Fill Your Heart No. 12 - Goodness

Every week we look for stories of positivity and humanity to give us more reasons to celebrate.

This week’s recommendations come in longer form media, think Netflix originals + best-selling books.

Absorb all the love you can and remember that your softness is the strongest and most powerful part of you.

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THE CALL TO COURAGE

The renowned researcher + storyteller, Brené Brown is at it again in her Netflix special The Call to Courage. With humor and empathy, Brown discusses what it takes to choose courage over comfort in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty.

At Piper Creative, we are always touching on trust (check out this vlog). For us, trust is earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.

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AWARD-WINNING ATTITUDE

Despite numerous publisher rejections, encouragements to try non-fiction and the suggestion that she could be committing career suicide by self-publishing her first novel, Lisa Genova pursued her goal of spreading Alzheimer’s awareness through Still Alice. 

Genova shows a critical vantage point that is often overlooked in stories of neurological diseases, which is that of the patient. She has gone on to tackle additional conditions such as Autism, Huntington’s Disease, and Traumatic Brain Injury in spectacularly moving stories written from the perspective of the person experiencing the condition first-hand.

If you, like me, have ever watched a loved one struggle with one of the aforementioned diseases/disabilities Genova’s work with certainly fill your heart and her personal persistence may fuel your fire. 

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UNDERDOGS, MISFITS, & THE ART OF BATTLING GIANTS

Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then, the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David’s victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn’t have won.

Or should he have?

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.

This book is a dense read, early this year when I was struggling to find the time to read, a friend turned me to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s audiobooks [FREE app, Hoopla]. 

Try listening to audiobooks on your commute, this is a can’t miss narrative.

If this touched your heart, share it with someone you care about.

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