We compromise our leadership when we consistently make decisions where the pain of others is minimized because the pain is being felt by someone else. We must grieve alongside our collective - even and especially when sacrifices are necessary. We also cannot continuously expect the same communities to bear the weight of these tradeoffs and never benefit from the joys of being prioritized. It is in finding this equilibrium that we can honor the humanity of all people.

True choice is the root of dignity. Creating choice becomes robustly more meaningful when you and your team don’t have to endanger financial and emotional stability to make necessary choices.

We cannot pretend that wielding power and resources will never come with tradeoffs. Being a principled leader at any level requires evaluating what tradeoffs we make because they are comfortable and what tradeoffs we make because they are strategic. We must consistently do the work of prioritization to not emulate homogenous leadership.

Create processes where accountability can go in all directions of power - disrupt cycles of insulating power and distributing risk to the most vulnerable.

Community will always mean we can’t have our way, all the time, immediately. We must build durable reasons for being a collective that are more than the annoyances that come from shared lives.

We will always, always, always find evidence for division. We cannot follow the plutocrat model of creating bigger and bigger walls around ourselves. It will lead to us compromising actual safety for the feeling of safety.

We have grown up in homogenous society which equates deferring to someone as respect. We must build cultures of construction where we can disagree, consent, and build.

Trying to remove fear and fiat from our systems is challenging - but not replacing fear and fiat with alternatives can lead to a lack of boundaries and permissiveness. We then pendulum swing back into fear and fiat out of desperation. Boundaries are key to rich and fulfilling partnerships.