“Eat less meat. Exercise more,” said my really nice doctor.  As I gave him a head tilt and a side eye, he quickly began the work of softening the message even more.  I gave a slight smile and I think he also saw the involuntary raising of my left eyebrow.  Then, I spoke.  I said something like, “Basically, the message is that I need to lose some weight.”  He was too nice to just say, “Yes.”  He said something like, “It would help your numbers.  You look ten years younger than me, but at fifty things start to change.”  Prior to the visit, I had some blood work done.  When I got there and he got the update on my family situation and all of the changes, he gave some life skills advice and threw in the bonus tip about improving my total health picture by getting some exercise and making better food choices.  His statements were not news to me and I told him so.  Interestingly, I recently told someone else that I needed to give more focus to self-care when I am managing work and changes in family circumstances.  The candid conversation with my really sweet doctor was exactly what I needed to redirect my attention to the work-life balance choices that ought to be constants in my life.

The last two weeks I have been writing about my parents and the lessons I learned from them through their roles as career educators.  Mama and Daddy talked about work a lot.  Mama and Daddy loved teaching and they were my first models for leadership.  Most people probably don’t think of educators as leaders and tales from the teachers’ lounge, to those people, may seem like anecdotal sharing of old memories to entertain audiences.  Daddy led an amazing group of teachers and they created a climate for student success at Autaugaville Elementary School.  Mama dictated the tempo and educational programming in her classroom.  She also influenced the development of less experience teachers and offered advice to the principal, Daddy.  Together the faculty cultivated a spirited, productive environment for students and staff.  Whether leading youth groups or family projects or my department at work, I have worked to be as impactful as my parents in the lives of young people.  I realized after the doctor visit that I have modeled them in my passionate and committed work.  It also became clear that I had become like them and many other excellent leaders in another way.

My observations about excellent leaders were not supported by research or data.  My findings were based on my informal studies of community leaders in a number of settings.  Excellent leaders, regardless of their areas of expertise, invested time in preparation to perform the demands of their jobs.  Moreover, they spend time learning about the people and the things they oversee.  Mama and Daddy modeled excellent were leaders in their communities.  Like other great leaders, they demonstrated passion for service as well as taking responsibility for the direction and decisions associated with things and people under their oversight.  I learned all of these things by watching Mama and Daddy, but last week it was clear that I also learned from them to move self-care down my priority list to a spot below the demands create by other things and people in need of my leadership.

Mama loved gardening.  Sometimes when she worked in the flower beds or her summer garden Daddy would cut the grass or trim hedges.  Mama also spent some of her free time prepping for church meetings or with her beloved Altrusa Club.  During summer months when she wasn’t teaching, she sewed and blanched fresh vegetable for freezing.  Daddy loved tinkering with electronics during his free time or talking to friends on his HAM radio.  Mama and Daddy enjoyed their hobbies because they helped them relax.  I don’t ever remember them engaging in any consistent form of cardiovascular exercise.  We didn’t go bike riding as a family and we SAT and WATCHED the only African American aerobics instructor teach classes on a local public television station.  It was big news at that time to have an African American aerobics teacher on television.  I am certain she believed more of us would put on our leotards, leg warmers, and tennis shoes and convert our dens into fitness rooms.  Well, I sat with my parents and listened to them talk about how good she looked on tv.  I must say that I will still sit and watch people exercise on tv while I enjoy popcorn and a cool beverage.

This moment of self-reflection showed me that their leadership in field of education set a standard of excellence worth duplication.  However, in watching them all of those years, I also embraced their models of self-care.  I adopted a practice that included a host of mostly sedentary activities like reading, writing, social media trolling, and cleaning up my email box.  There have been sporadic stretches of heart rate raising exercises, but it has always been much easier for me to choose work and my sedentary past times over consistent lifestyle changes that led to a holistic plan for a healthier me.

Leading takes time and energy.  After long days of work in a high energy workplace filled with continuous opportunities to help people manage challenges, sitting and absorbing a lot something that removed me to a quiet place was welcomed.  I am pretty sure that’s what my parents experienced too.  The concept of leadership has always interested me.  I was fascinated by the similarities between the presence of leaders in political parties and other types of institutions (i.e. educational, corporate, or criminal).  In all of those communities, the leaders had the power to influence change and community policies.  Leaders were not only capable of influencing change and policy, but the leaders had the power to establish the climate and morale of the people in the community.

When I study leaders, I study with an aim toward using the traits of the leaders that serve to encourage, empower, and enlighten to make me better at the things I do.  I also look at the leadership traits that don’t’ seem to serve the community well.  Then, I work not to repeat those traits.  I have always wanted to say that I improved upon the things that my parents modeled for me and provided to me.  Unfortunately, I spent time evaluating the excellence in their leadership model and ignored the need to consider ways that they might have improved the care of the vessels that delivered the passionate service to so many.  I must work harder to make my physical and mental health priorities on a more consistent basis.  I really do need to put into practice the lessons I teach my students related to the importance of making decisions that will make me better one decision at a time.  I must make decisions each day to improve upon my parents’ models of self-care and get to living out the directives of my doctor: “Eat less meat. Exercise more.”