I was there. Sandwiched between 1.5 million to 2 million of my fellow Americans on the National Mall. Watching our 44th president, Barack Obama, take the oath of office. To summarize the myriad of swirling emotions I experienced is impossible and would border on gauche. Some experiences can only be summarized in a picture, a song, a piece of poetry. Words simply cannot serve them justice. Artists must step in and capture the moment.
This is not, however, to suggest that I won't share my thoughts. President Obama has called me, and the rest of our country, to partner in rebuilding our great nation.
"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done."
President Obama reminded us yesterday that the inauguration is not about him taking the most important office in the world. It is not about us electing our first African American president. The end of eight years of George W. Bush. Or the triumph of hope over fear. But rather, it is about us collectively inaugurating "big plans" to resurrect a stagnating country. And President Obama challenged us not to mistake wealth with success and growth. He called us to create prosperity both within and beyond our national borders. We are again to be a flat world.
"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."
President Obama has defined our national vision statement. Now, each of us must awaken to our purpose and craft and carry out our individual mission statements.
As a gal ensconced in values-driven leadership development, I find myself asking how can I empower individuals and organizations to "pursue their full measure of happiness" and lead successfully, sustainably, and for the maximum possible social impact?
I have discovered over the last year, a time in my life marked by some of my greatest wins and greatest "opportunities for growth" (aka challenges), that resiliency is one of the cornerstones of the kind of leadership I seek to foster in myself and others.
So during President Obama's first 100 days, I will focus on developing this core leadership competency in myself, my clients, my colleagues, my students, and my family and friends. I will offer a new low-cost teleclass, Future Proof Your Potential, allowing me to share my strategies for professional success with a larger audience, simultaneously providing the tools for other emerging and evolving leaders to design and implement their own action plans. I will continue to identify stymieing thought patterns in myself and others, reframing limitations as possibilities, shifting from "No we can't" to "Yes we can!"
These our my preliminary musings on OUR first 100 days. What will you inaugurate?
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