Inspiration | Rosetta Thurman

It’s Time to Smash the Damn Box (or Where This Blog is Headed in 2011)

January 3, 2011 by rosettathurman · Leave a Comment

Happy new year, beautiful people. It’s a new decade and it’s time for new things.

All new everything.

I mean it. There’s too much at stake in our lives and in our world. There are too many people suffering and living below their potential and too many people who have the power to do something about it but don’t.

It’s time to stand UP, beautiful people. It’s time to take your rightful place among all the other true believers and reconsider your role in this world.

It’s time to start thinking differently, and dare I say RADICALLY outside of the box. Matter of fact, we need to just smash the damn box and build a new one overflowing with ideas and dreams and possibilities. About things like what constitutes good leadership and how to finally ditch the myth of work/life balance and be more whole in our work.

The past year has been an exciting and terrifying one for me and my consulting business, with ups and downs and changes and evolutions and “lightbulb moments” galore. Right now, Thurman Consulting is actually starting to evolve more into an education company, which is where I feel I can best contribute and offer my gifts to the world. But more on that later.

In the spirit of looking back, I wanted to share the top 10 posts that you loved reading in 2010 and then give you an idea of how we might move forward together in 2011.

36 Facts About Generation Y in the Workplace and Beyond
50 Young Nonprofit Influencers You Should Be Following on Twitter (OK before I get one more comment about this, the service I used to compile this phenomenal list – TweepML – has been on the fritz for months, so don’t expect much from this link for now. Just wanted to acknowledge that it was the 2nd most viewed post of the year.)
11 Reasons Why New College Grads Should Pursue Nonprofit Careers
58 Quotes to Inspire Leadership, Resilience and Social Change
Four Ways to Create a Successful Nonprofit Career Path
Nine Nonprofit Conferences Worth Attending This Year (Under $500)
From Entry Level to Leadership: How to Join a Nonprofit Board of Directors
Seven Leadership Development Programs for Young Nonprofit Professionals
Are You Satisfied with Your Nonprofit Salary? Why or Why Not?
Is it Time for Generation Y to “Grow Up?”

So that was 2010. It was amazing but now it is gone. And now that I no longer work full-time in a nonprofit (or even in the nonprofit space), I’m asking some different questions of myself and others who support the work of social change and diverse leadership. Over the past year, I’ve been able to work with hundreds of nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs AND small business owners through coaching, training and speaking. In 2010, I launched two new blogs, Happy Black Woman and Blogging for Branding, both of which have afforded me the opportunity to explore my other personal and professional interests, expand my brand and learn new skills. After working at the intersections of leadership, social change, technology and personal development, I’ve found that there’s some very interesting overlap I’d like to explore, namely around authenticity, self-leadership, innovation, social media and marketing.

Here are some of the burning, fiery questions that I want to explore on the blog in the coming year.

Practical tips and spiritual truths: How can we support each other in releasing the fear that keeps us from practicing authentic leadership? What kind of personal and professional development is needed to make it happen? And if the current models are broken, how can we fix them?
Intrapreneurship and building a new box: How can organizations make space for more innovation to happen? How can we support the ruthless innovators in our networks that have the ideas and the answers?
Social networks and social capital: How can we help each other realize that social networks build social capital for ourselves and our organizations? What effect can personal branding have on making new leaders more visible? And how can we fully integrate social media into our communications and learn how to use the tools better?

I hope you’ll continue to join me as I examine these ideas on the blog. My tagline going into 2011 is “empowering a new generation of leaders” and for me, that means exploring new ways of not just doing but being as well. New ways of thinking that allow us to put it all on the line and use our gifts to do the very work we have been called to do. And do it better than anybody you ever seen do it. (c) Kanye West

You’ll want to subscribe here to make sure you get new posts as they come hot off the presses. Let’s make 2011 the year of all years. Let’s make it OUR year.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Leadership · Tagged With: Inspiration, Leadership

58 Quotes to Inspire Leadership, Resilience and Social Change

October 25, 2010 by rosettathurman · 8 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I love posting inspirational quotes on a daily basis. Every morning as part of my centering process, I look for sources of strength and wisdom not just to get me through the day, but to help me thrive as I go about my work. Here are just a few (okay, a lot) of the ones that inspire me the most. I hope they provide light for your journey as well. Please share your favorites that I can add to this list in the comments!

Leadership

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.” – W.E.B. Du Bois

“Once you make the unequivocal internal commitment to do something – when you absolutely know this is the time and the place to act – the world around you will shift in all sorts of apparently miraculous ways to make it happen.” - Sarah Susanka

“Start by starting.” – Meryl Streep

“The future started yesterday, and we’re already late.” - John Legend, “If You’re Out There”

“Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one else has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

“May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership… Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” - Leonardo da Vinci

“Talk does not cook rice.” - Chinese proverb

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas; I’m frightened of the old ones.” - John Cage

“Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.” - Viktor Frankl

“Never say ‘I could have done that’ because you didn’t.” - Karim Rashid

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate and to connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” - Oprah

“Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.” - H. Jackson Brown

“When you have chosen your part, abide by it and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself to the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common heroic. Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do.” – Etheridge Knight

“So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.” – Rumi

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

“This is not the time to be afraid or timid because the challenges are formidable. Now is the time to take both personal and institutional risks.” - Wenda Weekes Moore

“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” — Rumi

“You don’t lead by pointing a finger and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” – Ken Kesey

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down. “
- Ray Bradbury

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center. “ - Kurt Vonnegut

“Don’t let anyone speak for you, and don’t rely on others to fight for you.” - Michelle Obama

“Good things happen to those who hustle.” - Anais Nin

Resilience

“Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you…yet, someone survived…You can do anything you choose to do.” – Maya Angelou

“Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free . . . your true self comes out.” — Tina Turner

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs

“The journey is the destination.” – Dan Eldon

“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.” – Natalie Goldberg

“Things do not change; we change.” – Henry David Thoreau

“The end is nothing; the road is all.” – Willa Cather

“We don’t change what we are, we change what we think what we are.“ – Eric Butterworth

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” - Gilda Radner

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” - Robert Anson Heinlein

“Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.” – Tolstoy

“Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them.” – H. Jackson Brown

“One thing is certain: That is that the power of belief, the power of thought, will move reality in the direction of what we believe and conceive of it. If you really believe you can do something, you can. That is a fact.” - Daisaku Ikeda

“You can fall, but you can rise also.” - Angelique Kidjo

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life only demands from you the strength you possess.”- Dag Hammarskjold

“Whatever it is, if it doesn’t make you happy, walk away, give it away to someone else who wants it. Let it be their next dream; let it flee from you. Then you have room to grow, to allow magnificent things to fill the vacuum of those seemingly empty places. When you hold onto yesterday, when you hold onto dead and dying adventures, you have no room in your box for greatness.” - Unknown

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” - George Eliot

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” - J. B. Priestley

“No one who is being himself is going to be approved of all the time. The whole world could love you, but if you do not love yourself, you would not even notice. The opposite is also true – the whole world could disapprove of you, but if you love yourself, you would not even notice. Accept yourself within you and the entire world becomes totally acceptable.” – Bartholomew

Social Change

“There is no greater gift to future generations than that we do the work God has asked us to do: love one another, that the world might be made right.” – Marianne Williamson

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.” - Woodrow Wilson

“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” - Marian Wright Edelman

“Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.” - Rosemary Brown

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” - Ray Bradbury

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” - Audre Lorde

“It takes more than money to change the world. We need a movement.” - Sheila C. Johnson

“To be young and not be revolutionary is a biological contradiction.” - Unknown

“Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.” - Pablo Casals

“The only way to change the world is to change yourself.” - Sarah Susanka

“One must be able to get indignant.” - Abbé Pierre

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Filed Under: Inspiration ·

The World Needs You to Be You

October 12, 2010 by rosettathurman · 30 Comments

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

It’s about time I let you in on a little secret. I’ve never felt completely at home in the nonprofit sector. As I began my career, what I wanted more than anything was to fit in. I wanted to be seen as qualified and competent and educated and worthy of doing the jobs I was hired to do. It was very rare that I let my co-workers in on any personal aspects of my life beyond where I went to school and where I was from. I wanted people to think that I was just like them.

Nevermind the fact that in reality, I actually had very little in common with many of the nonprofit leaders I worked with. One of my first bosses was so well-off that she barely took a salary. How difficult it was for me to be able to explain to her how much I needed a raise so I could finally quit my part-time job as a hostess and devote my full attention to the nonprofit field. Or in instances where I was out to lunch with co-workers, partners or even funders, who went around the table introducing themselves. I don’t know if this is a Washington DC thing or not, but the question, “what do your parents do” often came up in these settings. It was always really uncomfortable for me. For one, it assumed that everyone at the table had two parents. And two, that those parents had respectable careers that merited impressed head nodding from everyone at the table.

It was hard to tell my truth after hearing the stories of how my lunchmates’ parents completed Ivy League education and put them through the same, all the while embarking on lucrative careers that resulted in homes that my colleagues had fond memories growing up in. What was I supposed to say? That my mom had me when she was 15? That my father was a drug dealer? That I grew up in the projects? That it took my mom 20 years to complete her college education and was just now beginning a stable career in her 40s? Mostly, I just tried to avoid those conversations. It pained me to sit at those tables.

It made me realize just how different I was, even to people that I was working side by side with to effect social change.

I did not yet know that different can be good. Not until people like Joe Gerstandt hipped me to the game. Identity diversity, or differences in who we are, can bring innovation to a sector that desperately needs it. It was great that I grew up differently than my colleagues. It was not so great that I felt the need to hide it.

Ever since I left Austin, I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity and what that looks like for me in my work. I’m also wondering what it looks like for other young people of color who work in the nonprofit field. Do you feel the need to hide who you really are to fit in to the nonprofit culture? Are you like my sister in blogging Akhila Kolisetty, afraid, deeply afraid to reveal all?

Yes? Then you probably need to hear what I’m about to tell you.

I hereby give you permission to stop denying yourself. Stop hiding your background and your experiences and your stories. The world needs you to be you. The world needs you to show up and show OUT and unleash the nonprofit rockstar within. What the world needs is for you to come alive with your unique passion for social change. Not to fit in with all the people who dress and act the part but have no idea what living the part really means.

Today, I wish for you what I wish for myself – the grace and the courage to step out into the kind of leadership that YOU define, not someone else. Because no matter who you are, there’s a place for you at the nonprofit table.

Filed Under: Inspiration, Leadership · Tagged With: Authenticity, being authentic, being yourself

The Fear and the Love and Why I Hate That Damn Lizard Brain

May 17, 2010 by rosettathurman · Leave a Comment

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” - Marianne Williamson

Today I have a call with a nonprofit book editor. I met her two years ago at the conference where I was forced to wear a suit. After my speech, she came up to me and gave me her card. Asked me I’d ever thought about writing a book. In my mind I was screaming, “I’m a writer, of course I’ve thought about writing a book! It’s the first thing on my bucket list!” I don’t think I said that to her, though. She told me she’d be back in town later in the year and to keep in touch.

I never did contact her.

At the time, I’d only been blogging for a year. I couldn’t believe that someone might seriously want to talk to me about writing a book. Who did I think I was? I was 24 years old. What could I possibly have to say that would fill an entire book that anyone would ever buy? I convinced myself that there was no point in staying in touch with this crazy book woman. Instead, I kept her card on my desk as a reminder of the possibility that one day, someone might think I was awesome enough to write a book.

I was too afraid to believe that I already was.

Fast forward two years later and me and the book editor paths cross again. This time, it’s the announcement of my new blog on the Chronicle of Philathropy website, Leading Edge. She emails to congratulate me and suggests we schedule a conversation to talk about book ideas. Book ideas!

This time, I’m elated. After blogging for three years, I now have enough evidence to convince myself that people really do want to hear what I have to say. And last year, I even began working on my own book project, tentatively titled Getting from Entry Level to Leadership: 50 Ways to Accelerate Your Nonprofit Career. The first concise guide of its kind, the book will weave an inspiring path for young professionals who want to build meaningful and rewarding nonprofit careers.

But the thing is, I didn’t really tell anyone I was writing the book. I just wrote a little blurb about it and put it on my blog. Very few people noticed it. Except the universe. The universe notices everything. Once I finally put finger to keys and started writing the damn thing, the universe has been moving in all kinds of amazing ways for me. And for that I’m incredibly grateful. It’s time to face my big dreams, even when it’s easier not to. It’s easier to be afraid and unsure of myself. It’s easier to suffer from Imposter Syndrome.

Fear is easy.

That’s why there are so many decisions we make out of fear. Lizard brain choices. Seth Godin describes the lizard brain this way:

We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.

The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we’re amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we’re going to do?

The lizard brain.

See? That’s why I hate that damn lizard brain. It’s the epicenter of fear. Because when we listen to the lizard brain, we make the kind of choices that lead us on a path away from our big dreams. These days, I’m much more interested in how we can move toward them. I’m interested in how we can push past that fear into the kind of love that reminds us of who we really are. The kind of love that can change our lives…if we let it.

Love is hard.

Loving ourselves enough to face our big dreams is even harder. The lizard brain is amazingly powerful. I mean, just think about your life right now. Are you making most of your choices out of fear or out of love? Do you ever wonder how much more awesome it would be if you finally took the plunge and did the thing you’ve always wanted to do?

I want you to believe me but more than that I want you to believe in yourself. The world is yours if you want it. I know – everyone has to get there on their own time. But what I’ve come to find out is that if you take the first step, everything else falls into place.

When you let go of the fear, the love will come after you.

Filed Under: Inspiration · Tagged With: courage, Inspiration

Do One Thing

March 3, 2010 by rosettathurman · 6 Comments

Tomorrow is not promised to any one of us, no matter how much we try to trick ourselves into believing that it is. We carry that calendar, cell phone and laptop as a crutch to ensure that we’re so busy there has to be a tomorrow so we can finish up that project, send that email, schedule that meeting. But the reality is that for all of us, there will be one day when tomorrow will not come. There will be one day when we do not roll over in the bed to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. There will be one day when we will not wake up to greet the golden sky.

I heard author and motivational speaker John St. Augustine give a speech once at a book festival in Charlottesville, Virginia. He said to think of your life as a timeline. The average person lives to age 77. He said to think about where you are now on the timeline between your current age and 77. The space between is the unknown.

The problem is that most people are afraid of the unknown. Most people are so afraid of the unknown that they live unhappy and mediocre lives until they aren’t living anymore. They have big dreams that they’re even afraid to speak out loud for fear they might have to make them come true. But deep down, we all want the kind of courage it takes to live what John St. Augustine calls “the uncommon life.” Deep inside of each of us, there’s a glimmer of wanting light that yearns to do something real. John says that living the uncommon life is about deliberately doing different things so your life will be better, more fulfilling. The uncommon life is not for people who say they’re going to wait until they get all their ducks in a row before they do what they really want to do. It’s not for people who insist that they’ll follow their dream of starting a business or spending more time with their family, or taking that trip to Paris…once they’ve reached a certain age or point in their lives.

Because we all know that tomorrow is not promised. All we really have is today.

So where do you start?

Do one thing today to move your dream forward, even if it’s as simple as writing it down and taping it up on your computer. Do one thing today to remind yourself that life is too short not to do what makes you happy. Do one thing today to move yourself closer to living the uncommon life.

Image credit: Wishful Thinking

Filed Under: Inspiration · Tagged With: courage, Inspiration, John St. Augustine