Courage | Rosetta Thurman

The Nonprofit Sector Needs More Buffalo

May 28, 2010 by rosettathurman · 5 Comments

Author, political commentator, and veteran campaign strategist Donna Brazile offers some sage advice in this month’s O Magazine:

Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee nation, once told me how the cow runs away from the storm while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker. Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.

As the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign, Donna Brazile has definitely overcome her share of challenges in her journey to a successful career. But what about you? When you’re faced with a challenge, are you the cow or the buffalo?

From what I see, Generation Y nonprofit professionals act more like cows. We’re not willing to take the risks associated with real leadership, we just want to get to the destination with no pain and preferably with a nice little roadmap, thankyouverymuch. Even though young people have all the wherewithall to be the buffalo – education, passion, networks – we’re afraid of potential failure. We’re more likely to watch and wait in our air-conditioned cubicles for mentors to show us the way.

But, for real though? The nonprofit sector really doesn’t need more cows who run away from the storms of social change. We have too many of those already. What we need now are more buffalo who will face the challenges in our communities head-on and charge right through the fear and uncertainty for the greater good. We need more buffalo because of what they represent: leadership.

Image credit: Neil Estrick

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged With: courage, Generation Y

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

Who Teaches Us to Question?

February 12, 2010 by rosettathurman · 10 Comments

I was reading Marian Wright Edelman’s elegant piece, Remembering Howard Zinn and I was struck by this part:

Howie taught me to question and ponder what I read and heard and to examine and apply the lessons of history in the context of the daily political, social, and moral challenges all around us in the South like racial discrimination and income inequality. He combined book learning with experiential opportunities to engage in interracial discussions; partnered with community groups challenging legal segregation; and engaged students as participants, observers, data collectors, and witnesses in pending legal cases.

Marian’s words made me think about my own teachers. Looking back, I realize that the most valuable lesson they taught me was to question. To think critically about everything. Everything. From my college professors who taught me feminist theory and religious studies and philosophy and Black history. Oh, and poetry. The ultimate truth. My professors pushed me to investigate what was true for myself. They taught me to even question them and the PhD certificates framed on their office walls.

When I got to grad school, it seemed like the total opposite. In my nonprofit management program, I was taught to obey all the “best practices” of the nonprofit world. “This,” my professors told me, “is how you do social change.” I read all the books and learned all the theories. I even went out to the Midwest to learn how to raise money at The Fundraising School, where they taught me everything I needed to know about fundraising.

When I first started out in my nonprofit career, I was constantly praised for implementing all the neat stuff I’d learned in grad school. “This is how you write a grant proposal,” I would say to organizations that needed help building their capacity. Not once did I broach a conversation with them about why they were using problematic language. Not once did I question the status quo.

In the “real” world of nonprofit management, I had lost a bit of my idealistic college fire. I had forgotten that I’d come to the sector not just to build better organizations, but to build a better world. I had forgotten that I’d come here in pursuit of truth with a capital “T.”

But after a while, I did begin to ask questions. Why do we do what we do the way we do it? Why do we say one thing in the staff meeting and another in the fundraising meeting? Why do we have to kiss so and so politico’s ass when they clearly don’t give a damn about the people we serve? Why aren’t we using our power to compel the community to action? Why are there so many white people in nonprofit leadership positions when so much of our work is serving communities of color?

I learned the answers to these questions and more very quickly. The easy answer? Because that’s just the way it is and always will be. The more nuanced one? Because no one wants to rock the boat with their boards, with their “friends” inside the City Council or the White House, with their funders. Especially with their funders. It’s much easier to obey.

Just ask DC Central Kitchen president Robert Egger, who has been trying to mobilize his colleagues around the country to change the way we do the work of social change for many years now. He even wrote a book about it. He even started the V3 Campaign to help them do it. Yet many people in the sector consider him a “rebel.” I’ve heard people whisper in the conference hallways that they wish he would get off his soapbox.

I want to ask them why they don’t have a soapbox. Why are they not asking the questions? Isn’t that what being an “independent sector” is all about?

I suspect that the reason that Marian treasured her time with Howard Zinn so much is because very few people do what he did. Very few people are in the business of questioning. The ones that do? Well, we call them rebels. We don’t let them sit at the big kid’s table. We kick them out of the White House.

You will say that I’m naive. I am not. I get the whole money, politics, power thing, I do. I see how it affects nonprofit organizations. It’s a hard line. Sometimes we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. But I want to see us lead from that hard place.

Because unless we do, we become merely keepers of the status quo. We become cogs in a broken wheel. And yes, we know that it’s broken. We see it coming off its hinges before our very eyes. We just don’t want to ask the hard questions that could lead us to fixing it.