I often hear now, “Hey, you’re that guy from LinkedIn.” Which, depending on the tone, can sound like either a compliment or a warning. Over the past eight months, people have stopped me in the most unexpected places, on the street during homecoming weekend in Ann Arbor, on the waterfront in San Juan, between conference sessions, and even while I’m trying to take my shoes off in airport security.

Sometimes it’s a quick nod and a few words: “I’ve been reading what you’ve been writing.” Other times, it turns into a real conversation about leadership, purpose, or how to stay hopeful when the world feels like it’s buffering.

And then there are the digital encounters—the emails and DMs that begin, “I just wanted you to know…” Those often turn into podcasts, keynotes, or collaborations that start with curiosity and end with community. Every encounter, big or small, reminds me that words—typed on a screen between teaching classes and faculty meetings, can still build real bridges.

The Work Beneath the Words

Writing about leadership, politics, culture, equity, and justice is both exhilarating and humbling. It means stepping into public dialogue while knowing that truth is never tidy. I often sit at the keyboard surrounded by questions I can’t yet answer, trying to translate confusion into clarity, and uncertainty into language that might be useful to someone else.

When a reader stops me in San Juan or sends a message from across the country or world, it affirms that confusion isn’t failure, it’s the beginning of understanding. It means we’re asking the right questions together. Leadership isn’t the absence of uncertainty; it’s the courage to move through it with others.

Connection Across Places

At the University of Michigan homecoming weekend, a fellow alum said, “Your posts remind me that leadership is service.” In San Juan, a young teacher told me she reads these reflections to stay centered during challenging school days. At a meeting, a superintendent shared that she opened her district retreat with one of my essays.

And then there are the quiet gestures, a late-night email from an educator rediscovering their calling, a podcast invitation that turns into a heartfelt exchange, a community organization asking to turn a theme into a conversation circle. Every one of these moments reminds me that ideas don’t belong to a single writer. They live through readers who adapt them, share them, challenge them, and carry them into their own work.

Gratitude for the Dialogue

To the students who quote these reflections in class, thank you.

To the professors and mentors who share them, thank you.

To the colleagues and internet critics who push back with thoughtful disagreement, thank you.

To those who invite me to speak or collaborate because something resonated, thank you.

You remind me that progress grows out of dialogue, not dominance. When we exchange ideas instead of guarding them, understanding expands.

The Things I Hold Close

There is, of course, a great deal I can’t say in public—stories still unfolding, lessons that need more time to ripen. Leadership, especially in education and justice work, exposes us to moments that are fragile or unfinished. But please know: I am yearning to tell you. These experiences—the setbacks, the quiet victories, the times I’ve been humbled, shape every word I share. One day, when the timing is right, I’ll tell them fully. For now, I write around their edges, hoping the meaning still reaches you. Your encouragement gives me the courage to keep writing honestly, even when I must hold certain truths gently until they’re ready to be spoken.

People sometimes assume leaders always know the next step or that the last step was easy. It isn’t, I don’t. Much of leadership feels like standing in the fog and moving forward anyway, trusting that purpose will reveal the path.The confusion isn’t weakness, it’s evidence that we’re still learning. When we admit that we don’t have it all figured out, we make space for collaboration, creativity, and grace. The conversations that begin in confusion often end in community. So if my writing has ever sounded uncertain or probing, that’s intentional. I want to leave room for discovery, for the insight that comes from others, for the possibility that we might change each other’s minds.

Why I Keep Writing

There are easier things to write about. Sometimes I want to write a sports or music blog. The currents of resistance are real. Institutions push back. Public life rewards simplicity over nuance. But every time someone says, “That piece helped me see myself in a new way,” it renews my conviction that reflection still matters. I don’t write because I possess the answers. I write because I believe that silence helps no one and that honest conversation, even when messy, moves us closer to truth. Sometimes those conversations stay personal. Other times, they ripple outward onto your screen or public conversation—a blog, a keynote, a podcast, a new friendship. However far they travel, they remind me that writing is not performance; it’s participation.

We are all learning how to lead, teach, and build in uncertain political times. The pursuit of liberty, freedom, and justice doesn’t just live in policies; it lives in how we treat one another when we disagree. I haven’t always done this well when provoked. But the people who stop me in airports or write from classrooms remind me that the work is alive everywhere—in quiet acts of courage, in students asking better questions, in communities refusing to give up. When I say we are in this together, I mean that our shared confusion, our shared hope, and our shared effort are what make transformation possible.

Closing Thought

That journey will always be unfinished—and that is exactly what makes it worth walking. The work of justice is not a chapter in our history books; it is the story we are still writing together, line by line, choice by choice.

If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done during the Civil Rights Movement, look around you. The test is not in hindsight—it’s in how we show up now: in our classrooms, our communities, our boardrooms, and our ballots. Every act of integrity, every refusal to be silent, every time we choose compassion over comfort, we extend that movement forward.

The arc does not bend by itself. It bends because ordinary people—teachers, students, neighbors, and readers—keep pulling it toward justice with steady hands and stubborn hope. Thank you for walking this unfinished road with me, for reminding me that even in confusion there is clarity, even in struggle there is purpose, and even in uncertainty there is a chance to build something more just than what came before.

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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a professor, public scholar, and educational leader whose work explores the intersections of equity, leadership, and social change. A former provost and dean, he writes about how courage, confusion, and community shape the unfinished work of justice. His reflections appear on his blog Cloaking Inequity and Without Fear or Favor, a newsletter committed to truth-telling, dialogue, and hope in public life.