An important letter and video from Graydin co-founder Quinn 

Dear Graydin community,

Together we learned a way of being I believe in completely. We coach people, not their situations or challenges. We meet people where they are. We ask genuinely curious questions that help people think for themselves. We believe people have all the answers and that our role is to help them see that through the space we hold in partnership.

Sometimes I forget I brought some of these ideas to you because most of the time I felt like I was learning alongside you. That’s the beauty of coaching and facilitating the Graydin method.

But it’s now time for me to go and learn some new lessons. After fifteen years, I’m handing the work fully to McKenzie.

When I met McKenzie in 2008, I knew almost straight away that the two of us were going to build something together. We didn’t yet know what it would be. We only knew it would exist because we had found each other. A few years later we founded Graydin, and it changed the shape of my life. It gave me a sense of hope and possibility I’d been looking for, and then, somehow, it handed that same thing to thousands of other people.

Running Graydin taught me a handful of things I’ll carry into everything I do next.

The real work happens in conversation. Slow, present, full attention on another human being. 

Let a thing become itself. We gave Graydin its own name and its own identity on purpose, so it could grow into whatever it needed to be rather than whatever we first pictured. The best things you build will surprise you, if you have the nerve to let them.

Know where the work belongs. Graydin does its most beautiful work inside schools, in small, loving, deeply human learning experiences. Knowing that with certainty is a gift. It tells you exactly where to point everything you have.

A great partnership is its own reward. Some of the best years of my life were spent across a table (or screen!) from McKenzie, laughing and working it out. I’m grateful for her beyond what I can fit on a page.

I’m pouring myself into Gedi Village Foundation now and I get to do this knowing Graydin is in the best possible hands. There’s no one I would trust more to keep building it than McKenzie. She’ll keep believing in it, growing it, and doing what’s right for you.

So this is a goodbye, but not a disappearance. My door stays open - call me, text me, voice note me anytime. I can’t wait to hear what you’re making, and to show you what I’m making too. Write to me any time at [email protected] or +14164608681.

Thank you for all of it.

With Heart,

Quinn