Laura DiBenedetto goes down rabbit holes regularly, exploring random thoughts that drive her deeply into a variety of questions, leading her to nowhere and everywhere. Her curiosity is what drives her, what has always driven her to question authority, traditional roles, and beliefs. She is one of those people who has always marched to the beat of her own drum, who has chosen whatever path looked less traveled.
Episode 147: Every Person Has A Story to Tell if You Ask the Right Question
It was one of at least a dozen stories like it that my aunt, my father’s sister, told me when she visited. Each of her stories would start with something like “when we moved and needed to…, we met the nicest person!”
My uncle, who is far less exuberantly friendly, would shake his head, and with a small smile on his face he mumbled: “You always say that.”
Episode 107: Strategies to Take Action to Avoid Future Regrets
4 Simple Strategies to Take Action
1.) Find Your Tribe – surround yourself with people who support and encourage you. Find a group of friends and peers that are doing things you want to be doing, people who will give you the hard truth about your dream and offer to help find solutions to obstacles. Make sure these are people you trust, and that you actually listen to their suggestions! You are unlikely to find support in people who have never done what you want to do, or who live with a low-risk, low-reward mentality, people who make fear-based decisions.
Episode 99: Motivation Can Be as Simple As Asking Questions
Episode 72: Persistence, Curiosity, and Following Instincts Create Career Resilience
Between Your "Why" and Your "How" are Your Stories
Uncovering Stories to Complete a Picture
It turns out that philosophy is not only NOT boring, when appropriately applied, philosophy can help you understand yourself and the world around you. Philosophy isn’t about memorizing what Socrates or Plato said; philosophy is about curiosity and questions.
That’s how Marisa Diaz-Waian sees it, and she’s on a mission to help bring philosophical thinking and questions to current issues humanity is facing, as well as the timeless issues of our lived experience in general: Who are we, how can we live the good life, and what does this even mean?
From Philosophy Symposiums discussing the impact of AI on humanity, Bioethics, and The Environment, Ethics & Stewardship, to Philosophy Walks to ask questions and observe the world around us, to Philosophy Think & Drinks (my favorite), Marisa sees philosophy as a way to build collaboration, consultation, and community. That’s what it says on her website, but I like to add curiosity, because that’s where I see a huge need she can fill in our global community through these activities.
Father & daughter, Ennis, Montana
It was her father’s way of asking questions and making her think about what she was seeing in the world around her that brought her to her interest and passion for philosophy, but she didn’t see it as a way of life right away. Her first philosophy class in college was her eye-opener, but the dream of bringing these ideas to the world didn’t come until much later. Throughout her bachelor’s degree, she combined philosophy with other areas of interest, not knowing that doing exactly that would set her up to see how philosophy could be applied to so many other subjects and fields.
From Marisa:
After high school I went to Saddleback Community College, then transferred to Humboldt State University. I was halfway through my BA degree when I returned home to be with my father, in light of an unexpected series of events – the separation between he & my mother and a life-altering health condition.
My father had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, something we did not find out until later that summer. I transferred to California State University, San Marcos to finish out my degree and stay with him.
After graduation from CSUSM, my dad’s Parkinson’s had leveled out some with the new regimen of medications and he was able to return to most of his normal activities (with caution). He was able to travel back and forth to Montana on his own, fly fish, and continue his post retirement research.
I traveled with him frequently…and we still resided together (in California and Montana)…but I was on the road a lot with my job, doing concert touring and other oddball stuff. A couple of years passed like this and then he was in a horrible car accident en route to Montana. A triple roll-over, demolished airstream, and my father army-crawling out of the driver’s-side window in search of our cat, who had been ejected during the tumble and somehow managed (like my father) to escape with minimal injuries. A few broken ribs and bruising for him and a slight concussion for the cat. I have no idea how they survived.
After the accident, my dad’s health quickly declined, and solo travel was no longer an option. Over the next couple of years, we moved to New Hampshire, he underwent brain surgery in Boston, heart surgery in Boston (unexpectedly), and then we returned to Oceanside, California. About 1 year after moving back to Oceanside and settling in, I applied to graduate school at San Diego State University. My father’s influence continued, and my enthusiasm for philosophy grew.
Our plan was for me to finish grad school, and then for us to relocate to Montana and live on the nature preserve. Every summer we went back to Montana to work on the cabin in preparation for our move.
Unfortunately, our relocation never happened; my dad passed away on May 16th, 2010, about 2 semesters before I was due to finish grad school. I returned to Montana for the summer, a devastating one without my poppa, one of the hardest of my life.
After the summers’ end, I drove back to Oceanside, CA to finish graduate school…the final semester of which was spent in Los Angeles caring for my grandmother during the last months of her life. Shortly after my grandmother passed, my thesis had been accepted, and I graduated…I moved back to Montana to stay for good.
In thinking about this chain of events, I recall a precious memory shared with my father about 2 weeks before he died. I was inducted into a scholastic community, based on my performance in grad school. My father was in a wheelchair at that time (mostly due to lack of strength and balance).
We were driving from Oceanside to the campus in San Diego and I remember seeing a car on the side of the road and an older gentleman pulling a gas can out of his trunk in route to the offramp. I began to pull over to help the man and I recall my father being very adamant that we would not be stopping — we had places to go. I was furious with him at the time, thinking that it was so selfish. Why shouldn’t we help the man?
In retrospect, I wish I had not been so furious. My father had a deeper mission — me. And I also think he knew something that I didn’t; he was not going to make it to Montana. He knew he wouldn’tmake it to my graduation; for him, this award ceremony was my graduation, and he was going to be there to celebrate.
And celebrate we did! At the ceremony, we were given medallions on long necklaces. During the opening portion of the event, we were asked to stand and put our hands over our chests, where the medallions were supposed to be, but my medallion was hanging so low that I had to put my hand over my stomach.
I leaned over to my dad and whispered….”Geezuz, if this is where my chest is now….perhaps I should have sped this grad school thing up a bit?!”
We burst out laughing so hard that the spanakopita he had been munching on ended up all over me - and the back of the head of the man in front of us, who graciously understood, and had been chuckling with us about my comment.
Later, when we were buckling up in the car and getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, my dad reached out for my hand and held it in his: “Thank you for today. This meant more to me than you will ever know. I am so proud of you.” I teared up, as I always do: “Awww, Poppa, of course, poppa. You’re my best friend. I couldn’t have done it without you. Now let’s go get some food, you must be starving! You know… hehehe.. since you lost half your spanakopita earlier.”
Moving in to care for him was an easy decision for her to make, and spending those 12 years with him as an adult, with his same extraordinary way of asking questions and making her think differently about the world around her lit exactly the fire she needed.
Our conversation took us full circle, starting with describing Merlin and its mission, discussion about why she took that path, and the stories that drove her, and ending with how her development of this non-profit has contributed to our community.
It was a couple of days after recording this podcast that she came to me with the realization that she knew her “why”, she was figuring out her “how”, and that the stories we uncovered during our conversation are the link between those. When we dig back into our memories for specific incidents and conversations that shaped us, we develop that link between our actions and thoughts, and can more intentionally align our dreams with our internal messages of strength, perseverance, and love.
During our conversation, Marisa shared that her favorite, dog-eared, well-worn book is Plato’s Dialogues, specifically The Complete Works of Plato, edited by John M. Cooper. After our recording, I asked her for some suggestions for people who might be interested in getting started with philosophy and applications to current reflections and discussions. She suggested starting on the Merlin webpage, Resources, and the book Learning to Be a Sage by Hsi Chu.
And a few more books to recommend:
Epictetus, Discourses, Fragments, Handbook, translated by Robin Hard (Oxford Worls’s Classics, 2014) - STOICISM
Kierkegaard, Fear & Trembling - EXISTENTIALISM
John M. Cooper, Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton University Press, 2013. - PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE
Marisa, is the Founder and Executive Director of Merlin CCC. Born in Santa Monica, CA, she spent the majority of her formative years along the coastlines of Southern & Northern California. As she grew older, Ennis, Bozeman & Helena, MT became regular stomping grounds. Her summers were frequently spent fly fishing, bird watching & “wandering into the great wide open” with her late father (and buddy), Lee. B. Waian. An active member of the Helena community, Marisa happily “hangs her hat” at Merlin Nature Preserve (located just outside of Helena) & serves as its trustee and steward.
A Spark of Inspiration is Only as Good as Your Response to It
The Spark that Started a Story of Innovation in Education
It was a TED video that caught Don Wettrick’s attention during his lunch hour. He’s always looking for inspiration through reading and videos, and as a teacher, he’s used to fitting that inspiration into little boxes necessary to keep administration happy. But this was different, partly because he had switched schools and his administrator was more open to changes and innovation, and partly because he really wanted to see his students find something they could get excited about.
When his students came to class that afternoon, Don showed them the video. They were not as impressed as he was, it seemed a little dry to them. And yet, as the discussion continued, an idea emerged. Students had often complained that if they were just given some freedom, they had all kinds of interests and projects they’d want to dig into.
“What if you had 30 minutes every Friday to work on whatever project you wanted?”
Don expected students to jump at the opportunity, and some did, but what he found was that a lot of students were so driven by grades and being pleasers, that when it came time to take those 30 minutes, he heard things like: “Well, Mr. Wettrick, what do you want me to work on?” And he’d answer, “whatever you want. What are you interested in?”
Many of the students had a really hard time thinking through that question, sparking an even greater desire for the idea of an innovation class, and curiosity about what would drive students to think more about what they liked, what they were interested in, and what they were good at.
Fast forward a few years after that spark of inspiration, and we see Don making waves all over the country with his work in bringing student innovation to classrooms everywhere.
Don Wettrick is the Innovation Coordinator at Noblesville High School, and is the author of "Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level." Wettrick has worked as a middle school and high school teacher; educational and innovation consultant; CEO, and podcast host. He is also the founder of StartEdUp, an organization dedicated to help transform the school culture toward innovation and enable student-led entrepreneurship.
In the podcast, he speaks about his great kids, particularly Ava and her podcast, redefining (thank goodness) influence and mentorship on younger generations.