Encouraging Words and Leaders Who Encourage
Do you ever have a day when you know you need some encouraging words? Today is one of them for me. So may irons in the fire, anxious with waiting for them to come to fruition, feeling like sometimes hard work doesn’t pay. You know. We’ve all been there.
So I want to share two antidotes that are encouraging to me. First is Women’s eNews big fundraising dinner tonight honoring 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. This event produces enough positive energy to levitate our spirits to the sky and fuel our collective passion for bettering the lives of women everywhere. Be sure to read all these amazing, inspiring women’s stories.
One especially close to my heart are my friend Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes, head of the Mexican reproductive rights advocacy group GIRE that has led the successful effort to decriminalize abortion in Mexico City based on human rights legal principles.
And of course, there is Lilly Ledbetter whose courage and tenacity set the pace for anyone who is determined to change an unjust policy. The Federal law named for her is a huge step toward equal pay for equal work regardless of gender, and was the first bill President Obama signed into law upon taking office.
So that brings me back to these “Encouraging Words” that I reread when I need a little extra oomph. They’ve been attributed to several people, but I first saw them credited to Abel Muzorewa, former prime minister of Zimbabwe, and I hope they give you as much inspiration as they do me–whoever actually said them first:
INTENTIONING
Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women
Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good
The new book from Gloria Feldt about the future, taking the leadership lessons learned from this disruption and creating a better world for all through the power of intention.
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered
Love them anyway
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives
Do good anyway
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies
Succeed anyway
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow
Do good anyway
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable
Be honest and frank anyway
The biggest person with the biggest idea can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind
Think big anyway
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs
Fight for some underdogs anyway
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight
Build anyway
People need help, but may attack you if you help them
Help people anyway
Give the world the best you have and sometimes you’ll get kicked in the teeth
Give the world your best anyway
–Abel Muzorewa
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.