BOOK: LEAN IN, BY SHERYL SANDBERG
This book was recommended to me by a male executive who was impacted by it. It came to me at the moment I was wondering how I could continue to balance family, work, and my sanity. A current perspective on a woman’s journey through the professional world did the trick.
TECHNOLOGY: LUNERA POWERHIVE
This innovative solution to classroom lighting directs power to a hive that then connects to LED fixtures with Cat5 cables. It saves on energy and labor costs and, because there’s a chip built in, talks to wireless controls without an adapter at each fixture.
SPACE: CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS
No place has affected me more than Notre Dame—it’s something about the history of how these great cathedrals were designed and built by master architects and skilled masons. Although I’m not religious, there was an inherent peace in sitting and listening to the echoes of a thousand footsteps—which I did every day for the nine months I lived in Paris.
PERSON: JASON MCLENNAN
Jason is a visionary, one of those people who starts talking in a crowded room and everyone turns to listen. He has the mind to create things like the Living Building Challenge and the passion to inspire others to pursue it. He inspired me to do what I do.
EXPERIENCE: ANY PRESCHOOL CLASS
As adults, we forget what it’s like to have an idea, act, and then think about consequences. We are trained to ask why instead of why not, and we lose that innate creativity we possess as children. Spend an hour in a preschool class and you will learn something (and it won’t be from the teachers).
IDEA: “CAN’T IS A COWARD THAT NEVER TRIED”
I’m not sure if my mom coined this phrase or if she got it from somewhere. She started telling me this when I was a toddler, and it has guided me through every hard decision and moment of impasse in my life. This idea, or thought, has carried me to today.
