EMBER with Victor Saad

Nneka Ude’s story is about daring to live. But it finds its start in grief.  A self proclaimed “true blue Capricorn”, Ude likes to be in control. So when her mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, she realized she needed to let go of control. She took time off work, and dedicated her life to taking care of her mom and her immediate family. When she lost her mom in 2016 and encountered pain deeper than she’d ever felt before, she knew she needed to start living her life in a new way. She asked herself a new question:“Why don’t you just bet on yourself? What’s the big deal about that?”To Ude, the word “dare” is loaded with creative ideas and daring to believe in the power of your own vision of the world. She drew on her grief and started taking action towards this vision. She found herself a “tribe” of people to connect and uplift her and encourage her to start initiatives around the ideas she had.She broke into the tech and entrepreneurship community in Chicago and looked around to see that black and brown folks were not receiving the same attention as their white counterparts. Thus The Xchange was born - a web series dedicated to telling the stories of people of color in entrepreneurship spaces. As Ude says, “There’s not a lot of dimension being given to us. If you’re not a superstar entrepreneur, there’s no attention being given to you.” The Xchange aims to tell these stories with the nuance they deserve.  When she noticed that there was a lack of access to products produced by black and brown folks, she started LoveDot. LoveDot is an online store that aims to lift up black and brown beauty practices and artisans, and is named after her mom. Starting the store was a manifestation of her confidence in her own story, and she finds it energizing to build a space for underrepresented businesses to thrive.  Oh, and did we mention that she also writes children’s books? Another initiative born from pride in her own story, Ude is currently working on publishing her first children’s book. “There wasn’t a lot of kids books that showed images of people who are as brown and beautiful as me!” Coming this fall, Ude is working on telling stories that support parents of color in teaching their children to also take pride in their identities.  To Nneke Ude, to dare means to “just be”. No matter how the outside world might make it difficult to tell your story, pushing through the obstacles to tell it anyway.  Thanks so much for your motivating talk, Nneka! We can’t wait to see what else you create. Get in contact with Nneka through her website or via Instagram, and check out the Xchange and LoveDot!

October’s Theme is Design.

We live in a world of design, an intention behind every encounter, every technology we touch, every structure we step through. Design is an alchemy, a marriage of material and meaning, investigation and inspiration, form and function.

To design is to create — out of nothing, something. To design is to play — an invitation to stay open and curious and reimagine in new ways. To design is to think — a method of learning through making, scraping failed experiments for fresh insight. To design is to be human.

Designers are called to operate in a way that transcends disciplines, making it possible to understand the world in all its complexity and envision passageways to more just futures. At their best, designers center the experiences of people whose needs have been overlooked, stepping outside of themselves and into their shoes. Design asks of us empathy and humility, if we are brave enough to answer.

Our Trois-Rivières chapter chose this month’s exploration of Design, Olivier Charland illustrated the theme, and Skillshare is presenting the theme.

September’s Theme is Dare.

To dare is an act of faith. We work up the nerve to make the soaring leap, even when we don’t know what the outcome will be. At the core of daring, you’ll find bravery and defiance entwined. We dare to challenge the stories passed down to us that no longer fit, the stories that limit our imagination.

CreativeMornings/Porto Alegre chose September’s theme of Dare and Mitti Mendonça illustrated the theme.

Thank you for joining us last Friday for our first in-person event of 2021!

🐻 Bear hugs to our fantastic speaker: Sam Trump

🎧💋 Major thumbs up to our DJ:Babes Only

📍 Venue: Wildman Boiler & Tank

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🙌 High-fives to our wonderful sponsors: Mondo Machine, KEH Camera, Big Shoulders Coffee, Ink Factory,DJ:Babes Only, Busy Beaver Button Co

💛 Lots of love to our global partners:Mailchimp and Skillshare

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📸 Photo by: Rogelio Gamez gear provided by KEH Camera.

August’s Theme is Release.

Inhale. Exhale. Release. Let the breeze roll over you, let the water flow languid, feel the tautness behind your eyes go slack. Release is a universal law—every build-up of tension must give way. Everything from the flowers to the trees need to do it to survive. 

Release is a critical part of growth, healing, and transformation. We can release each other from our claims. We can be the means of each others’ deliverance. It’s what gives the words “I release you” their power. 

What happens when we let go of emotions, expectations, habits, relationships, or thoughts that no longer serve us? What do we release in ourselves? What do we let loose into the world? 

CreativeMornings/Portsmouth

chose August’s theme of Release and Allie Runnion illustrated the theme.

July’s Theme is Home.

You can spend a lifetime looking for a sense of home. Sometimes we must leave our home in order to find it. In his poem “Journey Home,” Rabindranath Tagore writes, “The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own.” 

Home can be a place we belong, home can be found among people we love, home can be carried with you wherever you go.  Home can be formed by people creating together. 

Home is a direction we’re tilted towards. Home is something we have to remake again and again. What home have you built for yourself? What can we do to build a home for each other?

CreativeMornings/Kansas City chapter chose July’s Home theme, and

Allison Kerek Williams created the accompanying illustration.

May’s Theme is Resilient

To be resilient is to be adaptable. It’s a way of being that’s flexible and alive, bouncing with the stuff of survival: learning, evolving, and intertwining our roots to share resources and to create a strong anchor of collective care. Like trees in a storm, it means swaying instead of snapping.

Persevering in the face of hardship and heartbreak is not easy, to say the least. “I think of resilience as the strength and speed of our response to adversity,” says Adam Grant, psychologist and co-author of Option B, a book about resilience. To heal, to grieve, to bend but not break? It requires time and dedication to build these muscles of resilience. “It’s a skill set we work on throughout our lives.”

Whether for your life, community, or planet, consider this: 

What can you do today to help build strength and ease for the future? 

CreativeMornings/Dallas chose May’s Resilient theme, and Niki Dionne made the accompanying illustration.

April’s Theme is Procrastinate The things that we perpetually push to tomorrow’s to-do list can become a mental weight. Even though we know the welcome relief that will wash over us when that thing we’re avoiding is complete, still, we delay, just a little while longer. Procrastination can be a sort of art form: the art of deferred action. It’s a technique that’s got a bad reputation, one often tinged with shame. But it can also be a way to claim the ways you wish to your time. It harbors creative possibilities, too. In that game of waiting-waiting-waiting until it’s almost too late but not quite, a coiled spring of potential energy hides, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. Narrowing a timeline can be a fruitful creative constraint, an exercise in trusting the unknown. When a window of opportunity shrinks, improvisation and spontaneity might unfurl like a flower in a time-lapse video blooming at super speed, a confetti cannon of petals bursting in full color. Our Turin chapter chose this month’s exploration of Procrastinate and Elisa Talentino illustrated it.

March’s Theme is Ripple

Everything you do has the power to create its own ripple effect. Like an object breaking the water’s surface, our actions can cause a series of ever-expanding waves of impact stretching far beyond our individual reach. Whether we theorize it with dominos, snowballs, or butterflies – it’s about momentum, and as momentum builds, even the smallest actions can end up having a profound impact.

One voice can inspire a movement, a single act of kindness can save a life. No matter how minuscule it may seem in the moment, what you do matters.

This month, we invite you to pay attention to your personal ripple effect. To examine how your impact expands beyond your inner circle and find ways to pay positivity forward. If you’re feeling brave, this month can be a time to explore the depths of your world. Dare to plunge below the surface and invite deeper connection in. Our Tel Aviv chapter chose this month’s exploration of Ripple and Masha Manapov illustrated it.

On Friday, Chris Mosier shared his inspiring journey redefining the boundaries of athletics for trans folks! ⚡️

While many of us were just finishing our coffee on Friday, Chris Mosier had already ridden 9 miles on a bike. ⚡️ He gave his talk from the Edge Athlete Lounge - a place that served as a safe haven for him as a young athlete learning to be comfortable in his own body. He’s used to blazing trails - as an athlete, a coach, and one of the leading voices in inclusive policies in athletics through his platform, transathlete.com. Chris is a six-time member of Team USA, and was the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympic trials in the gender in which they identify. Before that, he was the first transgender athlete to make the men’s US National team. But through it all, Chris said the thing that contributed to his success was feeling like himself. Chris says he feels most like himself while sweating - pushing his body to its limits. And that’s what his talk was really about: the journey of becoming himself. Through his times as the school mascot in college, to all the moments he hid himself from loved ones, his coming out of hiding ultimately freed him. His motto?

“Be who you needed when you were younger.”

As a respected thought leader in inclusive athletics, Chris had a lot to share about how we can be better allies to young trans athletes:

     🌈 Use pronouns and recognize others’ pronouns.

     🌈 Small comments make a difference - especially when talking to kids.

     🌈 Push lawmakers for more inclusive policies. Take Action Here.