Sometimes the things that you think are going to cause you to stumble may propel you forward.  Four of five evenings last week I committed myself to attend events on campus.  While each event was very different from the others, my purpose was to support students.  I also knew that three of the events would afford me the opportunity to interact with students in at least three different demographic student groups on our campus – international students, fraternity and sorority life, and students from the residence halls. 

Contrary to what some students believe, I do not spend my free time trolling them.  I am concerned about their individual and collective strides toward academic success, physical and mental well-being, and safety.  Sometimes it feels like I melt into the woodwork of the historic building on the south side of campus right after new student orientation ends each summer.  I feel like I adopt the persona of a fictitious character who is characterized by students as a person half tin man, half wizard from that imaginary land in Dorothy’s dream.  As the leader of the conduct office, I often say that I run a triage.  Life in a triage can be hectic, chaotic, unpredictable, and complicated.  I spend most days directing traffic and putting out fires.  Although my leadership role provides ample opportunity to help students and other campus partners sort through behavioral concerns, I often miss the chance to interact with students outside of my office or students not connected to the issues that connected them to my office.  There are many times that I feel that the students and others in the community are fine to just distance themselves from me because of the nature of my job.  When I speak to college students who either choose to lead or who find that their peers want them as leaders, I tell them several things that I have learned from leading.  While leadership is tough and lonely, it  can also be exhilarating, exciting, and gratifying.  It is tough to know that your decision will likely change the course of the life of a student or student group.  It is tough to hear the details of some of the things that trouble people on the campus.  It’s even tough some days to separate from the things I hear or see during the course of a day.  It is also very cool when a student says something like, “As much as I didn’t like being held accountable for what I did, your office is ‘hella cool!”

I don’t remember which student called my office “hella cool” a couple of years ago, but I learned from that student the value of being relatable to those I serve.  As a result of that lesson from a student, I said yes to opportunities to be in the presence of students in places designed for them last week.  I left the security of my Lake Level campus home.  Honestly, I shook my head at myself for saying yes to four nights of events after long work days.  One night I would be an audience member listening to view points of international students.  Two nights I would be a judge and the last night a mistress of ceremonies for an event.  I worried that the students would not receive me well.  I wondered if students ever imagine that the conduct lady even cares about their thoughts or feelings.  The truth is that I care about understanding them, the culture of the community, and how to create and implement programs and educational opportunities to help them develop life skills for campus living and for life beyond the college bubble.  I consider myself a thread in a safety net on the campus cast to brace them if they fall while learning how to be grownups. 

I am driven by my passion to save kids from themselves. I am driven by my passion to build healthy, supportive villages around young people to guide them personally and professionally.  I guess I am passionate about teaching people the benefit of time spent learning from other people.  In the leadership community, these cool experiences are referred to as mentor-mentee relationships.  Mentor-mentee relationships are excellent tools for learning and relationship building.  This week I remembered that the mentor can learn from the mentee.  This week taught me that the mentor can learn from the teaching moments crafted specifically for the mentee.  My mentees made me a better leader.

I want to encourage leaders to let others see and feel their passion for the work they do.  I want leaders to lead with their minds open to hear the comments of those who benefit from their service.  Leaders must remember that they are serving others even if they are entrusted with some authority to make decisions.  When great leaders lead, the conversation and the focus is more about the plans to improve the station of those they serve than about them.  When great leaders lead, they move with urgency and intensity in a direction that takes everyone closer to the goal.  Recently, in a yoga class the teacher lead us into the “humble warrior” pose.  Immediately, I thought about the seemingly diametrically opposite words that describe many of the most favored leaders – humble and warrior.  Great leaders temper their pride and ego-centered thoughts with the humble attitude of a servant.  Great leaders, like warriors, prepare, plan, and pursue the missions and objectives with a passionate pursuit of excellence. 

Last week I stepped out of my comfort zone and sacrificed some free time to hang out with students in spaces designed with their input and for their enjoyment.  Often young people spend their time concerned about how they will be perceived and considering how they will fit in at the places they choose to go.  I found myself every might having the same concerns.  My hope is that more leaders will go into spaces that make them a little uncomfortable and permit themselves to relax into the environment and experience the people they serve in a way they may not have experienced in the past.  I learned something at every event.  I met new people and forged new relationships with students, campus partners, and members of the University alumni counsel.  I danced.  I sang.  I ate sweet treats and good food.  I got to do life with the people who matter.  I go to do life with the students who are the reason that I do the things I do.

While participating in a national conduct administrator conference, I attended a panel discussion to learn more about paths taken by four student conduct department heads from four different college campuses.  After the detailed introductions, the panel moderator who was also a panelist announced that the panel members would each respond to a list of scripted questions before answering impromptu questions from the audience. 

The first question asked by the moderator read something like this: “When did you decide that you wanted to lead a student conduct office?”  Immediately, after asking the question, he answered the question.  He explained that becoming a student conduct office administrator in higher education had been his goal for many years.  He further explained that he planned his course of study and selected professional opportunities keeping in mind the end of being the leader of a student conduct office.    Before I applauded his goal setting and persistent pursuit of the target, my mind wandered.  I am certain that I missed something between his discussion about the rigor of his EdD degree (as compared to a PhD program) and his introduction of the next speaker.  I am certain because my thought bubble read something like this: “This question could relate to any leadership role.”  Once the thought bubble filled with my thoughts, the panel was silent to me.  The panel was silent in the way that the ball game goes silent when the television has the game on the screen, but the volume is turned off.  I took a mental detour from their well-planned journey of shared experiences so that I could explore my own thoughts. 

I reflected on my paths to leadership and observed that I had many accounts of me ending up in leadership roles that were unintended when I was introduced to an organization, task, or cause.  While I appreciated the process that placed the moderator in a leadership role, I knew that life for most folks, namely me, seldom presented in such an organized process that ended in a person being elevated to the role of leader.  However, the mental exercise that followed his question kept me on an organized, scripted path.  This type of organized process fed my natural bent toward developing a plan and then working said plan.  His comments aligned perfectly with the belief system and the practices of Type A, overachiever like me.  I thought, “It’s pretty exciting when the goal(s) and the outlined plan resulted in the likely outcome.”  Then, I realized there seemed to be a stark contrast in the process of the thoughtful planner who chose a path that earned her a leadership position and the person I described as seldom having a specific plan of action specifically designed to earn her the role of leader of a group, task, or cause.  This acknowledgment that leadership roles have found me more often than I have sought out leadership made me wrestle with my belief that stability and routine were foundational keys to my success as a leader.

 My parents were career educators who taught primarily in rural Alabama.  Most of my childhood I lived in the same house so I grew up believing that I would have one job in the same southern city close to all things familiar to me.  I married a man who was the son of a soldier and his family moved frequently.  They lived in many cities in the United States and abroad.  Because of this transient lifestyle, he has welcomed change for as long as I can recall.  He has regularly talked about the benefits of becoming comfortable with change and the practice of inviting new beginnings and adventure.  Most of my adult life I have resisted change and failed to see the hopeful adventure of relocation or starting on a new course.  How did my initial thoughts about there being many routes to the same end take me to this train of thought?  How was it possible for me to be engaged in an this tangential dialogue in my head if there were many very different routes available to produce good paths and leadership roles for the person traveling those respective paths.  How did I end up in a mental exercise sorting through what I believed were life challenges caused by my personality traits?    

My lengthy aside from the panel discussion proved a fruitful blessing.  I learned that I placed myself in a box sealed with fear of change, dread of the unknown, and insecurity about possibilities in the name of monotony, external expectations of others, and limited opportunities.  The truth of me, and a lot of us, is that we instinctively live life way outside of those boxes every day.  For me, and for many, we thrive in environments that breath the oxygen of color, vibrancy, and fluid change even if we often forget or fail to realize that is what we are doing.  We live our lives being contributors to our spaces in ways that we hope will liven those in our spaces and that will energize us to give more.  The truth is that we are not machines built by the folks who work to build those boxes around us. 

My takeaways from the panel discussion were likely not the intended learning outcomes of the presenters.  Nonetheless, I believed that I received the teachable moment I needed from the session.  I realized that I subconsciously allowed myself to let one of those boxes be erected around me.  I had become comfortable living out the anxious patterns of one who believed that the normal created by others defined my normal and my best circumstance.  I sat in that room proud that my hypothesis that my end as a leader in higher education was still a good thing even though my script was different than that the moderator.  I also learned that I was not as limited and controlled by fear of change, unexplainable circumstances, and an unknown ending as I thought.  I learned that as a leader, I innately possessed the ability to manage change, unexpected events, and unpredictable occurrences.  How did I ever let myself get caught up in the narrow-minded thinking that limited my growth potential? 

Although I encourage students daily to use the lyrics of Jon Foreman and “make their wrong note a melody,” I realized after that panel discussion that I missed countless opportunities to apply that lesson to my own life.  Through this positive affirmation exercise, I found strength and empowerment in the realization that I have successfully spent most of my life confronting the fear of change and the discomfort of uncertainty.  The self-exploration gave me the ability to see that I had the ability to blend my Type A personality and my unscripted journeys.  What I previously explained as conflicting principles, I began to define as a cool life balance.  Suddenly, I saw that the strength and the perceived weakness served me well in leadership.   I hope that my audience of leaders, the youthful and the more seasoned, will first identify the challenges that they believe limit their progress.  Then, with lenses of positivity and life experiences, discover that they have already been doing the things they believed they might not be able to overcome.  My hope is that the blessing of enlightenment and empowerment of the leader will strengthen the village.

“The A, B, C’s of Leadership”

Since my youth, I have been fascinated with the student of leadership models.  However, my studies have not involved reading evidence-based essays or collecting usable data for a research project.  I have spent most of my life “reading people,” as my dad would say.  Life has afforded me countless opportunities to lead something whether I led a teen ministry, a decorating committee for a banquet, a little girl troop, or the charge for more responsible leadership on the college campus where I work.

 As of now, my years as a full-time mom outnumber the years I have worked full time outside the home.  While some may argue that stay-at-home moms possess no skills transferrable to a workplace, I have relied heavily on experiences from that time of my life in my life as an administrator in higher education.  Interestingly, the young adult children on my campus remind me of my children when they were two or three years old.  Over the course of my life, I found myself living out cycles and the expression that “life comes full circle.”  Well, that is true for most people.  The spirit behind the terrible two’s or the thoughtful three’s resided in my young adult children and it resides in most of the young students on my campus.  Like the two year old, the young adult child discovers free will and engages in behaviors that bring them pleasure and hopefully satisfaction.  In both cycles of life, any attempt to coach the young person or save them from themselves is met with resistance.  Why did I raise mine (and some babies of other mothers) then accept a job that reminds me of the terrible two’s? Because I consider myself a leader and my “A, B, C’s of leadership” mandate a responsibility that I share my experiences in a way that promotes greatness in others trying to figure out what Prince called “This thing called life.”

“A” is for the attitude of the leader because attitude sets the tempo for the leader and the audience whether the audience is expected or incidental.  The leader’s attitude influences the perspectives about the mission or goals of the group.  In the movie “Remember the Titans,” one team member reminded a team leader of the value of attitude when he said, “Attitude reflect leadership, Captain!”  In this scene, the leader was complaining about the poor attitudes and poor performance of the team without recognizing his role in generating these outcomes or his ability to change the same.  The leader’s attitude about the following will guide the response of the group positively or negatively: accountability for the goals and actions of the leader and the membership, acceptance of the good and the not-so-good situations that arise, and accessibility of the leader to the membership and the incidental audience.

 “B” is for belief.  The leader must express an unwavering belief in the mission and the ability of the group to accomplish the goals and tasks associated with that mission.  The leaders’ belief in the available human capital goes a long way in onvincing the membership and the audience that the goals and mission are attainable with the represented skill sets in the group.  Moreover, the leader must be mindful that the belief system of the leader becomes the practice of the body and potentially the audience.  Therefore, the leader ought to express beliefs cautiously and responsibly.  Additionally, the leader must be willing to correct the group when there is a misinterpretation of the beliefs by the words or actions of the group members. When the leader fails to hold every member accountable for the beliefs of the group, the divergent voice(s) tend to become the expression of the whole that the leader is forced then to defend or reject.  This type of confusion becomes the focus or the undercurrent that distracts the group from the intended outcomes of the organization.  The intended outcomes of service-oriented leadership are more difficult to attain if the leader does not control the belief system and practices of the membership.  In general, leaders serve for the benefit of others with the intent of creating a brotherhood and to be a blessing or benefit to others within the organization and community served by the organization.  (Please note that the work “brotherhood” is interchangeable with the words sisterhood and community.)

Finally, “C” is for commitment.  The leader must be committed to the role of leader before accepting the job.  The leader must remain committed during the time of service too.  The agenda set by the leader must reflect a commitment to 1. Building up the character of the membership and the community, 2. Positively impacting the climate within the group and the community serviced, and 3. Effecting change in the culture of the community that is safe, legal, and responsible.  Leadership is tough.  Leadership is hard work.  Excellent leaders are more than hype folks who stand out front to get the audience excited about the mission or the goal.  The leader must be on the front line, in the trenches, making contact every play like the linemen on a football team.  The leaders attitude about preparation for the hard work and the leader’s attitude about working until the job is done usually generate momentum that ignites the body to advance the beliefs of the leader and the organization.  The challenge for any leader is two-fold: 1. how to remain committed to the calling of leadership and 2. how to communicate goals and tasks that inspire other people who often seek the control and instant gratification of a two-year-old to focus on a commitment to delay satisfaction until sometime in the future for the benefit of the greater community.

Almost ten years ago, a small tourist town in Florida became known as my “Happy Place.”  I had not given much thought to why the place made me happy in the past.  I just knew that it made me happy.  Recently, I visited my “Happy Place” and thankfully it still made me happy!  I think that the more mature me really needed to understand the things that motivate me positively and negatively.  The mature me also figured out that my leadership as a stay-at-home mom, wife, and conduct officer had similarities in the emotional and physical demands on me.  As a result, this time when I visited the Happy Place I sat quietly with my thoughts to consider why happiness was the prevailing emotion every time I was in that place.

My family introduced me to my Happy Place after it was recommended by a family friend.  The initial visit was a thank you to me from my family for the work had done as a mom.  Ironically, the Happy Place was nested between the city we called home at that time and another city, but whenever I went to the Happy Place I felt like we were miles away from civilization.  My Happy Place was everything I needed in order to escape the stress of my life.  The Happy Place was quiet and picturesque.  It soothed my spirit and my mind without requiring much effort on my part.  All I did was show up there in order to basque in the consistent blessing of the peaceful atmosphere.

When I arrived at the Happy Place this time, exhausted described my countenance.  The routine of walking through life carrying the burdens and challenges of my daily grind made me exhausted.  For some of us, we have carried weights derived from negativity and problems and others from heaping portions of favor and good fortune.  A psychologist once told me that stress can come from the good and the bad.  While our minds may interpret the good as more beneficial, more positive, and less stressful, he said our bodies can absorb both experiences like the stressful life experiences.  As I sat, I remembered a time when my doctor advised me to steal away for a period of recovery.  She was concerned that my life was making me sick.  My mother was ill and I was her first call.  I was responsible for her affairs at the nursing home and with her team of care providers.  I also had a sister with challenges that kept me involved in conversations with her mental health team.  Moreover, I had the responsibilities of my roles as wife and mother.  I was exhausted.

Last week, I thought about my decision to describe myself as exhausted and why my Happy Place seemed to be a good remedy for my condition.  Exhausted people, in my opinion, were not just physically tired.  Exhaustion, for me, meant a physical and mental heaviness hanging like an anchor on my spirit.  Exhaustion tugged on my soul and made me feel like there was a ball and chain attached to the ankle of my dominant leg.  I told a friend that in those moments it seemed like there was a phantom person holding on to my shirt in the back in order to slow my progress.  My friend told me to pull away from that force and run away from it as fast as my feet would take me.

My Happy Place became my escape.  In that space, there lived freedom to release the weight of my life.  In the Happy Place, I surrounded myself with people eager to encourage me to rest my mind, my body, and my spirit.  In that environment, I learned that everyone needed a Happy Place and I needed that place more than I knew.  I needed a place confident in its strength to accept and carry the weight of my worries.  I needed a place capable of taking my troubles to the warm waters nearby and then letting those troubles roll out to sea.  I loved the visual of my burdens riding the waves out into the distance and then floating out to that place where the sun met the water.  I envisioned my issues touching the sun and then igniting into a million tiny pieces.  In the Happy Place, I envisioned those tiny pieces floating even further away from me in the vastness of the space beyond the sun.

I worked to train myself to remember those visuals after I left the Happy Place.  Additionally, I trained my muscles to remember what felt like the relief of dropping heavy weights on the floor after a deadlift.  The Happy Place reminded me of the value of holistic health practices on my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.  In my Happy Place, I had permission to inhale the aura of fresh warm serenity while exhaling all of the tight coolness I brought into the space.  The Happy Place transformed me into a courier for restful calm thoughts as opposed to the chaotic, stressful thoughts that caused my exhaustion.

We all need a place that grants us permission to breath.  We need a place that welcomes us to release the burdens and pressures we deal with daily.  We all need a place that refuses to judge our method for coping, but just provides a comfy space that permits healing, recovery, and clarity of thought.  I want each person in my audience who leads at home, in the community, or at a job to incorporate the benefits of their happy places as often as possible.  Such a practice will enhance each of us personally while promoting positive energy in the places we go and in the people we encounter each moment of each day.

Successful leaders proscribe to a process or a series of processes. I am not generally a person who loves monotony, but as a leader I have learned the benefits of using a process to guide me through the tasks required in my department.

When I was asked to lead my department on an interim basis, I called a dear friend who was the dean of a law school. I told her that I had been asked to be the interim assistant dean of the student conduct office on my campus. I also told her that one of my reservations was that I had never run a conduct office. I asked her if she believed that I could do the job. Although I didn’t ask her if she thought I could manage the office successfully, I knew that she felt the nerves and concerns lurking behind the question I chose to ask. She assured me that I could do the job. With confidence she said, “You could do the job of a university president!” Honestly, I was struggling to even imagine myself as the assistant dean for a student conduct office so the thought of me as a university president lived somewhere in the distance far away from me. Her final thought in this thread of confidence building comments was to advise me to make sure to get my hands on the office policies and procedures manual. According to her, she trusted in my ability to do any job as long as I had the policies and procedures manual. I didn’t realize it then, but what I learned over the course of the next year in my interim role was that the manual gave the collective processes needed to successfully operate the department.

In the last six months, I have found myself evaluating successful programs and realizing that each program prided itself in the disciplined approach of owning and decidedly engaging in a process. In late July, there was the emergency room technician who choreographed the movements of the cancer patients in the designated waiting area. The patients were directed to wait there in an effort to protect them from airborne diseases.  In this area, the staff could more supply provisions and interim support services to the patients.  The staff made regular visits to this area to comfort the patients while they waited to be seen by the doctors. I thought, “How cool! They have a place just for my loved one.” Then I thought about it and thought that it was not cool that the disease was such a constant issue at the hospital that it required a process. While I wrestled with my thoughts about the need for the process, I was grateful that the process had been established and adopted when we needed it. The process made my family feel that our issue was important and that someone understood the difficulties and challenges associated with the this particular health issue.

Shortly thereafter, an issue arose in my office that brought to my attention that I had developed a process or two myself. I noted that, like the hospital staff, I had a desire to implement steps to address recurring issues in my office. I, too, sought to design plans to address the specific challenges common to those involved in this type of conduct matter. Additionally, I wanted to record the responses and coordinated efforts that would be necessary for an efficient and prompt resolution of that type of conduct matter. As I worked to execute my response to the call, I thought about my friend’s discussion about policies and procedures.  The procedures part became the focus.  It was clear that I had become a director who embraced a process.

A few months later the dots connected for me as I cheered on my Alabama Crimson Tide football team. The network aired an interview between a journalist and a freshman athlete on the team. The student athlete told the reporter that he was experiencing a notable level of success because of “the process.” From the hospital to my department to my college football team, there was evidence of a process. This finding was based on my observations and personal experiences with each group. My findings revealed that there was a greater likelihood of success with a process than there was without a process. The talk about adhering to a process with dogmatic persistence seemed robotic and limiting. This selling of a mechanical approach to managing human behaviors screamed of suffocation to the artist in me. However, my practical, minimalist nature allowed me to analyze these scenarios and discover the benefits.

First of all, having a process removed the guess work after someone made the decision to engage in the challenge, goal, or mission. Secondly, having a process lessened the feelings and insecurities that came as a result of people knowing their potential to show others their human imperfections as they tried to address the tasks mandated to successfully accomplish the goal, remain on a course consistent with the mission, or to overcome the challenge. Having a process established a framework that was expected to or that was known to deliver more successful outcomes than failures. That fact, in and of itself, created a more confident group of participants which in turn resulted in confidence in the work product by those inside and outside of the program. Finally, a reliable and consistent process led to a more confident and unified group working together in the process until there was a resolution of the issue, goal, or mission before them.  As you lead, think about the overall goals and mission of the organization.  As you lead, take note of the  recurring needs, challenges, successes, and failures of the organization.  Then, develop a process for each that can guide those working within the organization to the desired goal or mission.

Every year I seem to have made a comment like, “I can’t believe this year is almost over.”  When 2016 began, I was recovering from a 2015 that brought a lot of change: the death of my mother, life as an empty nester, the birth of my professional career, and the realization that at almost 50 my thoughts about my present and my future must be purposeful.  I spent moments in 2016 reflecting on my past and the journey that delivered me to my present state.  In 2016, I owned the fact that the events of my past did not define me, but that each moment of my past had the ability to impact and influence each future moment in my life.  In 2016, I also owned my life calling to use my voice to encourage, empower, and enlighten villages with the hope of building supportive, healthy, safe spaces for young people.  I began to think of myself as a living lab experiment yielding interesting observations about the constants and the variables in my life.

One thing in my life that has been a constant has been the chaos that came with being a caretaker or the support network for a primary caretaker.  The constant caretaking created a constant positioning in a role very similar to that of a first responder.  Beginning at age eleven, I helped my mother and father care for my sister after her first mental break.  The following year after my father had his first heart attach I helped my mother care for my sister and my father.  During middle school and high school, I watched my mother spend at least one night a week in the country caring for Mama Love as we continued to support my sister and my father.  The caretaker theme continued into my adulthood and I began to believe that my purpose in life was to ensure that other folks had positive life experiences at my expense.  By the time my kids and their friends were added to the pool of needy subjects in my life, I had perfected the process of having the backs of multiple people with varied types of needs and at various levels of neediness.  I moved through life like a kid dancing the May pole dance.  I skipped from the hand of one person or cause to the next.  I often found myself grabbing the next hand before letting go of the former.  At some point in 2016, I saw that I was still skipping around that May pole getting worn out from managing stuff.  However, the energy output felt different and I returned to the question: Was there a difference between my pre 2016 life and the life birthed in me in 2016?  The answer was emphatically, “Yes, there was a difference!”

There was a difference between reacting to a crisis delivered to me courtesy of another person and then becoming a part of the solution or management of the crisis simply because I could do it or just because I cared about the person or the cause.  It was quite different thing to have the crisis delivered to me and then making a decision to examine the situation and the potential impact on my life before deciding to be actively involved in the management of the crisis.  There was a difference in the helplessness and felt in the former circumstance and the empowerment I felt last year when I used my brain and my voice to protect my time, energy, and resources.  There was empowerment when I decided to choose to use my gifts and talents for situations related to the calling for which my life was purposed.  There was a difference between the exhaustion I felt pre 2016 from engagement in situations that I managed, but did not control and the gratifying exhaustive feeling that came from stepping into a challenge I knew I had the ability to strengthen or change for the better.

Life is different when you believe that you are in control of your decisions. In 2016, I challenged myself to initiate actions that would further my goal of living out the calling on my life.  I decided that I would spend my energy enhancing my skill sets or empowering other people to strengthen their villages by focusing on ownership of their personal development and decision making.  I have never been an advocate of new year’s resolutions because I always feared that I wouldn’t be able to follow through on the year long challenges.  I feared that the resolutions were made to be broken.  I learned in 2016 that I had a better chance of meeting the challenge of a New Year’s resolution if the driving force was my passion and calling.  Last weekend as I uploaded my blog, I celebrated the fact that each week except in 2016 I posted a blog entry.  I celebrated the fact that I made a decision to use my voice to promote positive, supportive villages for young people every week of a year.

I get one time to live this life and I plan to use my time to focus on decisions that make the things and people around me better.  I will choose to make decisions and take actions that make me better and I will promote the same attitude among those I encounter.  In 2017, I plan to be about the mission of my blog which is to encourage, empower, and enlighten!  I hope that my audience will spend 2017 making decisions to live their callings and passions out loud too!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Winter commencement season 2016 brought with it excitement about the culmination of a rite of passage sought after and endured because of expectations of breath of knowledge, hope for professional opportunities, and ownership of preparedness to manage the potential obstacle course in the world beyond the college bubble.  Working in higher education has afforded me and others freedom of thought and expression.  Interacting with students, faculty, and community partners has also meant opportunities to engage in spirited conversations about life and current events.

This week I attended two graduation events and I heard two different graduation addresses made to graduates.  The first speech I heard was made by a college dean and the other by a state politician.  Both speakers compelled their audiences to celebrate the voices of all people around them, especially those whose concerns and messages are different than their own.  Their impassioned words drew verbal responses from their audiences and prompted conversations between the audience members during the speeches and afterwards.

As I listened to the commencement speaker at the end of the week, I was reminded of an online interview I watched recently.  In that online interview, I heard a young woman make a distinction between the actions of one person and the words of another person.  More specifically, she was trying to explain how one candidate “did” something and the other candidate only “said” something.  There was an argument made that a person saying “nasty things” was not as impactful or negative as doing “nasty things.”  The young woman also suggested that the things we say don’t have an impact on how we operate as individuals.  She argued that the things said in no way influence the way we govern ourselves or others.

After hearing this young woman defend “nasty things” that people say, I thought about the number of people who have lived their lives trying to overcome the pain and grief caused by something said to them.  How many people struggle as adults because someone told them they would never succeed or because someone called them fat or ugly?  How many people have said that they have used the words of another person to motivate them to do better or do more?  I remember players for a professional football team saying that the trajectory of their championship season changed from losing to winning after a powerful locker room speech.  I have seen the words of rejection from a break up or firing leave people in tears, in depression, or sitting with a tub of ice cream inhaling the cool, chocolaty, diary goodness.  Words have power and there is power in our words.

Maybe because I am a writer, I have a tendency to let my imagination take off and live in the world of “what if’s.”  I wondered, “What if one of those speakers had the opportunity to have dialogue with that young woman? Would it be possible for the young woman to own the power of her words like the more senior commencement week speakers?”  The speakers embraced the opportunities to stand in front of audiences and use words to call for people to engage in critical thinking, to increase the social conscience of the community, and to fashion conversations built on informative, unifying words.  I wanted to know how many of us deny the power of the tongue and the power of the words spewing from our mouths.  I wanted to know if we realize that denial of our verbal strength will not prevent our words from influencing those around us.  Our words spark people to think or live out the messages in our words.  I began to think about how reckless and dangerous it was for the young woman and others like her to use words to form sentences without expecting those words to prompt a response of some sort.  If there is no expectation of actions or impact from words, why are we speaking at all? If there is no expectation of actions or impact as a result of our spoken words, why would I ever say, “Hey, did you hear what I just said?”  Why would anyone ever get upset with their kids for not doing exactly what they were instructed to do?  Why would there ever be a need for an apology if the words and “nasty things” we say to one another are not “doing?”

I am beginning to think that only a person who does not want to hold themselves accountable for the things they say believes that their words don’t matter or have power.  I also wondered if people who believe their words are powerless have a fear delving into their hearts and minds to examine the core that drives their thoughts and the passionate words spoken by them.  Believing that our words influence our communities means that we might also have to evaluate the heads and hearts of those we love or support.  Believing that our words have power means that we might need to challenge the people around us to broaden their thinking and vocabularies.  We might have to actually listen to the words coming out of our mouths and the mouths of the folks around us.  We would have to understand that our word choices, the organization of the words in the sentences, and the inflections used in the phrasing of the words all matter.  I started to realize that some people are living robots able to repeat the same phrases over and over again as long as their words result in their desired end.

Once, when I was a child, I told grown ups that someone who was close to the family “did” something to me that I didn’t like.  I remember also telling grown ups that another person “said” something to me that I didn’t like.  What was “said” and what the other person “did” caused me pain and confusion that impacted how I interacted with people for many years.  I used words to tell grown ups that I needed their support and help only to have them make a decision not to act in response to my words.  Even as a child, I expected that my words would prompt some type of action or response.  I know that when there was no action and my childish words were rendered powerless I was forced to cope and build up defenses that impacted my communication for a long time.  Maybe the young woman in the online interview “said” words at some point in her past and nobody “did” anything in response.  Maybe that is why she can say that there is a difference between doing and saying “nasty things.”

As a result of my childhood experiences that silenced me for a while, I made a decision to use my words to support and defend young people.  I also learned that being ignored by people when I am speaking to them is a pet peeve of mine.  I became stronger when I learned that my words had power whether I wrote the words or communicated them verbally.  I hope that my audience will accept that their words are nouns and that when the words are spoken they become action.  I want us all to remember that whether we “do” something or “say” something that involves words that the words we use and the way we use those words matters.  There are quite a few proverbs in the Bible that remind us that words have power.  Those verses speak about the favorable outcomes when we use words responsibly and the unfavorable life predicaments that flow from irresponsible uses of our words.  I hope that my audience will hold themselves and those who govern accountable for their words and the resulting outcomes even when the person speaking looks like them or often agrees with their personal philosophies.  I hope that we will define the word “govern” loosely to include those in our friend circles, our religious circles, our school boards, local governments, and our global community.  Having the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas through language is a blessing and we must remember that the words we speak have the power to heal, empower, enlighten, and educate our communities.

I have heard debates about the place of old Negro spirituals in the church since the world is different now and since churchgoers are more accomplished than in the days that moved people to sing from a soulful place deep within.  There was one spiritual about the gratitude for having a praying grandmother.  Today, I am thankful for both of my praying grandmothers.  I was on the younger end of the spectrum of the grands of both of my grandmothers so I didn’t have the length of life experiences with them that my siblings and older cousins did.  I am thankful now that their prayers had power then and that they intended for God’s blessing and favor to rest on them and their “seed” (as Big Mama would say) for generations to come.  I often joke about how “I’m not a really good church lady” because I can’t always tell you when the next Bible study will be held.  I don’t generally remember the focus or date of the next special event at church and I will miss literally “a month of Sunday’s” in order to spend time with myself or my family.  There were times in my life when church folk would guilt me or shame me for my absences and lack or participation.  It bothered me to the extent that I discussed it with my mother and I remember her saying, “Well, God put you in this position.  He knows your schedule and He understands that your life isn’t like everyone else’s life.”  I am thankful for Mama and her faith and trust that our God knew that change and opportunity would dictate new perspectives on my needs, my practices, and my responses the same.

From my childhood to this moment, I have searched for the meaning of the church and religion in my life and in the lives of those around me.  I have seen women take a break from gossiping about somebody’s “inappropriate” outfit to give a sanctified, loving hug to another sister who likely spent her last check on her outfit without contributing anything to the church offering.  I have heard Mama talk about the church man who came to their house to criticize my grandfather for “taking a little nip” of alcohol then telling my granddaddy he needed to excuse himself to the outhouse where granddaddy stashed the good bottle.  Surprisingly, the good church dude always left the bottle a little less full after his trip to the outhouse.  I wrestled silently with the grown folks who criticized kids, in general, but skipped church on youth Sunday.  I have struggled with those who use scripture to oppress others without ever envisioning the words they recite might apply to them.  I tried to understand why someone might honestly have an expectation that all people would accept and adhere to their interpretation of the law if it never seemed to apply it to themselves.

I remember when Mama gave me permission to wear pants to church.  I was really grown with two young children living in a very frigidly cold Midwestern city when she came to visit.  She was the same woman who, during my teen years, saw me leaving the house in pants to go to a Saturday afternoon youth meeting at church and made me change into a skirt because it was “still church.”  Mama told me that “only death or marriage” would get me out of Old Ship A.M.E. Zion Church when I wanted to go to a Baptist church where the choir director blended hymns with gospel music during the service.  I said all of that to explain how thankful I was that my mother believed that God mad me to “think about things differently than most people” and that she affirmed that unique quality in me.  At every phase of my life, she listened to my worries and frustrations displaying a quiet, discerning spirit.  She was my quiet in my storms.  If only we had more folks who saw themselves as the quiet in the storms of others we know and those we encounter.  I guess it is hard to see yourself quieting someone else’s storm when that might get you emotionally weighed down or make you feel the need to share your resources or contacts with that person.  Surely, sharing resources would mean foregoing opportunities designed only for you.  And this thought gives rise to more questions in my head:  Why are God-fearing, God-loving people so worried about sharing “their” stuff with other folks?  If it’s really all God’s stuff and God made everything and everybody and if God will provide, why so much resistance?  Why the selectivity in what we choose to share and with whom we elect to share?  Why do we purportedly embrace and attest to a life of global love for humankind yet tell all of God’s children of His love and the prosperity we can have through Him then use His words to oppress and shame?  Is it because shame and guilt demonstrate grace and mercy?  Do we really believe that God hears the prayers of those who righteously judge everyone outside of their circles if they fail to hold themselves and those within their circles accountable for their ungodliness?  Is it about faith?  Is it about God?  Is it about the resource, human and otherwise?  Is it about the sharing of our stuff or is it just about power and control?

Mama was a lefty who the teachers tried to force to write with her right hand.  Why wouldn’t the teacher force Mama to do that?  Everyone else in the class used their right hands and there had never been a need for the teacher to provide instruction in penmanship to a left-handed student.  Instead of banishing Mama and other lefties into exile or some other dark, cold, isolated place, someone figured out how to build desks for left-handed folks.  We figured out how to sit at a table so that our elbows didn’t bump when we ate meals together.  We also learned later that those folks who seemed weird, abnormal, and different because they were left-handed added richness to our communities of educators and leaders.  My big boss is left-handed as were many presidents of the United States of America, including the current president.  What might have been the result in the leadership trees of our country and my university campus if the laws banned left-handed people from being just who God created them to be to do only what God placed them here to do?  What would have been the outcome if the interpretation of the scripture remained so narrow that it suffocated the breath of life that was fueled with God’s will?  I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I consider these questions and others as I watch people tell the world that they stand with God and with me.

I consider how to stand with them as they stand with hate.  I try to understand how to stand with them as they refuse to talk about what is happening right in front of us all.  I am told to just wait and God will fix it.  I am told to just have faith and it will be alright.  I am told to pray more and pray without ceasing.  Hmmm.  Then, I have more questions:  Did the tea go into the Boston Harbor without human assistance?  Did the Big Bang also create the American Red Cross?  Did the legions leave the man and go into the pigs because of a miraculous work of man?  Was the Jim Crow South a new south without the work and voices of change from people?  While I don’t know the answers to most of the questions raised in my head around the mergers of life and religion, I know that religion lived well is lived out loud in practice by people.

We must be the voices of the messages we claim to represent.  We must see other folks with the clear, unbiased lens used by our God.  We must acknowledge that it won’t be easy because we are full of bias and scars from our personal journeys.  We must exercise flexibility in our thoughts and perspectives to give folks permission to be who God called them to be doing what He called them to do.  We must become content and satisfied that we are not God and that the things we judge are His way of presenting the things in which we need greater depth of understanding.  Then, we need to do the hard work of getting comfortable in that uncomfortable territory while implementing the advice we gave other people – be faithful and trust in God’s mighty power to see us through the situation.  In developing this healthy quest to love the questions beneath the symptoms makes us like the physician who welcomes opportunities to spend time exploring the symptoms reported by the patient to determine what might be beneath the surface causing the pain, the discomfort, or the red, burning, inflamed spot on the skin.  Physicians know that watching the patient suffer won’t stop the suffering.  They also know that saying to the patient, “Stop suffering” or simply looking away from the symptoms of the patient won’t end the suffering.  The symptoms that anger or repulse us or those that impact others in the community may only change when we develop a healthy curiosity to seek to at least hear the heart of the person walking in the eye of the storm.  The world we live in only gets better when we believe that sitting in the eye of the storm is safer and more beneficial than playing the role of storm chaser.

The truth is that nobody really expects that life will be perfect, but everyone has some expectation that somebody will care when the imperfection visits their space.  Faith, hope, courage, and change live within each of us.  Challenge yourself to use these to enter the world of a person whose position you disagree with most.  Then, challenge yourself to sit in the eye of the storm with that person and apply every survival coaching tip you have for them to yourself until.

The saying that “Life comes full circle” was my unexpected reality yesterday. I have spent time the last few days looking for a couple documents I put up “for safe keeping.”  I hate it when I store or file something so securely that I can’t find it when I need it.  Well, this morning while on yet another search for the documents, I found my very first journal.  My first journal was a small, sky blue, square book with a hard cover and a plastic overlay.  Like most who maintained a diary, my mission was to keep my thoughts secret.  Clearly, my privacy standard must have been much lower then than it is now.  A heavy ribbon stretched from the back cover to the front cover where it attached to a gold-colored locking system with a prominent keyhole.  Looking at the journal made me chuckle because the ribbon had been cut seemingly with ease to permit the details of my childish writings to be read.  I chuckled because my Big Mama used to say that “locks were made for honest people.”  I guess she was right.

As I skimmed through the pages, I reminisced about some fun times I had forgotten.  In this relaxed moment some old memories entered into my space.  Some of the memories were those that have generally been met with restrictions and filters.  Over the years, I have practiced controlling what thoughts and memories that I allow to enter the doorway to my head and heart when those memories have historically generated a plethora of emotional responses.  It think my mother saw me protecting myself from certain things and came up with a plan to help me.

I established boundaries and filters at the doorway to my space for years because I knew that everything did not deserve occupancy in my head and my heart.  Over the years, I learned that some of my childhood experiences not only helped to define my family’s story, but impacted my personal development and influenced aspects of my life since that time.  Child psychologists and family counselors were not offered to families in my community dealing with loved ones  diagnosed with a mental illness.  Thankfully, it didn’t take a medical professional for my mother to know that the current state of our family unit created havoc in the world of the youngest member of the family when mental illness found my sister.  In December 1977, my mother encouraged me to write about the things that occupied my eleven-year old head.  She said, “Even if you can’t talk about it, you should write about it.”  Mama’s heartfelt, insightful directive encouraged me to find a safe place to speak.  She empowered me to convert my inside voice into the outside voice that over time brought clarity and perspective to my life.  The feelings experienced by the eleven-year old me revisited me for years after December 1977.  The feelings followed me into my teenage years and young adult life.

Clarity and perspective were not gifted to me.  I think we earn them both as we master challenges in our lives.  Mental illness taught me that Granddaddy Cooper was right when he said, “Baby, everything ain’t for you to understand.”  I learned through dealing with the uncertainties of my sister’s mental illness that even if I don’t completely understand the situation I can be useful in finding resources to help bring calm and direction to the unstable and directionless.  Moreover, I learned contentment with the realization that every crisis or challenge would not be solved by me nor was it my responsibility to solve every problem confronting those around me.

Reading entries in my first journal enabled me to hear my eleven-year old voice say that there were times when chaos was my normal.  I am pretty sure that my family never wanted me to feel l that way, but I did.  In fact, the feelings that existed in the midst of the chaos like fear, confusion, and insecurity hung out with me like playground friends throughout my childhood.  I had no idea that the introduction to chaos in my youth would prepare me to persist, persevere, and figure out how to remain hopeful in chaotic situations for the rest of my life.  Another consequence of surviving the chaos was finding a passion for helping others similarly situated.  Additionally, I found a niche for supporting others as they learn to strategize and develop life skills to manage their own chaos. Learning to use my voice and accepting my limitations proved empowering for me and for those around me (even when they preferred to be passive bystanders in their own problem solving journeys).

My purpose became using lessons from my childhood chaos to quiet the storms of others living in crisis and chaos.  I hope that each person in my audience will be inspired to identify a chaotic moment then analyze that moment to find a positive lesson that can be paid forward.  The lessons received from my moments of challenge also brought awareness of my areas of giftedness.  In retrospect, the years of managing chaos provided opportunities to practicing using my gifts which gave me confidence as a leader of a staff of people tasked with supporting people in moments of chaos all day every day.  I hope that my audience members will evaluate at least one moment of challenge that has haunted them for years and work to change the perspective of that experience such that it empowers them to live a more spirited, passionate life.  It’s crazy how chaos at one point in our lives that brings unexplainable fear, confusion, and insecurity can prepare us for blessings and leadership in places we couldn’t imagine at that time.

I made a decision a few weeks ago to take self-care to another level.  For the last year or so, self-care meant a trip to the nail salon or the beauty shop or some mindless watching of a movie or other show.  For at least two years, one of my staff members has invited and encouraged me to visit the gym she owns with her husband.  She was definitely one of the coolest people I know and their gym was only ten minutes from my house.  Why didn’t I say yes to that invitation years ago?

My normal dictated only random exercise and binges of healthy and clean eating.  My normal dictated a draw toward starchy comfort foods complete with a side of fries or chips.  I enjoyed healthy snacks, but not always in moderation or at an optimal time of day when I was most active.  My normal also welcomed spending my time working, organizing, and supporting others in a manner indicative of a true shadow dweller.  Once again I found myself at a crossroad needing to make some decisions about the balance of self-care and the demands of work and family.  Changing the course of my normal has been tough because some things in my life remain constant.  I have felt like a living laboratory experiment weighing whether or not I have correctly defiined the constants and the variables.

My constants had become:

• Work long hours.
• Sleep fewer hours.
• Eat snacks to stay awake in the evenings so that I could convince myself that I took time to recover from the work day.
• Skip dinner when nobody else was home to eat with me. (Well, I didn’t really skip. I snacked my way through the evening.)
• Let my activity tracker on my arm become simply a colorful bracelet.
• Wishing the clothes that fit fit differently.
• Wishing the clothes in the closet I liked just fit.
• Avoiding purposeful actions to promote a shift in my attitude and actions to guide me to choose a new set of constants.

My mental process took me into a few conversations with students, friends, colleagues.  All of these conversations contained constants that I used to outline this new experimental phase of my journey.  I realized that all of the things I knew would bring order and stability to my life were my variables and not my constants.  Two specific conversations with students entered my mental laboratory.  The first student came to my office to share a story of dysfunction and frustration and I told the student that the following considerations needed to be a part of daily practices and decision making:

1. There are 24 hours in a day.
2. “No” or “no, not at this time are appropriate responses.” And
3. Schedule time for yourself.

I wrote these three things on a white board in my office so that I wouldn’t forget them myself.  I learned that remembering does not equal doing.  The second student came to my office and my plan was to offer the student encouragement and support.  Instead, the student encouraged me.  The student said that I needed to try a mindfulness practice.  I was even given an app for my phone.  I laughed because I often advise students to let the smart phones be smart to make their lives more manageable and there I was learning that it was time for me to do the same.

Finally, the wisdom of supportive colleagues was hurled at me in a layered attack.  Apparently, it took a series of events to get the attention of one satisfied with her normalcy.  Just saying that I was satisfied with normalcy aggravates the high achiever in me.  My big boss (as I call her) at our most recent division meeting had a staff member present on issues related to living a more active life.  Then, a host of other colleagues either in my department or who collaborate with my department made themselves responsible for establishing a village for me.  Saying that out loud makes my eye moist because I know that they care about me enough to help me set healthier boundaries, develop attainable, realistic goals, and search for alternative, reliable means to accomplish work-related goals and tasks.

A friend once said to me that I had to learn to be comfortable in a job in which I would never be caught up and I would never be ahead.  When she said that to me I chuckled because I could see how her comments were valid, but I had not lived the experience yet.  I had no context for understanding her comments at the time.  It has been almost a year and a half since she shared her wisdom with me and since that time I have learned that maybe I wasn’t so “comfortable” never being caught up and never being ahead so I dedicated many hours to my office to stay “caught up.”  In addition, I labored over some of the issues of office management at random moments when I was away from the office and at times when I should have been sleeping.

I hope that my introspective look at my efforts to redefine self-care will help someone live smarter and healthier.  I hope that my challenges will encourage someone else to accept the prompting and support of a willing village and reconsider the constants and variables weighed on a daily basis.