Dangly Earrings and Other Breaks with the Past

Issue 138 — August 10, 2020

CBS Sunday Morning reminded me, in a piece about President Gerald Ford’s photographer David Hume Kennerly, that August 9 was the anniversary of the date in 1974 when President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Why is this relevant?

Well, it is quite relevant to me, for it marked a major turning point in my life and my career. As it happens, that is also the date on which I was offered and accepted my first CEO position. I became executive director of the small young Planned Parenthood affiliate in West Texas.

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The Sum – Meaning of the Week: Love

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.”—Warren Bennis. Word of the week is LOVE. ‪As in what matters when your house is flooded. As in the secret to dealing with hate speech at work. As in the human capacity to rise higher than Harvey’s waters and help each other. What matters Suddenly we…

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The Sum – Meaning of the Week: Crossroads

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.”—Warren Bennis. Word of the week is CROSSROADS. As in a junction where two or more roads meet, offering the traveler multiple paths. As in an intersection, a point at which a crucial decision must be made that will have far reaching consequences (yep, I googled this…

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The Sum – Meaning of the Week: #SisterCourage

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.”—Warren Bennis. Word of the week is #SisterCourage. As in be a sister. Have the courage to raise the issues that need to be tackled even if they are hard. Put sister and courage together with a strategic plan and act on it and you can…

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The Sum Volume #7: Code

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.” —Warren Bennis. Welcome to The Sum, where I share my take on the meaning of sum of the week’s parts. I want your voice too. Leave comments here or @GloriaFeldt My word of the week is CODE: As in Cracking the code, Learning to code, and Rewriting…

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The Sum Volume #6: Diverging from Freedom

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.”—Warren Bennis. Welcome to the Sum, where I share my take on the meaning of sum of the week’s parts. I want your voice too. Leave comments here or @GloriaFeldt. Word of the week is, as you would guess, freedom. And it’s also divergence. As in how the…

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The Sum Volume #4: Heat

“The first responsibility of leadership is the creation of meaning.”—Warren Bennis. Word of the Week is: Heat  I landed in Phoenix @ 120 degrees. Or 122, but who’s counting. Yes, it feels like putting your head in an oven even if it’s a dry heat. There’s lots of heat everywhere.  They say if you can’t…

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Take The Leap (Day) to Make Your Own History

It’s Leap Day! February 29 is the every-fourth-year calendar adjustment for the Gregorian calendar’s imperfections. The extra day appended to February inspired a leap of vision and blazing hope for women in 5th Century Ireland, when St. Bridget persuaded St. Patrick to declare that a woman could do what was then the unthinkable: ask a…

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5 Things You Can Do Today for Equal Pay

This was in my Twitter feed today to remind me it’s Equal Pay Day: This is funny, + sadly, true. On average, ♀ r working 22% of the time 4 free. We need 2 fix this. https://t.co/c76v6hqeXC @GloriaFeldt — Sheryl L. Axelrod (@sher_lawyer) April 14, 2015 I don’t know about you, but I’m sooo tired…

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