk about the power of community to help you get unstuck and be your best self. Check out their reflections about coaching, abundance, authenticity and more here!

To learn more and get a taste of the Tide Risers community, you’re invited to a free, virtual recruitment salon, Welcoming Abundance as You Embrace Your Strengths, with Tide Risers Heather McDanel and Olympia Trumbower on Tuesday, February 15th at 1 pm EST. In this session you’ll reflect on how you can embrace your strengths while also learning how joining the Tide Risers Flagship Program this spring can help you live more fully into them. You can register here.

What We’re Reading and Listening To

The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

We love listening to and learning from Sonya Renee Taylor about the power of radical self-love to transform us as individuals and to dismantle the unjust systems that hold us back.

Gratitude

We’re deeply grateful for community in all its forms this month – including the community of colleagues and friends who are reading this newsletter right now!

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

Morgan Harper Nichols, Artist and Writer | Website | Instagram

December 2021

Dear friends,

As we write this, we’re knocking on the door of a new calendar year. It’s a season of “Best of 2021” lists, and invitations to reflect on the past twelve months. Doing that kind of reflection may feel difficult right now. How do we put together a highlight reel when a year and half of pandemic life feels like a giant blur? How do we resist the urge to focus on what hasn’t been able to happen – what’s been canceled, what’s been limited, what we haven’t had the energy to do?

We invite you to take one small step before the new year begins. Take a moment to think about what has happened and what you have had the energy to do over the past year. If it’s helpful, scroll through the pictures on your phone or glance over a few months in your calendar and remind yourself of moments of growth, perseverance, and joy. In a world of constraints and exhaustion and uncertainty, you still made things happen.

We paused to think about ways we’ve grown and joys we’ve experienced this year. Here’s a peek at some of the things on our list:

• Miwa walked more miles and met more amazing neighbors than ever before after her family adopted their wonder dog, Jax

• Marion celebrated her big milestone birthday with three amazing trips – each with a different group of family or life friends, reminding her of what’s most important in life

• With the encouragement of her sons, Miwa managed her fear of heights and made it through an intermediate ropes course

• Marion, in partnership with women in her amazing community, revived the multi-racial women’s group she co-founded that had been on hiatus during the pandemic

• Together, we made the leap to start our joint venture as we leaned into an intentional, joyful work partnership

It’s nourishing to recognize the light we’ve created in our own small ways. We hope you can take some time this winter break to do the same!

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Find Your 3-Word Mantra in 2022

Leadership Coaching

We’ve built space to take on new coaching clients into our winter and spring planning. Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to explore a coaching engagement in the new year.

Tide Risers Spring 2022 Cohort

Partner Spotlight

We’re excited to shout out a featured partner in our Illuminate Collective community in every newsletter. This month we’re highlighting Alli Myatt and Courtney Tungate, co-founders of The Equity Practice and experienced non-profit leaders. Alli and Courtney work with organizations to create new ways of operating to make equity work. They offer a range of coaching and consulting services as well as courses and fellowships, including Anti-Bias in Hiring and #The PracticeofEquity Manager Series.

What We’re Reading and Listening To

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Your Body is Your Brain by Amanda Blake

Many of our coaching clients have heard us talk about tapping into ALL of our body’s intelligences through somatic practices. We learned this from Amanda Blake as students in the Neuroscience of Change class by Coaches Rising. Learn more about this science and practices in this book.

Gratitude

This month we’re grateful for the promise of rest and time with family in the coming weeks. And, as always, we’re grateful to all of you for being part of this community. We’re wishing you much light, peace and rest over the holidays and winter break. See you in 2022!

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

November 2021

Dear friends,

We’re one month into our work together as Illuminate Collective and excited to be back in touch!

Chances are good that as you’re reading this, you’re feeling exhausted. If that’s true for you, you’re not alone. We’ve had many conversations with our clients over the past month about the uncertainty and heaviness that we’re all carrying. We’ve started a new season and a new school year while continuing to navigate the challenges of the pandemic at home and at work. When we’re exhausted and uncertain, we can quickly move to a place of scarcity and fear, driven by the pull of “not enough” – not enough time, not enough capacity, not enough resources.

What we’re learning is that an answer to this is abundance – trusting that there is enough within us and within the communities we’ve built to collectively carry us through. We believe that abundance shows up in relationship and connection – the ways that we support each other and trust in our own gifts and the gifts of the collective.

Abundance is core to who we are and how we operate at Illuminate Collective. We recently had the opportunity to share how we intentionally built abundance into our business during our session at the Tide Risers Annual Summit in October.

In this session, we shared our “5 S’s for Creating an Abundant Business”:

• Space: Create space for our relationships and our whole lives

• Share: Build trust through sharing honestly and transparently

• Stand Side by Side: Work side by side as equal partners in the work, as opposed to over/under

• Shine: Live in the “we” of Shine Theory, created by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, authors of Big Friendship. We don’t shine unless both of us and our colleagues shine.

• Slow Down to Speed Up: Take time to brainstorm, plan and reflect together

We’re also excited to hear from you. What does abundance look like in your life and work? What could be true if you leaned into abundance as we close out 2021?

Come chat about this with us in our first Collective Conversation on Tuesday, November 23rd. See below for details and to register, and invite a friend or colleague to join you!

Join us!

Collective Conversation: Abundance

November 23rd 11 AM – Join us for informal conversation in community with others. We’ll share our Abundance Principles and create space to reflect on how we’re each living into abundance as we close out 2021.

Leadership Coaching

We’re planning for 2022 and have capacity to take on new coaching clients this winter. Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to create space for you and your leadership development in the new year.

Partner Spotlight

We’re excited to shout out a featured partner in our Illuminate Collective community in every newsletter. This month we’re highlighting Sharma and Corey Graham, co-founders of M.A.D.E. to Lead and co-hosts of The Courageous Personal Leadership Podcast. Sharma was our teammate at Teach For America and has been a great friend, cheerleader and partner to us since we started our coaching businesses in 2015.

Sharma and Corey are also the creators of themadebox, a quarterly subscription box to support professional learning and growth. If you’d like to start the new year with a set of curated leadership resources, you can place an order for the January themadebox anytime before January 15th. This is a perfect holiday gift for your favorite leader!

What We’re Reading & Listening To

Braiding Sweetgrass

This book by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a renowned botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, reflects on our relationship with the natural world and the lessons it can teach us.

Gratitude

This month we’re grateful for the community we’re building in our Fall 2021 White Leaders Working on Antiracism cohort. We’re humbled and inspired by the openness and vulnerability that our participants bring to this important work.

And, as always, we’re grateful to all of you for being part of this community.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa