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

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

No Greater Gift

February 19, 2010 by rosettathurman · 1 Comment

“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

Posted via web from homeplace

Filed Under: Inspiration, Leading by Faith · Tagged With: Inspiration, Marianne Williamson, Quotes

Work is Love Made Visible (Or Why I Quit My Job)

December 12, 2009 by rosettathurman · 29 Comments

“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

When I was fifteen years old, I got my very first job at Pizza Hut. I was so happy that I would no longer have to beg my mom for money to go hang out at the mall. Also, I loved pizza and thought it was the best opportunity for me to eat more of it. I made $5.50 an hour for taking orders over the phone, assembling the various pizzas and getting them into the oven in record time. I was also responsible for mopping the floors and washing all the utensils at the end of the night. I was so proud of myself for being self-sufficient. I filled out the job application all by myself as my high school guidance counselor had taught me and I smiled a lot during my interview so they would know I would never steal money from the register. After school, I rushed to work because I was so excited to put together all the Meat Lover’s pies with extra care. But after a while, my love affair with Pizza Hut wore off. I still loved to eat pizza, I just got tired of making them. Besides, my clothes smelled like tomato sauce all the time. This was my first workplace lesson: you don’t have to stay in one place forever. If you lose the love for what you do, it’s OK to quit.

The way I started my nonprofit career when I was 19 is that I was an English major and a local nonprofit agency was looking for a grantwriter. I had been volunteering to help poor Black kids learn how to read but I had no idea that people actually did this kind of thing for a living. I had no idea what a nonprofit was or what a grant looked like, but I knew I could write anything for anyone and besides I liked the idea of getting paid. Naturally, over the last seven years, my nonprofit career has always been heavy on fundraising, especially on the grantwriting side. I got so good at it, and I loved using my writing skills to garner financial assets for the organizations I worked for.

But then I started to hate grantwriting. I grew tired of writing the same thing 16 different ways and trying to put a creative twist on each proposal. I coped by doing more and more consulting on a part-time basis through organizations that contacted me through this blog. Then I realized that I enjoyed the consulting more than my day job! I loved being able to get away from the technical writing and develop new ideas and solutions for some really cool projects with various organizations that were so different from mine. I wondered if I could make this love into my full-time work.

So this week, I quit my job. After almost four years of serving as Director of Development and Special Programs at the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington in DC, I am moving on to pursue a new chapter in my professional life. When I started at the Roundtable in 2006, we had a full-time staff of three. We’ve since doubled our staff, grown our fundraising capacity, increased our visibility in the business community, and developed new programs to help nonprofit leaders during the economic crisis. I am most proud of the work I was able to spearhead to support emerging nonprofit leaders through our Future Executive Directors Fellowship.

In 2007, I was inspired to start this blog and in 2008, my internet radio show about nonprofits and leadership, and it has afforded me some amazing opportunities to travel around the country and consult with groups around how to approach intergenerational leadership issues, promote racial diversity, and tell their stories using social media.

As of January 1, I will be a full-time consultant with my own firm, Thurman Consulting; providing speaking, training, writing and social media services for nonprofits, foundations and socially responsible companies. I will also continue teaching nonprofit management courses in the graduate program at Trinity University in DC. I’ve already been consulting part-time for two years and though I’ve enjoyed it, my biggest fear was losing the financial cushion of a steady job. But here’s what really happened. As soon as I made that decision, I landed my first big client, the Black Philanthropic Alliance. “Big” meaning if I never got another client in 2010, I would be OK. Not rich, but OK. I had really been looking for more opportunities to work on behalf of the African American community, and there it was. The universe responds. Once you decide that your work will be love made visible, something will come along and enable that to happen for you. Something will come along.

Seems like every other day, there’s some article in the news about someone who has started a business in the recession because jobs aren’t as secure as they used to be. Indeed, more nonprofit organizations are cutting staff during the economic downturn and outsourcing many programs and projects to people like me. If there ever was a time to do something new with your career, it’s now, when the rules of the game are changing so fast that there’s no right answer. It’s just like Rainer Maria Rilke said a century ago:

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

By quitting my job, I’ve become what one of my mentors calls a “Free Negro.” It’s scary and exhilarating and I do, in fact, feel free. I feel like how I’ve wanted to feel for a long time. And now that I think about it, I almost don’t want 2010 to come too fast because 2009 has been so completely awesome. But then I realize that’s scarcity thinking rearing its ugly head. Abundance says there will be even more awesome in 2010. There will be even more clients and opportunities to learn and grow. There will be even more chances to live out my values and take leaps of faith. There will be even more love. Even more.

P.S. The Nonprofit Roundtable is currently recruiting for a new Director of Development and Special Programs – please feel free to contact me directly if you or someone you know is interested in the position! It’s a great opportunity for an experienced nonprofit professional with a background in capacity building or membership associations to step into a leadership role with a dynamic organization.

P.P.S. Of course, now that I’m working on my own, I’m looking for a few good clients! Please let me know if there is ever anything I can do to help you or your organization. You can learn more about my services and view my portfolio here.

Photo credit: Tonya Plank

I’m blogging every single day this month for 31 Days of Giving to celebrate my 27th birthday on December 31 and asking all my friends to donate $27 to benefit the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Washington DC. Will you give? Your gift would really make a difference for young nonprofit leaders in DC!

Filed Under: Inspiration, Leading by Faith · Tagged With: Inspiration