“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
After ten days of exploring the metaphor of marathon as a sense making tool for the pandemic, I broadened my query to include these questions:
• What are you discovering about yourself at this time that you want to hold on to and carry into the new normal?
• What will you leave behind that no longer serves you?
• For what are you grateful?
Top of my list of people whose opinion that I cherish is Mike Summers. Mike describes our relationship as symbiotic. I consider it a privilege. Mike is a leader in everything that he does. Visionary, thoughtful, action oriented, a learner – Mike steps up to make things better where ever he goes. Mike and I have been connected for more than thirty years. He opened the door for me to work with the Lakewood City Schools and the City of Lakewood. I have a Lakewood-centric practice thanks to the introductions of Mike Summers.
My passion is leadership. I work on developing my own leadership capacity. I study leadership, coach leadership, and strive to bring leadership to all that I do. My greatest leadership lessons are learned when being the ‘wing-man’ to an active leader. Mike has been a leader from which to learn.
So, it was his insight that I sought out this morning.
What are you discovering about yourself at this time?
“I am in a very different position from most people. I retired as Mayor of Lakewood in January, 2020. I had planned that this year would be filled with travel with my wife Wendy and with reflection while I charted a new course. I had been travelling at 100 miles per hour for so many years and retirement slowed me down to 30 miles per hour. Now COVID-19 has dropped my pace to 8 miles an hour. I anticipated that retirement would be a BIG adjustment but this? This was unforeseen.
“Originally, I planned to spend time reaching out to make meaningful connections with old friends —something I did not devote enough time to when I was living at 100 mph! And I had committed to staying on course given the major amount of time I was going to have being retired. But now I don’t have the opportunity to be with them face-to-face. So . . . I’m still looking for a creative way to make that happen.”
When Mike shared his thoughts on the second question —what he was leaving behind — he admitted he was still sorting that out.
“I want either to use the stuff I have or get rid of it. I don’t need to acquire anything more. I will make good use of the library or rent what I need. I am evolving and I will lighten my load.”
Mike, was quick to volunteer what he is grateful for:
“I am grateful for having a partner in my life— my wife, Wendy. We continue to enjoy life together. I trust her filter on all that she researches. (Right now she is the household COVID-19 expert!). We take walks together, sit around, and talk deeply about long-ago issues and our startling new understandings.”
He says all of this with great warmth and respect.
And while I appreciated his insights into these questions, my biggest take away from my conversation with Mike is this quote that he shared:
‘Chance favors the prepared mind.’
He had heard this quote of Louis Pasteur’s from a Nobel-Prize-winning professor at Cornell University who told the story of how an obstacle in their path to discovery did not deter them but lead to the ultimate breakthrough. The point was that obstacles do not stop you; they lead you in a new direction. And that’s what Mike sees happening from the CoVid19 ‘problem.’ We’re learning new directions, and new solutions. And very quickly, too.
Mike may not know exactly where he is going next , nor specifically what he is taking with him or letting go of, but with his wife as partner, they are exploring many landscapes and will be ready for that next adventure their leadership calls them to join. He knows that now is the time to prepare and ready for the next act.
I don’t expect Mike to be idle for long. Cleveland State University has invited him to be a Senior Fellow within the Levin School of Urban Affairs. He will be helping to design and lead a program for developing new Mayoral talent.
Whose leadership inspires your leadership?
How are you preparing yourself to be able to recognize the next opportunity when everything feels like an obstacle?
How are you adapting to the ‘curve ball’ of COVID-19?
Leslie
“In any moment of decision,
the best thing you can do is the right thing,
the next best thing is the wrong thing,
and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
“And the more we talked the more opportunities we created.”
— Leslie Yerkes