Dawna Markova

Teachers are often taught different learning styles as channels to reach other students. Workplace leaders, however, often don’t have a deep background in education. Yet they are tasked with challenges in communication that require that they address wide swaths of people, who usually think differently than them. In this book, Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur educate readers about how to apply ideas about learning styles to the modern workplace with the hope of increasing the effectiveness of collaborations.

As I grew up in a family of educators, learning styles was a regular topic around the dinner table and in car conversations, but the perspective always came from the point of view of a teacher overseeing students. As an adult, I am not a teacher by profession and simply labor as a workplace leader. Yet as a leader, educating all sorts of people has become a central part of my job. With this background, the advice in this book did not teach me any unfamiliar concepts, but it did help bridge the final connections of applying those concepts to modern business settings.

This book’s main weakness, however, is that it relies too much on categorizations and listings. While lists are helpful in a thorough scientific analysis, which this book has in spades, they are boring to read. They are even more boring to hear in an audiobook. The book needed more narrative to carry the reader through while presenting the concepts in life situations. I wished I heard more use cases as a scaffolding to the scientific material.

Overall, this book reaches the working public concerned about increasing their IQ about collaborations. Most persistant problems faced today have some kind of team component, and the need for collaborative intelligence will only increase. And for leaders, collaborative intelligence is a baseline requirement. This book offers a good start to understanding how to work better with people, who by definition are different than you and deserve empathic communication.… (more)

I will not die an unlived ife.
I will not live in fear
of faling or catching fire.
I choose t inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.-Dawna Markova

'I Will Not Die an Unlived Life is a little book with a big message. It can remind you of who you are and heal your life.'-Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of My Grandfather's Blessings and Kitchen Table Wisdom

'In these times of rapid social and technological transformation, nothing is more important than learning the skills of personal renewal. I Will Not Die an Unlived Life is the very best book on the subject. In a thoughtful and poetic form, it teaches us how to navigate our lives from the inside out so that rather than being at the mercy of life's changes, we are able to offer to the world the gifts that are ours alone to give.'-M.J. Ryan, author of Attitudes of Gratitude and The giving Heart

Contents

Forword by Justine and Michael Toms
I Living wide open: Landscapes of the mind
Chapter 1 A second innocence
Chapter 2 How do I live divided no more?
Chapter 3 What aileth thee?
Chapter 4 As is
II Living on fire: Landscapes of the heart
Chapter 5 Catching fire
Chapter 6 Falling free
Chapter 7 Unimagined bridges
Chapter 8 Rekindling the flame
III LIving on purpose: Landscapes of the soul
Chapter 9 The spot of grace
Chapter 10 Let our wonds be our teachers
Chapter 11 Way closes, way opens
Chapter 12 'The name I call myself when I want myself to answer'
IV Living on path: Landscapes of the spirit
Chapter 13 What is your lineage and legacy of love?
Chapter 14 What have I been given with which to give?
Chapter 15 What am I serving?
Chapter 16 Where am I meant to be shining?
Epilogue
The seasons of renewal: A living landscape… (more)