From boob jobs and going gray to autism and the human mind, here’s a bit of stuff About Me
This being the second time I write about me specifically, I won’t start with my life story, though you’ll learn about that here too.
Instead, I’ll direct you to one of my most personal Medium stories, which also happens to be the one that has earned me the most reads, views, fans and claps over my one year and five months on this platform:
As it happens, my boobs are not my main writing theme, though this other story on the topic of vanity also reveals much about my “roots” and hit a nerve with many readers:
What I do…
Two questions to consider
It starts around this time of year. Preschool programs are holding open houses and enrolling students for the Fall.
Parents are asking themselves and their child’s teacher, “Is my child ready for kindergarten?”
I’m a preschool special education teacher and I’ve been getting this question for 15 years now. It’s still tricky for me to answer. On the one hand, I can’t be certain of the right answer for any specific child. …
Someday you’ll be grateful for all that video footage
Hi there Dani!
Thank goodness for the video cam your husband bought back when the kids were toddlers. It proves you weren’t a bad mother. In fact, from what I can see, you were actually a pretty good mom.
It’s just that you were prone to feelings of guilt for not doing more for your sons, both your “typical” son Andres and your disabled son Diego. Guess what though? Feelings of inadequacy just come with the territory. Even a rich stay-at-home parent of a gifted child can feel like a failure.
Sure, Andres will quit baseball in high school and…
Unpleasant as it may be, it’s often the wise thing to do
Square A and square B on this checkerboard are the very same color. Literally the same shade of gray.
Don’t believe me? Print the board and cut out the squares. In fact, print out a bunch and have your friends and family do the same. It’ll be fun, I promise.
The Checkershadow Illusion was created by MIT professor of vision science Edward Adelson, and it proves that we can be fooled by our sense of vision even when we know it’s fooling us.
“In many respects, failures of perception capture the essential nature of error.”
This is Kathryn Schulz’s illuminating…
And why we so fear being wrong
“Whatever damage can arise from erring pales in comparison to the damage that arises from our fear, dislike, and denial of erring.”
Sometimes, being wrong can be so embarrassing it makes us want to disappear, like when we call a woman a person’s mother and she’s actually the sister. Other times, being wrong can make us feel forever guilty, like when you talk a friend out of going to the doctor when she has a headache and later ends up having a stroke. How we wish we could take it back.
Yeah, mistakes can cost us dearly and it’s right…
This book will show you just that, and how and why to embrace being wrong
“We are wrong about what it means to be wrong.”
As I picked up Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz this morning, I said to myself, “I gotta share the epiphanies I’m having as I read every other page of this book with the world!”
Having just finished Chapter 1, I already know the book will change how I think (or at least think about how I think) as radically as that other book I always bring up, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.
Being Wrong is so incredibly illuminating…
Here are 4 worth learning
Hi there Special Nation,
It means the world to me that you opened this email. So thank you! Hope these stories reward you with delight and wonder. A couple of them come with funny clips of my autistic son being his sweet self.
What My Autistic Son’s Fear of Cycling Taught Me about Forgiveness
Hollywood Actors and Actresses: An Invitation to My Autistic Son’s 27th Birthday
Autism and the Fascinating Power of Associative Thinking
Abortion Arguments that Disability Reframed for Me
Until next time!
Daniella
*If you know anyone these stories would resonate with, please forward them this newsletter.
Insightful Lessons from Chris Voss’s MasterClass “The Art of Negotiation”
I’ve listened to a dozen MasterClasses and the Art of Negotiation is, so far, my favorite. It gets at how our judgments and emotions operate in the context of negotiation and human relationships in general.
Chris Voss, the instructor, is a master negotiator. Here are just some of his credentials: lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, professor of business negotiation at various MBA programs in the US and abroad, and founder of The Black Swan Group, a company that provides negotiation training to businesses and individuals.
Here’s my distillation of the eye-opening ideas in Chris Voss’s MasterClass.
1. Cultivate “strategic empathy”.
Voss calls…
One thing’s for sure: it’s never boring with him around
“God created autism to help offset the excessive number of boring people on earth,” I read on my Linkedin feed the other day. Wish I could credit the quote, but my research led to no particular name, only to companies that sell shirts.
Surely not everyone linked to autism agrees this was God’s purpose, that there’s an overabundance of boring people or that God even exists.
As for me, I do find a good number of people boring. Plus, Diego, my 26-year-old autistic and cognitively challenged son happens to be way funnier and more fascinating than the majority of “normal”…
Daniella Mini
Ponderer, parent, runner, teacher, immigrant. I want to help you “Know thyself”. Check out The Honest Ponderer: https://mailchi.mp/eea027e7565f/medium-subs
