Reflections on writing a book…

I’ve always had a bucket list. Skydiving has never been on it.

Writing, though? Always. A book? Never crossed my mind. And certainly not a book alongside so many incredible authors.

Some days I still get a little giddy thinking about it. Me. Little Danyele. An author. It feels unreal…like I’m half-expecting a camera crew to jump out and tell me I’ve been punked.

I love writing. It’s how I make sense of the world. It’s how I tell stories that (hopefully) land in someone else’s real life. So when a book about empathy and its impact showed up, it felt like a quiet dream coming true.

As I reflect on the chapter I wrote, I keep coming back to this truth: we know far less about people than we think we do. We pass people every day and barely notice them. Or worse, we notice, judge, and move on. Hair. Clothes. Cars. Food. Neighborhoods. And we assume that’s the whole story.

But it never is.

What would change if we slowed down long enough to really see people? Not the version we assume, but the full human standing in front of us. Most of us only show what feels safe. Underneath, we’re often carrying joy and grief, hope and fear, grit and exhaustion—all at the same time.

Seeing people takes intention. It means choosing curiosity over fixing. Pausing instead of powering through. And that pause matters. It slows me down, helps me pay attention, and reminds me to lead with more compassion and a lot more dignity.

This is just a small piece of my heart behind the chapter I wrote for Empathy Impact, releasing December 16.

Video filmed in my front yard—no fancy camera, no film crew. Just me. My heart is in this, and I hope you feel it.

Happy December.