Day One November: Pow(ered) by People

Day One November! On a Friday too. The Best Day x2! Pow??

Like Friday ends the work week, pow ends the work up to The Best Day’s fourth colorful category. Let’s recap the first three:

1. Wow: a vulnerable twist, celebrating the uncertainty in the counterintuitive
2. Now: a curious trade-off, decision-making with pro/context
3. How: an empathetic action, taking my head and heart by the hand to show me

When I prepped this semester’s Ignatian Design Thinking class, I noticed Miro’s How, Now, Wow template, a 2 x 2 take on What, So What, Now What. The unnamed quadrant opened a white space that begged for a colorful solution. Afterall, “Beauty is work resolved.”

That’s where pow comes to play. The Best Days are powered by people. The optimists who turn sound bites into sound insights. Pow electrifies Wow, Now, and How.

Power Pose + Power Prose

Christy Pemrick is an electricity that powers my days. Coach. DJ. Therapist. Connector. Comedian. Book Critic. On Saturday mornings, she energizes the most powerful hour of (heated!) yoga. Her magnetic force attaches everyone to class and detaches everyone from the world. She empowers us to be daydreamers. As I write in the Acknowledgements of Think By Design, Christy made my mat my muse. Her intentions inverted my tensions. (Intension!)

For zillions of reasons, I hesitated to hitch Think By Design to a newsletter. I was tempted but unconvinced. One summer Saturday, Christy’s theme crushed my doubts. Her mouth said, “Today is going to be the best day.” My heart heard, “Today is going to be TBD.” I inked my own newsletter deal right there in Child’s Pose. Christy opened the flood (flow) gates. Pow??

Think By Design celebrates TBD as more than common shorthand for to be determined. Each chapter iterates a play on TBD. For example:

??To Be De-Drabbed: the overarching rally cry to reframe more colorful problems in business education

??Truths, Beliefs, Decisions: the three pillars that support how we know what we know

??Testing By Defense: a hands-on experience that scans the intentions and impact of future decision-making

The list goes on. Each TBD iteration points to a colorful reflection: there’s an upside to uncertainty.

Today is going to be The Best Day. Because it is TBD.

Maybe your weekend ahead involves a yoga mat. Please say it involves a ballot box. Here’s to a new month ahead, one to be determined by the POWer of the people??