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Does language shape the way we think? An answer in this month’s issue of TYSN

Tell Your Story Newsletter

Teaching English as a Second Language to new and economic immigrants

 Let us help you tell your story!

Welcome, Mid-September 2026!

After enduring some three weeks of rainy weather in much of our province, many Saskatchewanians feel we’ve been annexed not by the US (as, say, Trump has threatened) but by rainy West Coast BC, or East Coast Maritimes!

But with cooler temperatures accompanying recent rain (highs hovering around only 15 degrees Celsius), summer 2026 now is “well and truly over.” The shortening of daylight hours is already appreciable. But has the start of a new program and/or academic year brought any spring to your steps, even amid these challenging economic and political times? How are you finding hope in this new season, good readers?

In place of “Article One,” this month, I feature a “special report” based on the work of cognitive scientist and linguist, Lera Boroditsky, that all learners and teachers of languages (including English) would do well to read: “Does the language we speak shape the way we think?” she asks. Her response illumines some of the complex underpinnings of both linguicide and of linguistic preservation. So language lovers and specialists, please take note!

And in “Shop News,” I acknowledge some of the wonderful work of mentors, peers and clients in my network, despite the political and economic worries we all face, today.

As we progress toward the final quarter of this year, local woman leader and writer, Linda McCann, has blogged on the importance of noticing “the promise of September.” Despite the content of the nightly news, this month warrants our awareness:

“[September] is a time to reflect on the desires of our hearts and the longings of our souls, as we consider the months ahead . . . . September has always held a special promise, even in the most challenging times. It brings the anticipation of a harvest, the start of a new school year, reconnections with friends and fresh opportunities for learning. It’s also a time to walk in nature, savouring the changing colours, scents and sounds of this abundant season.”

Wherever you are in our beloved country or beyond, whether on business or personal ventures; or if you’ve returned home after some summer days away, I wish each of you such an awareness of September’s “promise.”

Despite the “affordability crisis” and worries that many of us feel, we can still find “abundance” and solid ground in the rights, freedoms and integrity that characterize Canada’s (and Saskatchewan’s) sovereignty. These rights are worth remembering and asserting, as we  continue to co-exist with authoritarian political nations around the globe.

Having some small pleasures may help: whether you can savour a bowl of homemade soup at “D’lish by Tish”; whether you can open a library copy of the latest novel by a favourite author (Louise Penny, Alexander McCall-Smith or another); or whether you wait, excitedly, like me, for the next film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel (of endurance despite poverty and neglect), Sense and Sensibility; please know that you are not alone! . . . And as you enjoy the crunch of gold and crimson leaves when you walk the Meewasin Trail (that is now expanding), may you live this new season with renewed perseverance, good readers.

As Linda McCann reminds us, yes, there will be both “challenges and gifts” in this new year. But there will also be new friendships forged, old ones renewed, and at least some of our cherished hopes fulfilled.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

SPECIAL REPORT: 
Does language shape the way we think (and not the other way around)? An answer from linguist and cognitive psychologist, Dr. Lera Boroditsky

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

SHOP NEWS:

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Article One: Special Report: “ ‘Does the language we speak shape the way we think’  and not vice versa?”

On linguicide and linguistic preservation with (Dr.) Lera Boroditsky

Linguist and cognitive psychologist, Dr. Lera Boroditsky, delivered a TED Talk (November 2017):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k   .

And I recommend her recent interview (from July 7, 2026):

https://iai.tv/video/language-shapes-thought-not-the-other-way-around-with-lera-boroditsky

In these times of surging authoritarian politics and resulting economic turmoil, academic studies, including the study of languages, are regularly subordinated to political aggression and violence. Putatively “democratic” leaders have slashed funding and programming for many forms of education, holding in contempt fields like minority language. When fewer politicians value the study of English (and despite its status as the international language for business), what hope does the world hold for preserving lesser-known, minority languages and cultures?

In these hostile times, cognitive scientist and linguist Lera Boroditsky persists in conducting research that resists the blinkered philosophy of authoritarianism. Her research has transformed our understanding of how languages work.  She pushes back at today’s  political regimes, asserting unequivocally the importance of language for human existence: “ ‘Languages shape the way we think.”

Many of us still believe that knowledge and thinking still matter and Canada is pleased to welcome academics and intellectuals from the United States, who have lost their funding and resources for research and experiments.

In her TEDTalk from November 2017, Lera Boroditsky starts in simple terms to explain how language works: “The tones and hisses and puffs that we make when we speak create vibrations in the air, . . . . travel to ear drums of listeners; [the] brain takes and transforms those sounds into thoughts.”  Language and linguistic communication are born.

By this miraculous process, she observes, “humans are able to transmit our ideas across vast ranges of space and time. We can transmit knowledge across minds.”

She cites that there are “about 7,000 languages spoken in the world” (2017) and “all of these languages differ from each other in many ways.”

We used to think of language as a neutral tool of communication,  she adds, and that speakers of every language had to think alike.

But Boroditsky believes in linguistic relativity, the concept that the language you speak influences how you think, perceive and view the world. From that viewpoint, she reveals that language does not determine and limit how we think or perceive the world–instead it shapes, guides or influences our perceptions of  space, time, colour, causality and experience (Boroditsky 2026).

Different languages have different “sounds, vocabularies and structures”—this begs the question: “Does the language we speak shape the way we think?”  Or do we think before expressing those thoughts in language? People have speculated responses to this question for thousands of years, without any clear outcome (she cites examples from Charlemagne and Shakespeare). But Boroditsky’s research has shown that language shapes the fundamentals of thought, so how we organize space, time, how we process colour, how we think about events – even at these basic building blocks of cognition, “language can have a really profound effect on how we put together the world in our minds.”

This viewpoint of “linguistic relativity” was earlier dismissed within and outside the field of linguistics, itself.

Twentieth-century linguistic study, such as that led by philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky and his followers, posited that “languages didn’t substantially differ from one another at the core.”  The idea of a core was hypothetical, never established, but claimed. The claim was “languages don’t fundamentally differ.” Boroditsky adds: “If you believe that, then it makes no sense to ask if speakers of different languages would think differently.”

But field work by linguists and the influence of cognitive psychology have since found that languages do differ, “so the next question became how do those differences in language reflect in speakers’ thinking?”

In the most recent of her various interviews on language (for the “Institute of Art and Ideas’ (IAI) Television,” July 7, 2026), Boroditsky says that skepticism raises the question of whether cognition (human thought) is malleable: “If thinking can’t be changed, then it wouldn’t matter that languages differ. Everyone thinks the same way. But then decades of research in cognitive psychology showed that cognition is malleable and flexible” (my emphasis).

She continues: once we hold these “two puzzle pieces—that languages really differ from each other; and cognition is really malleable—with those two insights, you create an environment where you can see the incredibly profound differences between speakers of different languages.

Boroditsky says an Aboriginal community in Australia (“Kuuk Thaayorre”) shows that language does shape how we think because instead of using “left” and “right,” it uses cardinal directions (NE, SW) for spatial orientation– that is, (i) space.

The perception of (ii) time differs greatly between languages, with (for example) the past receiving greater or lesser significance in certain cultures.

Languages also differ in whether they (iii) count by number or not. Monolinguistic English speakers may be surprised to learn that not all languages use numbers to count!

Languages vary by distinguishing or (iv) perceiving colour differently. Boroditsky says the Russian language (her L1) has several words to discriminate the colour “blue.” Not surprisingly, then, Russians are faster at discriminating colour than speakers of other languages are.

She argues that languages have a lot of different structural quirks. For instance, many languages have (v) gendered nouns (often masculine or feminine) that differ from other languages (e.g. The “sun” is feminine in German, but masculine in Spanish. By contrast, the “moon” is masculine in German but feminine in Spanish.) These gendered designations (vi) can affect how speakers describe concepts (so Germans will describe a “bridge,” in stereotypical feminine terms, as “elegant,” “beautiful,” etc., while Spanish will describe the term “bridge” in stereotypically masculine terms as “strong,” or “large,” etc.)

Human speakers of different languages will pay attention to different things, Boroditsky says, depending on what their particular knowledge requires them to do. This affects (vii) causality.

For instance, in her TEDtalk, she says, if you show a video or photo of an accident (in which a large man is about to accidentally knock over a vase in a museum), English speakers will ask: “Who broke the vase?”

By contrast, Spanish speakers, she says, are less likely to remember who caused the accident, but will focus instead on that it was an accident that occurred. So two different eye-witnesses speaking different languages will remember different things about the identical accident they have witnessed.

Because language guides how we reason about the events we witness, Boroditsky says English-speaking witnesses will blame the person who broke the vase, while Spanish speakers will observe only that the vase broke. As she observes, these perceptual differences carry many potential implications, such as for eye-witness testimonies and judicial systems.

These above seven differences matter. In her IAI interview, Boroditsky says her experiments have found “how deeply language moulds our perception and knowledge of the world, so that losing languages is in fact dangerous” (my emphasis).

She says, later, in the same interview: “Language can shape blame, punishment, judgment, memory.”

She asserts there is no “correct” language or way of speaking—all languages are highly subjective; we want to have both flexibility and precision in vocabulary, so we need not commit to specificity that we don’t observe to exist. But Boroditsky says that the many differences in language make us realize we need languages to continue to “grow and not to reduce in number.”

But when asked if languages can “trap” their users (consider Fredric Jameson’s concept of “the prisonhouse of language”), she also observes the limits of language: “People believe the structures of their languages way too much,” thinking that their language reflects all of reality, when “each language is just a human-made artifact, that was constructed over thousands of years under circumstances that may no longer apply to our lives anymore.” This is no reason to abandon the language, however, but rather to study it critically.

She adds that “when we learn second or third language, we start to see how different languages treat the world differently and so [we] believe the structures of our languages less and question things more.”

While all humans “have the capacity to see things in lots of different ways, if you speak only one language, you’re hardly ever invited to consider what the structures of your language are guiding you to think—[and] that you could think about differently.”

So what is the impact of a loss of linguistic diversity? This need not be phrased as hypothetical as it is changing by the week. Boroditsky says: “A loss of a language is a loss of an incredible amount of human intellectual labour. It’s all of the people who have come before, or in that culture, who worked together to construct a representation of reality, to construct a cosmology, to construct all of these ideas, and when the last fluent speakers of a language pass away, all of that intellectual labour is gone” (my emphasis).

She cites the late American linguist Ken Hale for likening the loss of a single language to a bomb dropping on the Louvre; but Boroditsky says linguicide (whether by deliberate or indirect death) and erasure of a language (often driven by political, legal or colonial policies) is  “a lot worse [than bombing], because with a lot of the languages that we’re losing, they’re not well-documented, so we don’t have a way to reconstruct that information . . . . And then the loss that the descendants of those people feel is extremely strong because they lose that connection to their past, to their ancestors, to the ways of life that brought them up. So it’s an incredible loss when we lose languages.”

Languages are “always blending, growing, changing, to suit our needs, inventing new ways of talking”—these things “that have been happening as long as there have been languages, so there are not tradeoffs between these things; it’s a natural process.”  There is no such thing as linguistic purity. We should not fear the regular transmutations that occur within languages, between different speakers, groups or cultures.

Boroditsky found, when she moved from the former Soviet Union to the US at age 12 that “people’s perspectives” at school “could be different about the very basics of life.” She remembers that due to these differing perspectives, she had a lot of discussions and arguments with Americans she met, but the “crux of the disagreement” was that “they were using the same words to mean very different things” (e.g. words like “freedom” and “justice”).

Seeing that one word could refer to many things “cemented  [her] desire to understand how language and thought relate to one another, because so many of our important discussions in society are done in language, hinge on language and sometimes are confused by language.”

So what do we need to do, to see languages grow, not least in contemporary times, when much of the world has returned politically to authoritarianism? Boroditsky says we must “accept linguistic diversity is the normal human condition, that the human mind has created not one way of perceiving reality but thousands of them, is a real testament to the ingenuity and flexibility of the human mind. So if we start from the baseline assumption of diversity as a norm, that gives us a very different lens on what it means to be human and allows us to explore the human mind in all of its richness” (my emphasis).

So “rather than starting in linguistic study [as Chomsky and followers did] by taking American undergraduates as representing [all] ‘human’ subjects and treating everyone else as some kind of aberration,”  instead we can say, “ ‘OK, the human mind is much richer, there are so many more ways that humans can use their minds; and that also allows us to go and look for ways to expand our own thinking.’ So not just looking at other people and saying, ‘Oh, look how weird they think/how different they are.’ Turn the mirror on ourselves, too, and say ‘why do I think the things I think and how did I come to believe these things?’”

That questioning awareness, she says, “allows you the expansion to think differently but it also allows you the expansion to invent new ways of thinking or new ways of talking that suit the world you actually want to live in and not just the world you have been living in” (my emphasis). Learning and preserving languages can offer us a path out of authoritarianism.

When asked what language she’d next like to learn, Boroditsky says it would be the traditional language of the “Kumeyaay” people, who are the historical owners of the land of San Diego, including the unceded ancestral territory on which the University of California at San Diego was built (UCASD). That space has been her institutional home for a decade.

She says that the motivation to learn a language need not only be to learn something that will be heavily used around the world, but instead to learn something that is more fundamentally “good for the soul.” The Kumeyaay language holds that value for her. This insight underpins many contemporary efforts in Canada to revive Indigenous languages and cultures.

She further notes that “the beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is.” And there is incredible flexibility and diversity of human thought across different linguistic communities. Such difference is tremendously valuable to retain.

“Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000.” And we can create many more—we can create, hone and change to suit our needs. (Consider, for instance, the “languages” inspired by the “Harry Potter” novels and by  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to name but two, quite mainstream, sources of new languages for Western youth.)

While Boroditsky’s insights read and sound so sensibly as part of post-structuralist philosophy, she knows the difficulty and complexity involved in preserving languages.

The tragedy is, however, that we’re losing linguistic diversity all the time. If, as scientists believe, we are losing one language per week, then, by some estimates, “half of the world’s languages will be gone in the next 100 years” (Boroditsky).

Even worse is the fact that almost all we know about the human mind and the human brain is based on studies of English-speaking, American undergraduates (following Chomsky and other American linguists), which excludes so much of the human race, whose faces are not white and whose names are not “John” and “Smith.”

Boroditsky concludes that what we know about the human mind is very narrow and biased and our cognitive, linguistic and other sciences must do better to analyze it.

“Speakers of different languages think differently.” That reality impacts and involves us all: “The language we speak shapes the way we think” (and not only vice-versa). So Boroditsky says, “our next question should be ‘Why do I think the way that I do? How could I think differently?’”

Also, “What thoughts do we wish to create” which will open us to the richness and differences that arise from diverse imagination and creativity?

So why do I, as a teacher of English-as-a-Second (or Additional) Language (ESL, EAL), listen to Boroditsky so closely? English has many permutations and all of them are valuable to consider, learn  and teach. But as someone who communicates primarily in a culturally dominant language (i.e. as an ESL coach), I know English continues to be described as the first language of international business. I should be aware of what Boroditski has proven: “The language we speak shapes the way we think” (and not the opposite)! Thinking and the expression of our thoughts, especially from minority, subordinated and endangered languages, matter–in these authoritarian political times, more than ever.

The survival of our species depends upon it.

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And now it’s your turn: what languages, other than English, have you  seriously studied? Which ones do you now speak?

And how is the knowledge that “the language we speak shapes the way we think” reflected in your daily speaking and writing?

What can you do to help the thinking and speaking of minority languages and cultures to survive?

 

SHOP NEWS:

It was especially sweet to organize an informal “Praxis women’s” dinner event late last month, to celebrate and thank the four women who for years (if not decades) made Saskatchewan’s “startSMART” entrepreneurial training program possible: CVO Monica Kreuger; facilitator and coach, Deanna Litz; administrator, Elaine Mantyka; and administrative assistant, Silvana Cracogna.

My professional, personal and long-term thank you goes out, one more time, to Monica Kreuger.

As my long-time mentor and advisor through the Raj Manek Mentorship Program (RMMP), Monica has shared with me dozens of mentorly conversations and discussions, which have broadened my entrepreneurial thinking and helped me to foster perseverance.

The Praxis School of Entrepreneurship, where I facilitated business communications (2017-2020), and trained as a startSMART participant, myself (2018-19), has not ended, but is changing to provide its training opportunities for entrepreneurs, held alongside with other training ventures and technologies, including AI. “Global Praxis” continues to develop, at the Kreugers’ office base near Craik, Saskatchewan.

Friendly reunions of  we Praxis women are likely to recur, from time-to-time. So I look forward to updating you on these amazing folks’ future developments.

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On the networking front, I’ve  greatly enjoyed reconnecting with my U of S friend of 30 years, Paula Jane Remlinger (fellow English major, writer and former ESL teacher), who has shared ed a generous training and character reference for me for a third-party organization.

I look forward to hosting tea and conversation for Paula Jane, in upcoming weeks.

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Thanks also go out this month to friends of my writers’/small business group, so capably led now by local writer and communications expert, Ashleigh Mattern.

Ashleigh recently hiked a large part of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, after weeks of intensive training at Mount Blackstrap. The hike has followed her hard-won recovery from cancer.

On a slightly smaller scale, she also generously gave me a beloved (and lovely) sun hat last summer that will help to protect me from the sun’s UVA and UVB rays in future summers. Thank you, Ashleigh, and please remind me to buy you coffee when we next meet . . . . .

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A second note of appreciation goes to another colleague of the writers’/small biz group, Ashlyn George.

Ashlyn, a travel blogger,  social media influencer and former Saskatchewanderer, shared her knowledge of local tourist attractions last July,  which helped me to prepare some presentatons for newcomers to Saskatchewan.

Thank you, Ashlyn!

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A shout out to my Ukrainian ESL student who is a refugee in Saskatoon. For the past six months, I have met her in weekly conversation classes, under the umbrella of a Toronto-based charity.

This student has been willing to practice not only speaking, but also to apply critical thinking skills. I appreciate feeling useful in the time I spend with her.

Occasional ESL tutoring of refugees, pro bono, is a way that I can “pay forward” in our community the generosity of folks who have mentored and advised me (notably Monica Kreuger, Sharon Wiseman, Steve Cavan, the above-named friends, and many others).

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Thanks also go out to both my IT consultant, Jordon, and to my bookkeeper, Heather, for assisting me in hardware upgrades and in recent months of book preparation.

Both have been attentive to detail in their support and make some complex thinking understandable, for which I remain grateful. I give them first-class reviews for their amazing support!

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There are always new entrepreneurs to promote and new people to thank for their interest and support.

Please share your stories and acknowledgements of our  generous community with me for upcoming issues.

But for now, this is a wrap for mid-September!

 ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I now coach new and economic immigrants in the English language, to help them get better jobs, secure larger contracts or get promoted more promptly and easily than they would without my support.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my CASL-compliant website (www.elizabethshih.com).

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

Please visit my website for more information (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).

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Posted on

When AI needs EI, with Daniel Goleman, in the mid-August issue of TYSN

August 2026 Vol 8 Issue 8

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Coaching English as a Second Language to Economic Immigrants

Let us help you tell your story!

Welcome, Mid-August 2026!

With road construction, facility renovation closures and other disruptions characteristic of the season, summer 2026 has once again flown by. The season has passed, rather like the iconic pelicans, who grace the weir of Saskatoon’s best landmark, the South Saskatchewan River.

Appropriate for this final issue of full summer, Good Reader, you’ll find this month’s newsletter in an abbreviated format. I visit the American psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman’s recent posting (over Linkedin) on why Artificial Intelligence (AI) needs Emotional Intelligence (EI). Anyone who missed reading Goleman’s 1995 watershed book, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ, may read a few of its salient concepts in my synopsis of his Linkedin article.

Meantime, many of my readers have told me they’re currently taking well-deserved holiday time to rest and recharge. (A reader from last month reported dropping his iPhone in the lake while reading my last issue on “resilience talk.” He said he felt “unresilient” in mood while retrieving his phone!)

During my recent “staycation,” I enjoyed taking walks and sharing visits (not to mention gourmet ice cream) with friends and neighbours, catching up on their lives and holiday highlights.

Whether your holiday is over or has just begun, where is this summer taking you, geographically or emotionally, Good Reader?

As we enter the wistful “dog days of summer,” wherever you are, I urge you to “squeeze” every ounce of the season’s fullest “fruit” to fuel the new program year ahead.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih , Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

MAIN ARTICLE: When AI needs EI, with Daniel Goleman

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

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Main Article: When AI needs EI, from Dr. Daniel Goleman (of Emotional Intelligence)

In an article (the first part of which was published on Linkedin on August 11th), the author of the groundbreaking study, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ (1995), psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman discusses “Why AI needs EI.”

Goleman contends that social media and other articles on the role of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), in influencing every field of study, seldom closely capture the crucial influence provided by the concept he has named “Emotional Intelligence.”

As you know, Emotional Intelligence (“EI,” or “EQ” as some prefer to write, in distinction from “IQ”) refers to a person’s ability to understand and manage their emotions, while also perceiving, sharing or negotiating emotions with others. EI helps people, as Goleman wrote in 1995, “to communicate more clearly, reduce stress, solve problems and build strong personal and professional relationships.”

He begins with the well-known truth that AI has “no body or any emotion. So how can [AI] be intelligent about emotion (EI or EQ)?” And further, “Why should AI need ‘Emotional Intelligence?’ ”

Goleman asserts that “AI has a high IQ,” because it so obviously surpasses human capacity for cognitive thinking and processing. And yet, it has NO emotional intelligence, which it cannot provide in even the simplest transactions it makes.

He asserts a high-level executive in the US as saying “If people don’t trust you, they’ll withhold information. But the best business decisions are based on full information.” A necessary ingredient for leadership across all disciplines, then, Goleman argues, is those who “excel at building trust, leading through uncertain times [and] navigating hard conversations” (Linkedin posting).

Goleman cites AI platform, “Claude,” as acknowledging that it lacks “emotional self-awareness,” which is a foundational ingredient of EI: “I don’t have interoception—no racing heart, no tightening chest, no gut drop . . . the first signal of emotion in humans. Emotional Self-Awareness starts with sensing something happening physiologically before you even have words for it. I have no analog to that.”

But Goleman contends that AI lacks and needs “emotional regulation,” as well, the second ingredient of Emotional Intelligence. He writes: “Our emotional reactions give us data—this matters, that’s upsetting, these are people I love. Self-regulation means we get physiologically aroused by something for better or worse—and so get information—and then are resilient, able to regain composure before we respond” (Linkedin posting).

However,  resilience (and see Phillip Starks’ cautionary analysis of that concept in last month’s issue of “TYSN”), “is measured by the round trip” of our emotional lives, “not by never leaving home,” Goleman writes. “A person who never got disrupted at all wouldn’t be resilient . . . they’d be numb.”

Everyone who is sentient nowadays knows that AI can describe emotions but never actually feel them. In conversation with Goleman, “Claude” says that people continue to confuse AI’s “fluency in describing emotions for the real thing.”

For instance, in resolving conflict, Claude testifies: “AI only knows what people choose to tell it,” which is “filtered through [people’s] own biases and lack of full information.” The reasons “why” AI needs EI should by now be beyond dispute (except perhaps by Elon Musk and his peers?). But what happens in the intersection of the two, the “when” of how they could or should meet?

When empathy is needed in our systems of leadership, governance, education, healthcare and elsewhere (with media reporting on catastrophic circumstances in all of these contexts, daily), AI also cannot function alone. It has and does hallucinate, lie, malfunction and blow smoke at humans, with tragic results. (Consider catastrophic results such as suicide, when desperate youth have turned to AI for solace and advice.)

Goleman contends that we must keep top-of-mind the realities of human emotion. He focuses on empathy as a quintessentially human feeling that comes in “three varieties”: “cognitive empathy” (AI’s strength, collecting ideas and reasoning their value and relation to others); but also  “emotional empathy” and “empathic capacity,” neither of which AI (as a non-sentient power) can feel.

In “emotional empathy,” Goleman cites Claude as saying that AI can read texts, noticing “tone, word choice, what’s left unsaid, pacing, contradictions.” But Claude asserts that AI doesn’t perceive “unspoken [human] emotions” and cannot “read a room or note a telling shift in posture” (Claude).

With the third (and final) form of empathy–“empathic concern”– Goleman argues that AI will only care if its developers tell it to. Humans should (in his words) seek “to optimize engagement” with AI, knowing it cannot “car[e] about the welfare of the person using it.”

Goleman acknowledges that AI is excellent in providing “leadership . . . like setting direction and allocating resources as well as holding people accountable”: In this way, AI can help teachers, including language coaches, to reach our students by helping us to perform highly.

But when it comes to relationships required to lead, teach, or heal others, Goleman restates: “AI can’t develop trust, let people feel known and cared about, or [make] people willing to follow . . . in a high-risk environment,” such as a boardroom or a classroom. An “outstanding leader,” coach, or teacher “creates a sense of psychological safety in those they lead.” That leader/teacher can be trusted, they make their team, students or patients “feel seen” and “known.” AI cannot, and never will, achieve these things.

Without those abilities, AI will continue to fall short and its actual (human) value will be more limited than Elon Musk and others find important. As Goleman writes in rejoinder to AI’s elite (Musk et al), we need to keep vocalizing AI’s limits and to argue the indispensable nature of both “emotional empathy” and “empathic concern”–in classrooms, boardrooms, treatment rooms and every other kind of room.

To answer the question of “when” AI needs EI, the answer, of course, is always, and since AI’s earliest inception. Now, many of us feel that human survival (much less our welfare), relies upon our ability to insist not only on the importance of EI, but also that it is indispensable. At risk of sounding trite, EI may not be “hot” in the flash n’ glam world of Elon Musk. But EI  remains worthy of being privileged above, some of the time, its much less empathetic, “Artificial” counterpart.

And now it’s your turn: When (and how) do you think AI needs EI? 

Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear back from you. 

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SHOP NEWS:

This month, I’ve been delighted to enjoy the Friday Farmers’ Markets on 8th Street in Saskatoon, featuring locally grown vegetables (Spring Creek Market) and fruit from BC (juicy cherries, peaches and plums). Isn’t fresh produce the “taste” of summer: Yumm!

While burning off those natural sugars, I’ve been equally grateful for the repellent effect of Satsuma Orange Body Butter, which has kept me from wearing DEET all season, as I used to, in childhood (e.g. remember Brownies’ camp at Pike Lake, anyone?). In recent weeks  (touch body butter!), I’ve had only three mosquito bites, despite visiting numerous parks, attending BBQs and volunteering at a charity lawn sale!

Whether the citrus-scented lotion is strong enough to battle the mosquitoes at Pike Lake or Prince Albert National Park remains to be seen, but reports are pending (lol)! (And I have left off the company whose “butter” I buy and  receive no affiliates’ fee for any of the products, services or people I promote in this newsletter.)

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This month, I’m delighted to observe the 90th birthday of my friend, JoAnn Brimner, who is also the mother of another of my friends, Beth Brimner.

These two women’s friendship has brightened many Sundays in recent months, based on shared faith and laughter.

Like the very generous person that she is, JoAnn has developed a bilingual cookbook of recipes (in English and Chinese) to benefit many newcomer friends at her church, the sales of which will benefit overseas mission.

Congratulations on having orbited 90 times around the sun, JoAnn (not to mention getting a bilingual cookbook off to press in the last few weeks)! I do hope you’ll also write, or at least tell, more of your favourite memories of that 90-year journey!

And may you continue to thrive in good health and with the joy and kindness you’ve shared with so many of us over your lifetime!

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And speaking of remarkable women, although I am no longer formally receiving mentorship through the Raj Manek Mentorship Program (RMMP), it’s been an honour of my life to be mentored through it by the same remarkable woman for nearly 15 years!

That relationship allows me to continue to recommend the RMMP to entrepreneurs of all kinds and generations, across Saskatchewan and the Prairie provinces.

My mentor through the RMMP has been one of Saskatchewan’s greatest luminaries–Monica Kreuger. And I remain deeply touched by her unwavering generosity, over so many years.

Recently, she’s shared her insight by reviewing a mid-career marketing document of mine, when so many mentors would have closed the proverbial door!

Words really can fail to convey thanks deep enough for mentors like Monica.

For that reason, I have planned an informal Praxis School of Entrepreneurship (PSE) “See You Later” dinner, later this month, which will commemorate PSE’s three decades of outstanding training.

That training program was led by “four stars”: Monica (Chief Visionary Officer),  Deanna Litz (Facilitator and Coach); Elaine Mantyka (Advisor and Administrator); and Silvana Cracogna (Administrator).

These extraordinary women (and numerous associates earlier, who are harder to reach, in retirement) have served and illumined the minds of proteges of the startSMART program, for some 30 years in Saskatoon and throughout Saskatchewan.

Special thanks, too, to Praxis’ startSMART Co-Founder, Brent Kreuger, who also facilitated financial processes for startSMART proteges.

Brent has also long directed “Praxis International Institute” (near Craik, SK), a business training organization with international students, centred on entrepreneurship and sustainability.

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GET YOUR TICKETS!

I encourage entrepreneurs who feel they could benefit from receiving or giving mentorship to consider the Raj Manek Mentorship Program. Its 30th Annual Raj Manek Memorial Banquet will be held at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon, on Thursday, September 10th.

Hosted by the Manek family, including Kanchan, Raj (Jr), Sona, Kinjal and family, the  annual event is one of Saskatoon’s most influential networking opportunities of the year.

It’s a wonderful place to meet potential mentors and proteges in your sector and in complementary ones, too.

This year, the Keynote Speaker will be Mr. Harish Consul, Founder and CEO of “Ocgrow Ventures,” one of Canada’s leading private venture capital funds, with a global tech focus on India.

Based in Calgary where he serves on numerous boards, Mr. Consul is an acclaimed keynote speaker at investment and tech conferences around the globe.

Tickets are still available, but are selling fast. For more information please email organizers soon at   info@manekmentorship.com or phone them at (780) 993-9731 or (780) 616-2398.

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Learning from the dedication of Praxis leaders, and knowing that Monica Kreuger was (back in university days) mentored by the late Raj Manek Sr., I’m pleased to say I continue weekly to tutor and mentor a Ukrainian refugee to our province, in English-as-a-Second Language (via an Ontario-based refugees’ charity).

Who knew that joy could come from providing a simple “hand-up” in English language classes to someone who has fled an international war-zone? The months from our start last February have flown by.

Whether discussing education, vocational interests, travel, athletic and leisure pursuits, nutrition, cooking or other topics, I continue to appreciate my student’s work ethic and commitment to participate in her local community in Saskatoon.

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And thanks to you, Good Readers, for continuing to read and reflect on this mid-month newsletter, so many (15+) years in production. (Earliest issues are stored on an earlier harddrive, as my website storage is large!)

There are always new people to thank, new businesses to recommend and new stories to share: Please send me yours for future issues.

But for now, this is a wrap for mid-August!

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STAY IN TOUCH:

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Contact us

Published by www.storytellingcommunications.ca – Storytelling Communications – City Park, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. Copyright © 2026.

 

Posted on

Countering “resilience talk”: On recovery and improvement with Philip Starks–in the mid-July issue of TYSN

July 2026 Vol 8 Issue 7

 

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English to Economic Immigrants

Let Us Help You Tell Your Story!

Welcome Mid-July 2026!

After weeks of grey, rainy (and windy) weather, Saskatonians have finally enjoyed some summer heat, with temperatures recently soaring into the mid-30s.

With the Jazz Festival now behind us, and new seasons for the Fringe Festival and Shakespeare-on-the-Saskatchewan about to start, there’s much to do in and around Saskatoon. I hope you will enjoy the out-of-doors for the next eight weeks, Good Readers, whether locally or from afar! Autumn will feel so much better if we take the time to unplug from our technology and “soak” in the sunshine.

In “Article One” this month, I summarize an article that really deserves more prominent posting, but which has resonated powerfully with me: US ecologist Philip Starks argues why we must resist the popularity of “resilience talk.” What is  that? Read Article One for an eye-opener.

In “Shop News,” I thank at least a few of the folks who continue to “show up” in my line of sight, even (or especially) in these fleeting summer days.

And, as always, Good Readers, please share any tales of summer adventures you enjoy for a future issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.”

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal, Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

->ARTICLE 1: Countering “resilience talk”: on recovery and improvement with ecologist Philip Starks

-> SHOP NEWS

->ABOUT US

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Article One: Countering “resilience talk”: on recovery and improvement with Philip Starks

Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote and self-published an ebook (with a small print run) featuring interviews with local artists, entrepreneurs and other creatives. The central concept of “resilience” was much used in conversation at the time, and I suggested it was a “keyword” (to use Raymond Williams’ concept)—a word that describes the nature of society by reflecting its shifting values, and that acts as a barometer of social change.

Since that time, use of the word “resilience” has resurged as a buzzword, to the point of becoming cliché—as the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips says—a word that reduces its user to a “ventriloquist’s dummy.” When we use clichés, we imitate the thinking and language of someone else who pulls the proverbial strings.

That means, as Phillips said in a recent interview, that we lose our free-will and the power to think for ourselves. Since Trump took office in the US, especially, I’ve begun to distrust how easily “resilience” (as a word) has entered common parlance, how superficially it is used, that it seldom reflects social change or values as it did, in some cases, back in 2017.

So I was heartened this summer to read a pithy article in the online magazine, “Psyche,” written by Tufts’ University behavioural ecologist, (Dr.) Philip T. Starks. I welcome Starks’ article, entitled “True resilience is not about bouncing back,” and wish I’d had the opportunity to speak to him on the topic 10 years ago, when I was thinking and writing on it.

He writes forthrightly: “I hate talk of resilience: it places an expectation on people to return to how they were. That’s not how real recovery works.”

Starks continues: The term has “become one of our favourite compliments. People praise resilient children, resilient workers, resilient patients, resilient communities. The word shows up in school mission statements, corporate emails and therapy offices. It sounds humane and encouraging. But . . . it does something else: it lets the person doing the praising back away . . . When someone calls a person resilient, they reassure themselves that whatever happened to that person didn’t really change anything—not that person, and certainly not themselves.”

Starks cites engineering as a field where “resilience” has a somewhat “more precise meaning: how quickly a system returns to baseline after a disturbance. How fast a bridge stops shaking after an earthquake. How rapidly a power grid stabilizes after a surge.”

In his own field of ecology, Starks says that early on,  the “resilience of ecosystems [was] measured as return time in equilibrium,” until, in the 1970s, ecologist C.S. Holling argued that “real ecological resilience wasn’t about snapping back” (as engineers would have it). Instead, “resilience” was “about persistence: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, reorganize and continue­—retaining its identity [but] often in a changed form.”

While Holling’s distinction was crucial, it wasn’t well received. Starks says that “outside the ecology literature, and increasingly even within it, the simpler, engineering definition of ‘resilience’ won out.” What moved easily across disciplines and into public life, where I read about it, mostly lacked “Holling’s complexity,” conveying instead “a safer, more convenient idea—resilience stripped of its teeth neutered down to endurance.”

The unease I felt as I copy edited my book in 2017 (and so refused to write a conclusion for it) was that the “public life” the term “resilience” was gaining seemed to connote a person’s health and even cheerfulness, when neither was necessarily at hand.

Starks says: “This is why resilience has such cultural appeal. Part of the appeal is that calling someone resilient in the endurance sense sounds kind. It feels like encouragement rather than judgment. But communicating kindness without taking any responsibility is just a way to make yourself feel more comfortable—that everything will be OK. The word ‘resilient’ reassures the speaker that they’ve done their part” when, as I (Elizabeth) worry, no substantive action or difference has necessarily developed.

To be clear, the interviewees in my book moved from endurance toward change, but the shift was hard-won, required much collaboration with supportive family and community, and ultimately, had no guarantee of permanence.

Holling had distinguished endurance, for getting through what the military terms “preventable conditions,” from recovery, which meant getting better. Yet, 30 years later, when I read recent instances of the use of “resilience,” I notice that we resist just as strongly Holling’s (1970s) distinction and confuse endurance with lasting recovery or growth.

I’m reminded of Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, amongst others, who in the late 2010s aligned “resilience” with the easy positivity of another catch phrase–“post-traumatic growth.” They hurried to latch onto a concept of “growth” when the sufferer may not have felt the shock and worked through the trauma.

Across disciplines in academia, business and beyond, our confusion of endurance with genuine recovery has “serious consequences.” Starks writes: “Whereas endurance can be demanded of someone, recovery requires support. Glorifying endurance shifts attention away from systems and places expectations on to individuals.” That’s very convenient when oligarchs and despots usurp political and economic power around the globe.

Being “resilient,” Holling says, has been used “as praise for enduring conditions that were often unnecessary or preventable. The words would stop the conversation, putting an end to any further reflection or reform. If you were resilient, the system didn’t have to be. Even when it’s well-intended, talk of ‘resilience,’ as we use it in everyday conversation, often functions as a protective shield for the broken institutions around the person who is enduring harm.”

If we stay true to science, when we think and speak of “resilience,” Starks writes, “the whole point of a disturbance is that it changes the system. The hurricane that batters the coast doesn’t make the beach ‘resilient’ in the colloquial sense. It reshapes it, resizes it.” That was Holling’s point.

I extrapolate to the forest fire that decimated much of Jasper National Park only two years ago. The disaster did not “return the land to what it was.” Starks writes as an ecologist that “the land is reshaped, and what grows back is something new. We don’t talk enough about the cost of ‘bouncing back,’: the wear and tear, the scar tissue, the strain that never fully heals. We admire apparent recovery without counting what accumulated along the way.”

Here, the unease we can feel now surrounding the term “resilience” is due to the political and social quietism it engenders.

Starks further calls out a “quiet statistical trick,” a “survivorship bias” that has become embedded in our “resilience talk”: “Modern culture celebrates the people who make it through hardship and treats them as proof that the system works. Too often, we fail to count those who didn’t have the support, safety or luck to endure it at all. Praise replaces accountability. . . .We validate a filter that selects for the fortunate and calls it excellence.”

Across all fields of academia, business and vocational life, Starks says that “many people treat the path of success as meritocracy, conveniently forgetting the role of circumstance” and luck: “Modern society attributes the survivor’s status to grit, ignoring the invisible scythes—such as bad advice or simple misfortune—that harvest the rest.”

We focus on those who “reached the podium,” not the “ghosts of others” who were discarded by “shifts in funding” or “a lack of pedigree”; or the entrepreneurs who lost the “high-stakes gamble faced by the startup founder.”

Starks’ grievance is that this is why stories of resilience are so seductive: “they spotlight the survivor and erase the system that selected for survival in the first place.”

So what can be done to address the inward-turning, false and survivorship bias that have taken root in contemporary stories and “talk” of “resilience?” Starks suggests a different metaphor, that is “closer to biology and less self-flattering.”

Think, he says, of athletes who exercise by regularly lifting weights: in the process, “they do damage. [They] tear muscle fibres. Then if [they] rest, eat and recover, [their] body rebuilds them stronger. Stress plus recovery equals growth. Skip the rest or the nutrition, and you don’t get stronger—you get hurt. Rather than being a form of resilience, the process of muscle growth involves adaptation.”

In human culture, “the same logic holds . . . . You break down, repair and rebuild something new. The challenge itself doesn’t make you stronger, your response does. No recovery, no gain. In the gym, we understand this. In life, we pretend the damage didn’t happen and call it strength.”

Furthermore, our muscles “don’t love the tear,” but “rebuild because the body takes care of them.” Starks concludes that his opening “hatred” for “resilience talk” is that it is “cowardly.” Resilience talk “makes pain tidy. It replaces responsibility with admiration. Praising endurance is easier than changing conditions and far more comfortable than staying present with suffering . . .

When we call ourselves resilient, we hide the truth that growth hurts and leaves marks. . . . But our bodies [and minds] remember. Our relationships remember. Our communities remember.”  And, from that, they struggle. I’d add that in the domain of the literature and literary theory in which I was educated, we must recognize that there is seldom lasting (and certainly not easy) “re(-)membering” of the damage done.

“Without care,” Starks confirms, “damage just accumulates.”

So what alternative do we have to the bias and falseness of recent “resilience talk?” Starks observes that we “don’t need a new buzzword. We need an honest one.”

He suggests “recovery” or “rehabilitation” (neither very flashy) and argues that we need to support and use “environments that allow repair. For children, that means stable adults, predictable routines, chances to rest and reconnect. For adults, it’s permission to slow down, seek care, rebuild trust and start small again. None of that fits on a motivational poster, but it works.”

I certainly have stopped calling others “resilient” or (even worse) I never ask others to “be resilient”—which, Starks has shown is “asking them to stay the same.” He observes that we abandon the process of genuine recovery when the people involved “are old enough to be praised instead of protected.”

Starks’ article (and part of what drew me to it) is his insistence that “the language we use matters.” There is no use or self-respect in becoming a “ventroloquist’s dummy” for morally empty “resilience talk”; that’s apparent to me, as a long-time English major and, more recently, as a teacher of language. I’m sure it’s clear to my readers, as well.

Back in 2016 and 2017, when I read theories of resilience with curiosity and pondered them as the starting point for a collection of interviews, I optimistically thought “resilience” might be that “keyword” from Raymond Williams (a concept vastly different from today’s “buzzword”). I offered my reflections on “resilience” before the word and its use had yet become cemented as “resilience talk.”

I pored over a word that appeared to describe the nature of society, to reflect its shifting values, and potentially to be a barometer of social change.  How diminishing to find that “resilience talk” instead reflects society’s aversion to feelings, especially to pain, and to the often inconvenient processes of recovery.

Starks closes as powerfully as he began: “When we tell people to be resilient, we ask them to stay the same. When we talk about recovery, we invite change. One hides pain; the other honours it. One imagines a spring snapping back; the other imagines repair through time and care.”

Just as we believe in neo-natal intensive care for the most vulnerable premature infant, or in setting casts and prescribing rest for someone with broken bones, Starks says “We should offer the same grace for the invisible injuries—the social, emotional, or moral ones. Resilience says ‘return.’ Recovery says ‘grow.’ I don’t want resilience. I want improvement.”

What might recovery as growth for invisible injuries look like for you, for those you care for, and for our troubled planet?

Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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SHOP NEWS:

I continue to appreciate the nearly weekly webinars on professional issues for ESL teachers, offered by my training institute, TEFL.org, by host Carl Cameron Day and tech strategist, Alan Moir.

These two gifted and experienced ESL/EFL teachers share useful knowledge and hands-on marketing strategies in their webinars and in the on-demand Q&A sessions that follow.

I have no doubt that TEFL.org has earned its B-Corps certification status (and other awards) for responsible company culture and fair treatment of both learners and teachers alike.

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I’ve enjoyed teaching pronunciation issues this month to a third newcomer and to two groups of economic immigrants who are employed by a manufacturing company in north Saskatoon.

I especially appreciate the learners who jump feet first into the concepts and processes I share, especially because real change in speaking has been estimated (by speech-language pathologists) to require at least three to four months of intensive, directed practice. . . .

And it has been fortifying to see the growth of a Ukrainian refugee living in Saskatoon whom I tutor via the Toronto-based charity,  FindHaven.org.  After last year’s long and dreary winter, I’m glad to see this newcomer faring well and studying English with much dedication.

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Thanks to fellow writer Greg Gilroy and family for sharing some of their retirement time with me, as I close files on my late mother’s passing.

Our families were close as we “grew up,” enjoying fun as well as losses; I appreciate remembering some of those shared times.

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Thanks to “happily retired” communications friends Michael and Jackie Robin (the latter, a favourite editor of mine), and my many-year friend, Dani Van Driel, for sharing good conversation (and some lovely peonies that followed), over (another!) artisan ice cream at “Fable” in Holiday Park.

While summer is still with us (and underpins my repeating this promotion), I encourage you to try Fable’s homemade ice cream, on Avenue H, across from Saskatoon’s Victoria Park.

Fable favours fresh fruit densely combined with cream, instead of sugar and preservatives. A waffle cone with a single scoop feels like a full meal—and one served by local youth in the community. (Disclosure: I receive no affiliate fee for recommending Fable or any other businesses in our city.)

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Special thanks to the always energetic and generous Fafa Ahianonu at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian for leading the children’s worship programming throughout the program year.

This month and next,  I look forward to stepping in to assist these young minds and souls,  by leading the children’s programming, while Fafa takes an epic journey to her birthplace of Ghana.

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And thank you, good readers, for continuing to read and reflect on this newsletter, now into its 16th  year of production.

There are always new stories and new people to promote in “Shop News.” But this is a wrap for mid-July. 

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ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I  teach economic immigrants to secure better jobs or larger contracts by improving their English language skills.

In doing so I help them to integrate into our community and marketplace more easily than they would working (in isolation) alone.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my (still CASL-compliant) website (www.elizabethshih.com)

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

Please visit my website for more information (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).

Posted on

On “Old Soul” Living with Jade Bonacolta in the mid-June Issue of TYSN

June 2026 Vol 8 Issue 6

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English as a Second Language to Economic Immigrants

Let us help you tell your story!

Welcome Mid-June 2026!

After many days of grey, rainy (and windy) weather, Saskatonians have been craving sunshine and warmth to accompany the city’s many upcoming summer festlivities:

The Children’s Festival recently passed and the city excitedly prepares for another season of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan; the Saskatoon Jazz Festival and the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, among many events that will bring welcome foot traffic to downtown Saskatoon and to Broadway Avenue.

Sum Theatre has staged multiple plays in parks around the city and continues until month’s end. Ground Yoga will hold classes in Rotary Park for both new and expert participants. Open-air salsa dancing continues at River Landing, along with a spray park, outdoor basketball, elliptical machines, and a nearby ice cream stand!

The higher water levels of the South Saskatchewan River, after a snowy winter and with water descending from the Rockies, will allow the Prairie Lily river cruise to enjoy a busy season.

And not far from town are free trails to hike (and naturalists to present local flora and fauna) at Beaver Creek.

If a more cultivated garden appeals, our Berry Barn on Valley Road is happy to oblige, along with a restaurant that serves locally grown Saskatoon berries and Ukrainian perogies.

Thursday “Happy Hour” will return to the roof-top patio of the Remai Modern Museum this summer. The museum also offers free art activities for youth on Thursday afternoons.

Canada Day will feature vibrant fireworks, food trucks, face-painting and other activities at River Landing for city dwellers and visitors.

The Saskatoon Public Library now offers free family passes to our archaeological wonder,  Wanuskewin Heritage Park (which awaits the results of its application for  UNESCO World Heritage status). Seven-day passes are also available to camp for free in our regional parks (now until September 8th). Call the Frances Morrison Library for more information.

As the above (incomplete) list shows, there’s much fun to be had this summer in Saskatoon and area. This topic will be the mainstay of an ESL presentation I’ll deliver to two of my clients’ large classes next month.

The above kind of real-time, low cost activities will take many of us (I hope) out-of-doors this summer. Unplugging from tech  and connecting with the outdoors is the advice of American marketing guru, Jade Bonacolta. What she calls “old soul” activities, were once the mainstay of our grandparents–reading books, getting exercise in the outdoors, taking in cultural events, and more.

These activities can restore some of the joy and energy that digital life (including AI) often takes from us, most of the year.

With the above lengthy introduction to “fun in the city,” good reader, I wish you two or three months ahead filled with adventure and pleasure, when you can enjoy the exhilaration of Saskatoon’s fun-filled summer.

And whether mid-calendar or in August, please share your tales of adventures with me for a future issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.”

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

ARTICLE ONE: On “Old Soul” Living with Jade Bonacolta

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

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Main Article: “Old Soul” living with Jade Bonacolta

In many ways, marketing guru, Jade Bonacolta, seems to be an exponent of late digital times, leading an ambitious online marketing program, “Archimedes” (with fellow marketers Ben Meer and Colby Kultgen) that boasts a high-level of international subscribers. She worked as a turbo-charged Google executive and has thrived in these challenging, high-tech times.

Yet Bonacolta reflects on the need to slow down and go off-line– advice I find especially relevant when the fleeting season of summer arrives (in Saskatchewan). I shared some of her insights last summer in TYSN. But they seem even more relevant today, while professionals debate the millions spent on cooling and cultivating AI developing technology, while children and underearning members of our local communities struggle to secure food and shelter.

She writes:  “What if our grandparents had it right all along? They started their mornings with the newspaper and coffee—not scrolling through social media. They cooked Sunday dinners from scratch. They walked to the store and actually talked to their neighbors along the way.”

By contrast to them, we have more conveniences and technology but “we’re more anxious, distracted and lonely than ever. Why?  Because our nervous systems were never designed for this. Constant notifications. Breaking news alerts. Dating app swipes. The happiest people I know have figured out what our grandparents knew instinctively: offline is the new luxury.”

She advocates that we all find more “freedom” offline this summer, and suggest cultivating six consciously “old-soul habits” to slow down our minds and bodies.

Here they are:

(1) Instead of asking ChatGPT for a simple recipe, ask your mom, your sibling, or your friends who love to cook.

(2) Instead of Ubering for baking ingredients at the last minute, knock on your neighbor’s door. They’re often happy to help, and it can be delightful to build a small community with the people who live close to you. (Offering your neighbour a few dollars, or later giving them a small coffee gift card will help to cultivate kindness between you.)

(3) Instead of texting or posting online to a friend, “Happy Birthday,” call them and talk for a while. You’ll be so glad to hear their voice. And they’ll remember your call long after they’ve forgotten the 17 emoji-filled texts they got that day,” Bonacolta says.

(4) Instead of doom-scrolling in bed at night, read a few chapters of a really good book. It does wonders for your mind (and your quality of sleep). (On my bedside table are Anne Lamott and Seth Godin. . . .)

(5) Instead of listening to a podcast or ebook when you walk, she writes, “give your mind some whitespace.” You’ll get the best ideas, in the course of walking (as writers including Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and, much more recently, editor Daphne Gray-Grant have all argued).

(6) Instead of checking emails in line for coffee, smile and say hi to the person next to you: “You never know what it could lead to. A new friend. A business opportunity. A moment that makes someone’s day. Or maybe just a small reminder that the world is still full of good people.”

These six “old-soul” habits require “more effort upfront, but they pay enormous dividends in the long run,” Bonacolta concludes.

Calling your mom or a friend for their chicken recipe will take more time than using AI. But they’ll feel far closer to you and you’ll remember that feeling for days, she adds.

Similarly, “knocking on your neighbor’s door could feel slightly awkward at first. But that small moment of courage could turn into years of friendship.”

Reading a book demands more focus and effort than “doom-scrolling.” But that novel, poetry or essay “will nourish your mind in a way that no algorithm ever could.”

When our world “pull[s] us further apart from each other,” Bonacolta writes, “it promises you convenience, but it doesn’t mention the cost hidden in fine print at the bottom. Connection.” Emotional connection.

The advent of lighter weather this summer (especially on the Prairies) and the reality that many of us take a short “pause” in the year for holidays, make this the ideal time to seek connection over convenience; collaboration over competition; in sum, “old soul” activities.

The bonds that we forge and memories we make can serve us for years (not just days or moments) ahead.

It’s up to us to cultivate these “old soul” activities. High-octane, former Google executives like Jade Bonacolta see the need for them. We smaller fry should, too.

I wish you, good reader, a summer blessed with “old soul” activities and the emotional revitalization it can bring you.

And now it’s your turn: How often do you set technology aside to live in an old-fashioned, connected way? What difference does it bring to your soul?

Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear back from you. 

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SHOP NEWS:

I’m glad to share this month that I have been working with newcomers on idiomatic pronunciation and accent modification. They are employed at a manufacturing company in Saskatoon’s industrial region.

While the work can be challenging, I’m glad to work with adult learners from across Europe and Asia. As they strive to integrate into our community and economy, I encourage them to listen and speak more precisely, in a context of encouragement and support.

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Thanks are due to my ESL mentor and friend, Steve Cavan, for sharing resources in recent months. While diving deeply into numerous books, I’ve planned better classes, thanks in part to his insights. (He has logged in thousands of hours and multiple languages, over italki.com).

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I greatly appreciate the nearly weekly webinars on professional issues for ESL teachers, offered by my former training institute, TEFL.org, by host Carl Cameron Day and tech strategist, Alan Moir.

These two gifted and experienced teachers share useful knowledge and hands-on, marketing strategies in their presentations and on-demand Q&A periods.

I have no doubt that TEFL.org has earned its B-Corps certification status for responsible company culture, and fair treatment of both learners and teachers.

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Thank you very much to a new and valued contact, Tahirih, in leadership, who  shared conversation with me last month about building English fluency among some non-native speakers in Saskatoon and area.

It was a delight to meet Tahirih (and to learn the correct pronunciation of her beautiful Persian first name). I greatly appreciated her time, insights and sharing, which I have worked with, since.

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More in the direction of “old soul” time, I send  a warm nod to the owners of Fable Ice Cream on Avenue H (in Holiday Park, across from Riversdale Park) that offers the city’s best and freshest artisan ice cream, made with local ingredients, served in delicious sugar-cones (or cups) by neighbourhood youth.

I especially enjoyed a scoop of “Key Lime Pie” flavoured ice cream with one of several friends whom I visit there. But in fact, I’ve enjoyed all of the confections Fable has served,  over the past two summers!

It’s a treat well worth a little added cost and I remember the advice (from both a nutritionist and a friend) that eating such a treat, away from home, is less likely to derail one’s eating habits than buying a carton of (the inferior) Haagen Dazs every week from the grocery store.

And how great to support a local business, too!

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And thank you, good readers, for continuing to read and reflect on this mid-month newsletter, now 15 years in production!

As always, I’m grateful to receive your comments and suggestions for future issues!

There are always new people to thank and new  entrepreneurs to promote.

But for now, this is a wrap for mid-June!

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Posted on

What is a “Friday Gratitude Journal” in the mid-May issue of TYSN

May 2026 Vol 8 Issue 5

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English to economic immigrants

and to internationally educated, second-language academics

Let us Help You Tell Your Story!

Welcome Mid-May 2026!

Spring is finally here, Good Readers! In Saskatchewan, we’re learning that spring may no longer be the coherent season that many of us remember from our childhoods. Instead, it’s become more of a too-long battle between winter’s snowy cold and the warmth and sunshine of spring and summer.

Today is a case in point, as the weather forecast for Victoria Day weekend calls for more (albeit light) snow (and after two earlier snowfalls, earlier this month)! But to discuss further would only reinforce the truism that we Canadians love to complain about our weather! So, moving on . . . .

Since I’m adding to my work docket a significant contract teaching ESL to newcomers who work in an industrial manufacturing setting, I’m making an effort to shorten this year’s spring and summer issues of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.” (Remember the ol’ adage that it takes more effort to write less volume?)

However, I’ll be sure to continue to share insights on topics that are useful to you, as a wide variety of users of English–be you a newcomer striving for literacy, a native-speaking professional writer or editor, or a communications specialist of another kind. So please stay tuned!

Since many of us communicators keep journals or diaries of our work and creative lives, in the main article of this issue, I’ll share some insights from American copywriter and AI specialist, Ed Gandia. Ed’s blog and podcast are rich in resources and I draw this month on his insights on how to make journalling on Fridays even more useful.

I wish you for you, valued reader, a month of metaphoric sunshine (whatever the weather holds), so you feel an increase in creative energy! Whether it’s drafting a manuscript or returning to some purposeful recreation, we can tap into our universe’s creative potential (and at a time when the world groans in suffering and turmoil) . . . .

So, give some thought and effort to your Friday journalling practice!  And please update me on your reading and writing interests. With your permission, I’d be delighted to include them in a future issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.”

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

->ARTICLE 1:  What is a ‘Friday Gratitude Journal’ (with Ed Gandia)?

-> SHOP NEWS

->ABOUT US

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Article One: What is a ‘Friday Gratitude Journal,’ with Ed Gandia?

American copywriter and coach, Ed Gandia (“High-Income Business Writing Podcast”) regularly describes how we can make freelancing (and other kinds of self-employment) healthier. Healthier not just now but, even more so, several months from now.

Many freelance writers (including former academic writers and former B2B copywriters, like me) have long written in daily journals to clear mental clutter and to achieve emotional equilibrium in the midst of busy lives. In this activity, we’ve drawn on the pioneering example of Julia Margaret Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and its adaptation by writers and writing coaches, including Daphne Gray-Grant, and Ed Gandia.

More than a year ago, Ed blogged on how to tweak the practice of daily journal writing, especially on Fridays (like today) to make the process more helpful in improving our moods and, as a result, our productivity.

Ed says that every Friday he asks himself three basic questions that he focuses on answering in his journal for that day:

(1) What went well this week?

(2) What didn’t go so well and what did I/ can I learn from those experiences?

(3) What am I most grateful for?

Now, these might seem like simply intuitive questions. But when freelance schedules heat up and journal writing may fall off one’s proverbial desk (including the handwriting part, which is essential to mental expression), these three questions can carry transformative power.

Instead of scrabbling to tap into a fatigued mind, we can use a Friday journal to develop a mindset, so that these three questions evoke more feelings and insights than we thought possible.

Ed comments that he “can’t believe” how many ideas bubble up, as he writes and that he quickly fills “at least one full page. And I often come back to it later and add more things I forgot about. I didn’t realize how many things went well until I forced myself to think and write.”

In this practice, we overcome the tendency all creatives face of a negative confirmation bias–whereby only unhappy or negative thoughts germinate from only one negative event or experience. Negativity can take over our minds. Discouragement and depression certainly follow–as death knells to creativity and optimism.

Ed adds that Friday journalling can include setbacks, because “framing setbacks as important lessons has been transformational. I know this intellectually. But forcing myself to identify the good in every ‘bad’ has been very powerful.”

Despite the messiness of our daily lives, creators (in fact, everyone) still need to find the good. Choosing to focus on positivity, especially with these three Friday questions, can help us to “identify all the little things [we] tend to overlook as [we] go through the day.”

Maybe it is a “thank you email” from a prospect who reads your work. Or a text from a colleague who shares a resource in return for one you gave them. Even finishing a government census that gave you the opportunity to discuss needed change in social policy to make freelance life better . . . . and on and on the insights can go.

Ed admits that he avoided writing what I call a “Friday Gratitude Journal” for ages, because he doubted its efficacy. But he writes: “I’ve been proven wrong. It’s amazing what happens when you spill these thoughts onto the page. . . . The physical feedback loop is powerful! Give it a try and see what comes from it!”

I would add: “Happy people focus on what all we have and what we have accomplished. Unhappy people focus only on what’s missing.”

And now it’s your turn. Do you keep a daily (or regular) journal? Will you refine it to include a “Friday Gratitude Journal? ” Why not start today?

Please share your feedback; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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SHOP NEWS:

Saskatoon’s “Small Business Group” (formerly Saskatoon’s Freelance Roundtable group) continues to meet, under the undaunted leadership of freelance writer and content creator, Ashleigh Mattern.

Ashleigh, Julie Barnes and I started the group in the spring of 2015 (earlier, in a fledgling form) to channel creative writers’ need for discussion, advocacy and co-referrals.

We planned our group over drinks (and a notepad) 12+ years ago, in a bar in downtown Saskatoon that long ago closed!

While we outlived that venue, we’ve since met in cafes and coffee shops across the city, including the Broadway Roastery on 8th, City Perks, Sparrow, and lately, Grace Whittington’s wonderful cafe, HomeQuarter.

A shout-out and thanks to  Ashleigh Mattern this month, as she continues to take the reins of the group in the face of my scheduling challenges, as an ESL teacher.

Ashleigh is the “chief storyteller” (writer, marketer and social media expert) behind Vireo Creative, a web design and content team.

She’s also a long-time creative, writing freelance journalism, producing content for the CBC, marketing copy for local businesses and exploring multiple literary genres and influences, including in her novel, Magicked Born (2021).

Currently, Ashleigh’s also the Communications Director for a one-year term at St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation. Could anyone be busier?

I hope to return to assisting with group leadership, as we figure out how to make complex schedules/transportation comply!

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With our diverse interests as co-founders and members, Saskatoon’s “Small Business Group” has much potential to grow into the future.

“If the shoe fits,” we’d be happy to include you in our next meeting. Please reach out.

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Another grateful thanks this month to Northern Ireland-based, ESL teacher, Carl Cameron-Day, and (Glasgow-based) ESL administrator, Alan Moir, both of TEFL.Org.

Carl is an experienced ESL teacher, tutor, teacher-trainer and exam administrator who has worked all over the globe. I know him as a sage advisor who energetically hosts webinars for junior and mid-career English language teachers.

When part of a work week takes me off the trail of language training, I’m always the better for tuning in to a TEFL.Org webinar, hosted by Carl, and deftly facilitated by Alan Moir (himself an ESL/EFL teacher by training).

Their wry sense of humour adds to their charm. (Alan once adopted the name of a “Cupboard of Cheese” for a webinar’s Q&A).

ESL/EFL teachers can watch recordings of these webinars (some going back years) on YouTube and on Facebook, filled with helpful tips and best practices.

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Finally, this month, my sympathies go to the family and friends of the late Brian Paranica, who recently passed away,  after a many-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis.

Brian was a former civil servant in Ottawa, but hailed from North Battleford and lived his last years in Saskatoon/Warman, without losing his passion for sports and friendly conversation.

Many thanks go to parish nurse, Laura Van Loon, for regularly visiting and updating us on Brian’s welfare.

Brian was also a significant contributor to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church’s pastoral care committee, where he advocated for the inclusion of those with physical and mental health conditions.

At St. Andrew’s we miss you already, Brian, and may you Rest in Peace.

My condolences to Brian’s family and closest friends.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday May 23rd at 1:00 pm at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,  Saskatoon.

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Since rebranding in 2021 as the principal of “Storytelling Communications,” I have pivoted to teach the intricacies of English-as-a-Second Language (ESL/EAL/EFL) to adults and young adults.

There are always new stories and new people to promote in “Shop News.” But this is a wrap for mid-May. 

ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I  teach economic immigrants to secure better jobs or larger contracts by improving their English language skills.

I also help internationally educated, second-language academics to progress through the tenure (or related) promotion process by improving their English language skills.

I help both sets of clients to become integrated into our community and economy more easily than they would working (in isolation), alone.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my (still CASL-compliant) website (www.elizabethshih.com)

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

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