In October 2003, Patti Digh’s stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died 37 days later. The timeframe made an impression on her. What emerged was a commitment to ask herself every morning: What would I be doing today if I had only 37 days left to live? The answers changed her life and led to this new kind of book. Part meditation, part how-to guide, part memoir, Life is a Verb is all heart.
Within these pages—enhanced by original artwork and wide, inviting margins ready to be written in—Digh identifies six core practices to jump-start a meaningful life: Say Yes, Trust Yourself, Slow Down, Be Generous, Speak Up, and Love More. Within this framework she supplies 37 edgy, funny, and literary life stories, each followed by a “do it now” 10-minute exercise as well as a practice to try for 37 days—and perhaps the rest of your life.
Patti Digh (pronounced
dye)
Patricia Digh's first book,
Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National Cultures (Simon & Schuster 2000) was selected by Fortune magazine as a Best Business Book for 2000. Her most recent book,
The Global Diversity Reference Guide, was published in 2003 by John Wiley.
Patti is a business consultant, writer, and trainer with more than 20 years of experience in the areas of globalization and diversity. Her firm, The Circle Project, provides consulting, strategic development, and training for organizations and executives around diversity and leadership issues. Patti has developed international and diversity strategies for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many international conferences.
A faculty member for the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication and the University of North Carolina at Asheville, her comments have appeared on PBS, and in the
Wall Street Journal, Fortune, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and
London Financial Times, among other publications. She has written over 75 published articles and has lived, worked and traveled in over 60 countries.
In speaking and writing, Patti uses a unique style of storytelling and inspiration, gaining an international reputation for her innovative approach and ability to galvanize reflection, synthesis and action, particularly around diversity issues in organizations. She recently keynoted the International Conference of the American Society for Training and Development, with over 12,000 participants.
Patti was formerly the Vice President of International and Diversity Programs for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), with over 195,000 members. While there, she established the SHRM Global Forum and award-winning diversity initiative, including the International HR Certificate Program,
the National Diversity Conference, the Diversity Train the Trainer Certificate Program and the MOSAICS diversity newsletter. Patti is also a co-founder of The Global Diversity Roundtable, a consortium of senior practitioners from multinational corporations that provides a confidential forum for the exchange of
leading edge practices, strategies, and methodologies in global diversity.
Patti's clients include Amdocs Israel, PepsiCo, the U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Communications, Shell Oil, PBS, the Australian Human Resources Institute, the American Cancer Society, JP Morgan Chase, the American Red Cross, and the American Institute of Architects, among many others in the U.S. and abroad. She has served on the President?s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities and on diversity advisory councils for the National American Red Cross, the AARP, and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, among others.
Patti's hobbies include making photographic image transfers and writing
37days, a weekly newsletter about living intentionally (
www.37days.typepad.com). She and her husband, John Ptak, live in Asheville with their two daughters, Emma and Tess, a dog named Blue, three cats whose furniture scratching proclivities don't merit their being mentioned by name, and until the recent Unfortunate
Incident, a dwarf hamster named Maggie.
