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    You are here Home » leaders

    How Adversity Affects the Backbone, and Soul, of a Leader

    Last updated on Oct 27, 2016 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from Bernie Swain:   


    Leadership requires all sorts
    of qualities: judgment, character, confidence, an unshakeable commitment to a
    work ethic guided by a moral compass. But in order to lead others, people also have
    to lead themselves, a quality that is often tested during periods of adversity.


    I got to know many leaders in
    politics, the military, business, sports, and entertainment over the 30-plus years
    that I led the Washington Speakers Bureau, a company I co-founded and built. I
    learned that one of the key turning points in their lives came as a result of a
    personal setback that shook them to their core. They drew on inner resources
    they sometimes didn’t know they had to not only persevere through an unexpected
    job loss, health issue, or family crisis but to define and shape a future that would
    have new meaning. They emerged battered, but stronger—and much more aware of what
    they could control, and what they couldn’t.

    The lessons they learned—about
    themselves, the curveballs thrown by life, and the power that comes from staying
    the course—offer insights to all who aspire to leadership roles that will help
    them harden their backbones and soften their souls. Here are some of those
    lessons.
     
    Lou
    Holtz
    is the only coach in football history to have taken teams
    from four colleges to a top 20 ranking. But when he was 28, he was let go from
    his job as a defensive backfield coach at the University of South Carolina.

    He had a big mortgage, no
    savings, two kids, and a wife who was one month away from delivering their
    third. “Have you ever thought about going into a different profession?” Lou was
    asked by the coach who laid him off.
     
    The answer, of course, was and
    is no, and that coach wound up rehiring him. The lessons young Holtz learned
    that year “have guided me all my life,” he told me.

    “Adversity is part of life, no
    matter who you are, what your age, and what you do. You will never outgrow or
    outlive it, but you can be motivated by it. You have two choices: you either
    stay down or pick yourself up.”
     
    Judy
    Woodruff
    has been a prominent television journalist and news anchor
    for more than 40 years. She’s also the mother of three children. Her oldest,
    Jeffrey, was born with a mild form of spina bifida, a defect that involves the
    spinal cord. When he was 10 months old, Jeffrey had a shunt implanted—shunts
    drain away excess fluid—and he became an active kid who played sports and did
    well academically.
    But when he was in the 10th
    grade, the shunt needed to be replaced, there was a complication, and
    “something went terribly wrong” during follow-up surgery, Judy recalls, leaving
    Jeffrey with a serious brain injury. He would be functional again on some
    level, but never fully recover. He couldn’t walk, his short-term memory was
    gone, his speech was severely compromised.

    “We willed ourselves to go
    on,” Judy recalls. She and her husband, fellow journalist Al Hunt Jr., pulled
    together, helped by a group of Jeffrey’s former teachers who became volunteer
    tutors and by medical students who served as companions. Jeffrey is just as
    smart as before, but “because of his physical disabilities, and especially
    because of his impaired short-term memory, every day for him is like climbing
    Mount Everest.” Jeffrey met the daily challenge with “courage and
    determination.”  Eventually, he went back
    to school and graduated from college. Now, more than 15 years later, he has a
    “pretty good life,” lives in a group home and has a job.

    “I would never wish our
    experience on anyone,” Judy says, “and yet seeing what our son has accomplished
    against such long odds has been unimaginably rewarding. When you meet Jeffrey
    Hunt and see what it takes for him to get through the day—and how he does it
    with a positive outlook and a sense of humor—it makes your own problems seem
    very small . . . Al and I could spend the rest of our lives being angry. But we
    take our cue from Jeffrey. We get on with life.”  

    Stew
    Leonard Jr.
    led a charmed life for many years, helping to
    run the fabulously successful chain of Stew Leonard’s food stores founded by
    his father. Everything was good until New Year’s Day 1989 when his 21-month-old
    son, Stewie, escaped attention for just a few moments and fell into a pool.  “Life can change in an instant,” Stew
    remembers of his son’s death. “Even at that moment, I knew everything would be
    divided into ‘before’ and ‘after.’ “

    The “after” was predictably
    very dark at first. Besides blaming each other for what happened, Stew and his
    wife, Kim, went through waves of grief, anger, and resentment.

    “Sometimes, well-meaning
    people would say, ‘You’ll get over this.’ But one of the lessons I learned is
    that you don’t ever get over a trauma that deep. You can’t simply wrap it up,
    leave it behind, and move on with your life as if it hadn’t happened.”

    But what you can do is change.
    “I am a different person . . . I hug my four daughters and my wife a lot longer
    and tighter now. And my life is slower now. Oh, work is fast, but I look at
    people differently. When I look at someone today, I am overwhelmed with the
    thought, ‘What’s happening in their life?’

    “What Stewie’s death taught me
    falls somewhere between empathy and perspective . . . I was born with
    advantages and privilege. Most people aren’t. When tragedy hits, it’s very
    humbling. You realize your basic humanity, and that it’s something we all
    share.” 

    More than 25 years after
    losing his son, Stew says, “I am still trying to figure it out. What I can say
    clearly is that I am inspired to be a better person.”

     
     

    ABOUT
    THE AUTHOR

    Washington DC-based BERNIE
    SWAIN is co-founder of Washington Speakers Bureau and today's  foremost
    authority on the lecture industry.  Over
    the past 35 years, Swain has represented former US Presidents, cabinet members,
    business executives, public figures, media leaders, and sports legends.  His new book, What Made Me Who I Am, is
    available everywhere.  For more, visit BernieSwain.com.
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