When you look back on your journey through life, who are the people that made a difference? Who are the people that helped you get to where you are today? I have no doubts that some people come to mind for you. It was Alex Haley who said, "Anytime you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had some help." And if you talk to anyone who has been able to accomplish anything great in their lives, they will readily tell you they did not get there by themselves.

We were not designed to operate in isolation. We all need help. None of us arrive fully ready. We have to walk the journey to success alongside others - those who pour into us and those we pour into. Many times, the road to our hopes and dreams is not clear enough when we set out and as such, we need the counsel of others; someone who has been there before. However, one of the greatest impediments to embracing mentorship is pride. To accept that we need help from others requires some level of humility; a strong appreciation that we need another. I can humbly reveal that life's circumstances failed to give me the tools to appreciate the potential that I had. I needed others to help me see the greatness that I had within. So far, my mentors have given me the ability to see a much higher version of myself, and they consistently help me create a roadmap that drives the accomplishment of my dreams.

Do my mentors do the work for me? No. Do they always have all the answers? Not necessarily but they give me a much greater gift - the ability to think more than I speak. They teach me the value of solitude and how striving to find special times and spaces to think will be critical to any success I planned to achieve. As John C. Crosby said, "Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction." They asked me questions that guide and steer me in the right direction; questions that implored me to look within. I can bounce ideas off them and get their perspective on multiple ideas that I have.

The choice of embracing mentorship is highly dependent on how far we want to go. If you have an addiction to growth and want to continue to expand, do more, and accomplish more, I would implore you to consider mentorship as a strategy to help move you closer to your dreams. Great mentors, as they get to know you and listen to what you want to do with your life, can reveal to you all that is possible; showing you options that you never would have considered on your own. Even when they cannot help in a specific area, they can connect you with others in their network who can.

So, how do we choose a mentor? I will start by saying we will likely need more than one. It would be rare for one mentor to provide all the support we need in every area of our lives. For example, a mentor for health-related support may not be adequate for leadership support. We must always look to people who are ahead of us; people who are already where we would like to be. No one wants to follow mediocrity. A mentor must have something in their arsenal that we want to have. They have to be bigger than us. Recently, I was looking for a mentor who could maintain calmness amid chaos, a skill I knew I desperately needed. So, I kept searching until I found one.

One of my mentors, John Maxwell said, "Who you learn from is as important as what you learn." Choose your mentors with wisdom. Your future may depend on it. If you are wondering if I've ever met John C. Maxwell, the answer is no. I have never met him but I've read all he's ever published. Mentors do not have to be people we ultimately have a physical relationship with. They could be our favorite authors, leaders, or social activists. Our candidates for mentorship have to be people who can listen and ask great questions; questions that place us in an inquiry mode over our own lives.

I have experienced my mentors as gifts that keep on giving and when you find your own mentors, listen, pay attention and soak in as much information as you possibly can. Take notes and go back to your notes from time to time until everything that you heard becomes part and parcel of how you navigate through life. I encourage you to seek out mentors that can challenge you and disagree with you sometimes. Find mentors who can look you in the eye and tell you the truth; things you likely do not want to hear. Remember, great mentors have your best interest in mind so it doesn't matter how painful the truth revealed might be, know that it's providing you with information that has probably been left unacknowledged.

 

It was the summer of 2003. My newborn was three months old and my life was falling apart around me. I was now a single parent, living alone and struggling to juggle a seven-year-old, a newborn, and unemployment. To make matters worse, I was grossly overweight and unhealthy. My confidence had completely evaporated and I was at my wit's end. I knew I needed to do something but I wasn't quite sure what that something was. My primary care provider was the first person to turn on a light switch in my head. "I can give you more medicine for your back pain, but the solution to your problem is simple - your spine is not designed for the weight you are placing on it. Lose weight and if the pain does not go away, we can look at other options." I stared at him blankly. Losing weight was work and it was work I was not prepared to do. I wanted the medicine, the temporary fix that will alleviate me of all personal responsibility for my predicament. As I drove home, I thought about what he had said. Intellectually, I understood what he said but experientially, I wasn't sure how to begin. I watched runners run gracefully along my city streets and wondered what motivated them. How did these people become runners? What or who inspired them to lace their tennis shoes and pound the pavements?

Weeks later, still doing business as usual, I browsed the collection of books at Barnes and Nobles and found a book called, "How Running Changed My Life: True Stories of the Power of Running". The book ignited a spark in my heart to become a runner. I had no idea how to begin but knew that I would not win the battle if I didn't even try. So I decided to start. I bought a pair of tennis shoes and began to run. I was 276 pounds and cars would honk as they drove by. I wasn't sure whether they were cheering me on or mocking me. I just ran anyway. Run for 5 minutes, walk for five minutes. Run for five minutes, walk for five minutes - that was my initial strategy. My very first run changed my outlook in that single day. Consistent running started to change my outlook on life. Months passed and I started to see results, and before long, I could run for miles without pausing except at traffic lights. Running gave me a newfound freedom. My confidence grew and I joined a gym to build muscle. I can't explain it but the more I ran, the more I grew from the inside out. I concluded that there was nothing I couldn't do if I committed myself to the sport of running.

Running seemed like a really small thing that ended up having a very big impact on who I was becoming. When I felt tired or confused, I would simply put on my tennis shoes and run. I stopped seeing myself as a victim of the circumstances that plagued me but rather as a student of those circumstances, eager to figure out what I could learn from situations that confronted me that I could not change. Running taught me how to win despite what life might throw at me. I discovered that winning is never about the stimuli but more about how I react to the stimuli. I learned to pause and access every situation before deciding as I used the solitary times during my run to ponder on my next steps. This way I stopped falling into the trap of making permanent decisions based on temporary circumstances. I began to see the benefits in the quality of my decisions, my mental health, and my body image. I started to see myself as being worth the effort; that my life meant something and that I had something special to offer the world, and that the fact that I had failed in many ways did not automatically label me a failure. If I could take my failures, learn from them and commit to doing better, I can ultimately become a winner at this thing called life. Running gave me a brand new perspective on failure. It taught me to never write anyone off provided they wanted to change their lives. My job is to tell anyone willing to do better, they could. They can because I did.

Unfortunately, due to a busted Achilles in 2019, my running life is on pause. I have taken on biking with the same intensity as I did with running. I hope that someday soon, I will be able to run again. I am happy to say that I am now gainfully employed with an awesome career in higher education and going to grad school this summer to pursue my doctorate. I love this quote by Ronald Rock that simply says: "I don't run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days."

 

We are often the singular obstacle that stands between ourselves and what we want to accomplish with our lives. The biggest and most important conversations are the ones we have with ourselves. If we keep telling ourselves that our dreams will never come true because we are too stupid or not skilled enough to accomplish them, then we never will. We very often have exactly what we say. Brilliant people still think of themselves as being inept. The socially competent may still perceive themselves as being boring. The beautiful sometimes look in the mirror and see someone who is just hideous. What do you tell yourself about yourself? What do you whisper to yourself in the recesses of your mind where no one can hear? We always have two options: talk ourselves into our dreams or talk ourselves out of them. The choice is always ours to make.

Anytime I have cause to pause and think about my internal dialogue, I am reminded of a quote by Lisa Firestone. She said, "A destructive thought process exists within all of us, and we are plagued to varying degrees by an internal dialogue that is harmful, restrictive, and at its ultimate extreme, self-destructive." I often find that my attitude at any point in time is driven primarily by my internal dialogue. How I react to unfairness, marginalization, or the act of being overlooked or ignored is always based on what I tell myself about that experience. It is so easy to feed a negative internal dialogue but it's just as easy to consciously develop a positive one.

We all need to learn how to manage the enemy with us. We all have one. The one that tells us to let our co-workers have it when they step out of line. That voice insisting that we must say something when we know that there isn't much that needs to be said. The burning desire to tell an incompetent leader just what we think, even though we know what we think will never be received in a positive light. If this enemy rears its ugly head and is allowed to run rampage, it could very well ruin everything we've worked so hard for. So, if we can stop the internal chatter that does not serve us well, we may be able to see that anything is possible and that our dreams are indeed attainable.

Being able to monitor our internal dialogue is one of the greatest gift we could ever give to ourselves. When we constantly tell ourselves we can't what we are confirming is that we won't and never will. Someone once said, "Letting go of your inner critic can feel uncomfortable but it's in the discomfort that new patterns are born." So, if you want to see new patterns emerge for you, consider evaluating your internal dialogue because when we speak poorly and self-deprecate, we reduce our chances of seeing what we truly want manifest in our lives. In truth, we realize and accomplish from the inside out. If we can't see it for ourselves, we can never be what we cannot see. Until we can see it and can convince ourselves that what we see is attainable and line up our self-talk accordingly, our desires will continue to elude us.

For many of us, our internal dialogue has held us back for years. Self-talk that we do not share with anyone but are loudly demonstrated by the choices we make. Our internal dialogue is always a choice; a choice that drives the lives we have elected to live so let's choose wisely. Let's silence the negative internal dialogue that threatens to rob us of the life we want to have and embrace a more positive one, filled with positive affirmations, that bring us closer to the realization of our dreams.

 

Marcel Proust said: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Life can be difficult and problems can be challenging however, looking at the issues that confront us with brand new eyes rather than seeking the next new thing makes us much more resilient and stronger in the long term. It's so easy to run away when trouble rears its ugly head. I remember moving to a different country only to find that the grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side. What is it about new that is so exciting and attractive? A new job, the new car smell, the allure of a brand new relationship - as soon as we experience a bump in the road, we start seeking something new.

But it is important to know that new isn't always better. Often when we seek something new, we seek it for all the wrong reasons. New provides the illusion that all the problems we are experiencing with the old will suddenly disappear. We forget that new is always only new for a short time and that very soon, new will also become old, and the problems with what we categorize as new will at some point emerge. Every situation has its nuisances whether new or old.

The constant quest for the excitement associated with that which is new is what causes us to move very quickly from one job to another, and never really building a career. It is what causes financial distress as chase after bigger much quicker than our wallets would allow. Sometimes we discard what is good enough for what we perceive as being better only to discover that what we believed was better is no different, or much worse.

Let me be clear that there is absolutely nothing wrong with "new" but seeking something new just for the sake of it brings no real lasting rewards. Maybe rather than looking around for the next shiny toy, it may be beneficial to take a deep breath and do a complete assessment of the motivation for seeking something different. Anytime you feel the need to simply "jump ship", ask yourself a few important questions - What am I running away from? Is there a difficult lesson I am doing my best not to learn? Is change the best solution to what confronts me right now? If you answer these questions honestly, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you discover. I know that every time there is a need to ask myself these very same questions, I find out that there are a few difficult lessons I don't want to learn but desperately need to develop new skills that will prepare me for handling whatever life throws at me in the future. I also realize fairly quickly that change isn't always for the best because new has no guarantees.

We can only discover value in new when it's for the right reasons. For every new adventure, we are the common denominator. We are always there. For example, a New Year is of little or no value if we go into it with an old dysfunctional mind. The year may be new but we are not. We go into it with the same old habits, attitudes, and dispositions as we had the previous year. Any time, we move into something new, we take our old selves into it and the results we get are always familiar. Lasting change rarely starts with a change in acquisitions, environment, or circumstances. Real change must begin within. Until we can look at the situations that confront us with brand new eyes and get to the root of our motivations, we risk spending our lifetime skipping and hopping from one thing to the next and never finding true enlightenment or satisfaction.

Maybe you don't need a new job and all you need to do is see your current job with brand new eyes. It is also possible you don't need a new partner and you just need to start seeing the good in the one you've got by opening your eyes. The moral of the story is that change isn't always the answer. There are times when change can be a big mistake. It could mean going from the frying pan to the fire.

 

I read a story about a man named John who was being head-hunted by a high-end executive in Hong Kong. The powerful executive took him to a fancy restaurant and slipped $600 to the owner to provide the best table available. They barely sat down when he whispered to John – “We’ll pay you a salary of $200K, provide you with a nice office, and a car and driver if you’ll come work for us.” John simply responded casually, “I am not interested.” John, thinking to himself said, “I could have saved this man $600 plus if he had asked me this question over the phone!” Stunned, the businessman asked, “How much are you making now?” John did not hesitate. “Eight thousand dollars. But that’s not the point. I am doing what I am supposed to do and I’ve never been happier.” John rejected the attractive offer because he was a man of integrity.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word, 'Integrity'? The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines integrity as a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; an unimpaired condition and the quality or state of being complete or undivided. Some of the synonyms associated with integrity include character, honesty, decency, goodness, uprightness and, virtuousness. When people of integrity are being sought out, can we be chosen? Can we be trusted to act with integrity or do we follow the crowd and act based on convenience and self-preservation?

The month of April was a challenging month for me. I was presented with multiple opportunities to compromise my integrity and abandon my values but I value integrity way too much. I think it's important for us to be people of integrity. We mustn't do anything halfway. We must be fully engaged or not all. We must be either all-in or not in at all. We must know what our values are and act in accordance. As Mark Twain said: "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Doing the right thing whether people are watching us or not is the only route to true success. Real call to service and leadership only comes from things that cannot be acquired with money but only through sincerity and integrity.

The truth is we are often not as honest with ourselves as we ought to be. Many get up in the morning and go to jobs they thoroughly detest. Rather than take the time to find where their true passions lie and align their lives to real purpose, they get up day after day, telling themselves, "At least I am making some money." We make commitments we have no intention of keeping but make them anyway for financial gratification. And any time our motives are strictly for financial gain we get stuck in the rut of convenience. We act only when it is fitting and not necessarily because it is right. We talk a good game in the company of those we deem important but do not act to advance the work that needs to be done. When we perform without integrity, what we are doing is acting based purely on personal gain rather than in alignment with imbibed personal values. As Bréné Brown put it, to be a person of integrity means "Choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them."

I would rather suffer than compromise my integrity. I am who I am. I believe what I believe and no external circumstance or pressure can ever change that. It's much simpler and cheaper for me to be who I am regardless of whether I find myself indoors or outdoors. So I ask you, are you a person of integrity? To be a leader without integrity is almost always a disaster waiting to happen. Even if you don't appear to be losing in public, your loss in private although hidden and undisclosed will be astronomical because integrity is one the most respected traits of true leadership. If you are a leader, do your people see you as a person of integrity? Is integrity your tool of choice when it comes to persuading others to embrace your vision or is intimidation? Without integrity, leadership is completely devoid of character and trust. One might have the title but never the position; at least not in people's hearts.

However, I must warn you that there is often a steep price to pay for being a person of integrity especially when you are surrounded by people who have none. If you are going to live and work out of your value system, you must be prepared for opposition from people who have no desire to do the same. If you are going to be a person of great character; one who does what is right even if no one else does, you have to be ready to be overlooked especially in situations where there is no quest for the truth but rather a need to simply do business-as-usual. But I would rather live my life without fear and guilt than to knowingly do that which is wrong and violates the values I profess to live by for personal gain. Winning is ever only worthwhile if one's integrity is not abandoned in the process.

One of my favorite African writers, Chinua Achebe said: "One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised." So I ask again, do you see yourself as a person of integrity, or have you compromised yourself over and over again?

 

There is no doubt that life is complicated and that bad things happen to good people but sitting around and over-debating the "Why" seems to me to be a pointless exercise. The bigger question ought to be, "What". What do we do with what has happened to us all? How do we make sense of what appears to be total nonsense? How do we respond with compassion, empathy, and with grace? How do we make good with whatever it is that we have left? It has been said that when terrible things happen to us we can either let it define us by making us portraits of anger and bitterness, or we can also allow it to destroy us by cowering into a corner, losing all hope, and simply wait for death or we can use it to strengthen us as we move forward much stronger despite the things we have suffered. I don't know about you but I have decided to choose the latter. I have elected to garner strength for everything I have suffered - discrimination, marginalization, being overlooked, dismissed, and reminded that being Black makes me unimportant, to be the fuel that propels me towards continuous improvement. It has reinforced the need to keep learning and keep growing because the only thing that can never be taken from us is what we have in our heads. 

Whatever life we have left is still some form of life. It is still a precious gift; one that we must do something significant with. When things are so bad that they become overwhelming, let's develop the courage to step outside of ourselves, breathe in the clean fresh air, and remind ourselves that whatever is occurring is only a snapshot of the big picture. There is still and always will be something left because as long as there is life, there is hope. This is where identity and purpose come into play. Let's remind ourselves who we are and why we are and use that knowledge to keep pressing forward. There will always be discrimination. There will always be those who choose to hate rather than love. The world has been that way since its inception. We hope that things change but we cannot use that as a barometer for how we will choose to live our lives. We must decide to live fully despite the imperfections of the world and the people in it. 

Refuse to live your gift of life in sadness and despair. A loss will at some point pay each one of us a visit and we get to choose how we respond. Struggle, pain, defeat, and grief are all parts of a well-seasoned life. It is impossible to have an appreciation of the gift of life if one has never experienced these things. So, go through them we must but be held captive by them, we must not allow. It is important to acknowledge these seasons when they arrive, give to them their due consideration but get back up again and keep walking. American painter and writer, Walter Anderson said: "Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself." This means the stimuli is one thing but our response is what is most important.

Start to see the life you have today as a gift regardless of the state it's in. The conditions of our lives can always be adjusted if we dare to change. As long as we are alive, the life we have a gift. It is up to us to use it wisely. With each experience of the sunrise of another day, we get a new gift - a gift to be developed and shared with humanity. Life must never be taken for granted nor should it be wasted.

 

 

Many of us - yes, myself included - the focus is often on analyzing what we believe we hear to make premature judgments, or at best, listening only long enough to come up with a response. To make matters worse, we show up with a myriad of impressions based on biases, prejudices, partial truth, and fiction we have gathered along the way. These biases can go on for years, affecting the way we listen to a person or a specific class of people, causing us to distort everything we are hearing as we try to fit them neatly into our box of preconceived notions. We develop all sorts of ridiculous filters and lenses through which we view others and treat them accordingly when in conversation with them. Unfortunately, there can be no leadership without active and unbiased listening skills. Resisting instead of listening guarantees nothing great happens and no real transformation occurs. 

Conversation with the intent to unify towards a common goal or purpose cannot be a one-man show where we dominate the conversation, such that no-one else can get a word in edgeways. Coming across as an interesting person is good but being genuinely interested in others is even greater. We might feel good temporarily when we take center-stage in all our interactions however we learn very little with this approach. Good listening leads to productive thinking, and fruitful thinking almost always produces actionable plans that lead to the desired results. No-one is a reservoir of all knowledge, and adjusting our egos to understand good ideas can come from others is truly humbling.

Learning to truly listen to others just as we would like for people to listen to us can solve many of the problems that ills society today. No bad listener can be an effective communicator and without effective communication, there can be no effective leadership. To understand and connect with those around us, we must learn to listen actively. And to make ourselves understood, we must be good communicators. It is impossible to comprehend others without good listening skills. My mother used to say that this was exactly the reason why God provided us with two ears and one mouth; to listen more and talk a lot less. Bernard M. Baruch said, "Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking." I think he is right. Our propensity to want to go on and on about what we already know makes new information that can aid in our personal and professional growth elusive.

Learning to be a good listener has a lot of advantages. Here are seven potential powers of active listening: 

1. We learn more as we imbibe new perspectives and new points of view.
2. Listening fosters strong and fulfilling relationships as understanding others and their needs builds greater unity.
3. Active listening is an essential part of conflict resolution when all parties involved feel heard.
4. We build stronger teams as members feel heard and a part of the team.
5. Others feel respected when we allow them to be involved in discussions and decision-making processes.
6. As we learn to listen more, we develop patience and tolerance.
7. Listening brings the wisdom that opens our eyes to the good in everyone and that we are united by more than what divides us.

 

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." What are you doing right now that scares you? Knowing you only live once, what chances are you taking? To do anything scary means accepting discomfort as the norm. It requires developing the courage to choose discomfort over comfort because no one can have both, at least not at the same time. Unfortunately, coasting is what many of us do best. We say we have 30 years' experience but what we have is one year of experience 30 times over. We are okay with that because we are accustomed to average; not rocking the boat; living under the radar. To make matters worse, the world is helping us all stay comfortable by providing the creature comforts we feel we cannot live without; things that keep us as average on the highway to mediocrity. The status quo is readily available to us all - a place that's nice but with no promise of growth. We must commit to embracing discomfort, learning from it, and using the lessons we learn to make us strong.

I recently celebrated another birthday and was reminded once again that half my life was over. And as I age, I am beginning to realize that to accomplish the things that I want to before my time is up, I would need to endure some discomfort. We all like being comfortable. The slightest discomfort can send many of us into a tailspin. We love our comfortable lives where there is little or no turbulence, and we try to do everything we can to keep it that way. A good example is the health directive to wear masks during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Many have refused to wear a mask because it's uncomfortable and have chosen instead to risk their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. To make this worse, this push-back regarding masks have a lot to do with being Republican and Democrat, in addition to the refusal to be muzzled. As if the virus gives a rat's behind what your political affiliation is.

Everyone wants to be successful but without being uncomfortable. We don't want the virus but we also don't want to follow the regulations that go a long way to protect us. In essence, we do our very best to avoid discomfort at all costs. Unfortunately, where there is no discomfort, they can be no growth or success, so we find ourselves at a crossroad - should we abandon comfort to experience growth? Or should we stay in our comfortable little box and leave things as they are? In reality, amazing things happen when we are brave enough to tolerate discomfort because it is in those times that we open brand new doors.