April 28, 2008

Keynote Presenter: 

Some would say, who would have thought that this little girl raised in Toledo, OH would be asked to address such an auspicious audience at this momentous event?

I did - that is the answer.  I did believe that life would offer me an array of opportunities that I could only imagine as a small child.  I did believe because even then I believed in "The Audacity of Faith."

It has been the purpose of my life, and it will be the purpose of my talk to grasp the audacity of faith, and understand how it has directed and continues to direct my life.

The purpose of my life...it is the purpose of my term as president and CEO,  my purpose as a mother, wife, and yes, I accept, my purpose as role model:  To make life better in this season.

As we know from Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun." (3:1-8)

To leave things better for the lives I touch within my home and within my world, that is my purpose for my time under this sun.

I titled today's comments "The Audacity of Faith."  Come with me as we look at what the title, "The Audacity of Faith" means to me.  According to a dictionary definition, the word "audacity" has been defined since the 15th C as: the bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints.

If it is bold or arrogant to have faith, I stand here as bold and arrogant!

However, when you have faith, it appears bold and arrogant to NOT believe in the Audacity of Faith.  For me, Faith is a part of our lives.

Which begs the question:  What is Faith?  There are probably as many different interpretations as there are people here today.  Since the 13th C, faith has been defined as a: belief and trust in and loyalty to God.

Let us embrace the myriad of ways that all of us live the audacity of faith, how each of us believe and trust in a loyalty to our God, in our everday lives. 

Having the audacity of faith means:

• Knowing that you can get through anything
• Knowing that nothing in life can bring you down and keep you down.
• Knowing and believing in the audacity of faith doesn't mean we won't go through trials and tributions.
• Knowing and appreciating the calm after the storm.
• Knowing that there is always a way to get through.

THAT IS THE AUDACITY OF FAITH.

Together let's look at the remaining title of today's talk.  "Energized by Obstacles:" what it means to me and what it will mean to you after our morning together.

Since I was first asked to speak at this Signature Event, I've thought about what I want people to say after I speak.  I would like for you, all of you, to say that you enjoyed learning something about my journey and me.  Perhaps I can change your thought process about how you go about your life.  Perhaps my speech will be a pause, to stop and process.  Perhaps the best advice I ever received:  "Do what feels right" will be the best advice you ever received.

The dictionary's second definition of "energized is: to impart energy, as sunlight energizes chemcal reactions. That is what I think faith is:  An almost chemical reaction to be energized.

Apparently, obstacles are nothing new; the word has existed since the 14th C.  It is defined as:  to stand in front of, something that impedes progress or achievement.

So, there we have it:  the title for today's talk and my take on life.  Obstacles on one hand, a spiritual energy on the other, and when the Audacity of Faith is in evidence, a physical combustion occurs to take flight over anything that impedes our forward progress.

My introduction to the audacity of faith began when I was a young child.  My Aunt Bobbie was a force of nature, the first person in my life who asked the questions to get me ready...for life and for every challenge that it has to offer.

Every Saturday my Aunt Bobbie drove me to every Goodwill store and every rummage sale that Saturday's newspaper ads announced.  At a young age, I figured that my aunt brought me along to count change.  It was my job to circle the next rummage sale stop in the Toledo Blade.  Each Saturday's journey ended on downtown Cherry Street, where the day's treasures were topped only by the trip to sit at Woolworth's counter.

What I didn't realize until adulthood, was that my aunt was teaching me how to plan my life.  It wasn't the questions that Aunt Bobbie asked that were so important.  It was that the questions forced a young Bernett to start thinking.  For with every answer, I found another question lurking in the front seat.  Aunt Bobbie was the eternal questioner, coaxing her young protege to look at issues from every angle and a wider lens.

As I progressed from elementary school to middle school, the questions progressed as well to:  Where are you going to college?  What's your major going to be?  As I matured to high school, the questions matured also:  What grades do you need to get into college?  What schools have that major?  In college, the questions often emanated from a deeper place:  What if you don't get into that program?  What if you have to re-locate?  What if you don't like it?  And then I graduated and morphed into the workplace.  Now, who would ask the questions that would get me ready?

I was ascending up the corporate ladder.  Who would now ask me the questions to get me ready?  It's likely that no one is asking because "they" think you already know.  And you think you are supposed to know.  You may have even stopped asking yourself questions.

This vacuum of curiosity is a detriment to you and your company, firm, or team.  You benefit from an external, objective source to ask you questions from a different perspective.  For me, my faith has often served as that perspective to help get me ready.

What will you remember from my comments?

Perhaps you will remember to be or find an objective source to ask you questions that get you ready.  Don't be reluctant to use faith as your source.  With faith at your side there will come a time when you not only benefit from someone asking you questions, you can benefit someone else by asking questions.  Silently, you will pass from beneficiary of questions asked to the one who asks questions of others.  Who are you helping to get ready?  To whom can you pass on the audacity of faith?

Once you embrace the audacity of faith, you look at situations and challenges difdferently.  Others may say your decision or your course of action makes no sense.  What do you say?  --YES IT DOES.

I left my first career job for my first pregnancy leave after three promotions.  Imagine my surprise when I came back, sad to leave my newborn son, Justin, excited to return to my position and my office.  Except that someone else was sitting in  my chair, in my office.

Others said, just let it go, it makes no sense to fight, no sense to question procedure.  What do you say?-- YES IT DOES. 

It got to the point I had to consider legal action.  Others said, just let it go, it makes no sense to fight, no sense to question procedure.  At times like this, with the audacity of faith at your side, what do you say?-- YES IT DOES.

And we fought, and we won, and it was because I had the audacity of faith to believe that right would win over wrong.  YES IT DOES.

My journey led me to the Urban League.  In my first interview, I met with the executive director.  The agency was under financial allegations.  I faced him and asked him a direct question:  "Can we meet payroll?"  Aunt Bobbie's lessons paid off:  to ask questions that would help get me ready for my next challenge.

As a new employee I was isolated from the gossip mill.  I focused on what I needed to do in my work as a new team member.  Then the executive director was put on leave.  I was asked to step up to fill the vacuum.  This is what I knew:

• I knew how to talk to people.
• I knew how to listen to people.
• I knew how to find answers.

This is what I didn't know:

• The IRS would take the money owed them.
• There would be yet more challenges ahead.
• That things would get worse.

After two weeks on the job, our director resigned.  Allegations continued and I was asked to apply for the CEO position.  The National Urban League has a process to certify candidates.  Each local affiliate has to send three candidates to be interviewed by representatives of the national organization.  I went to the interview with a nothing to lose attitude.  LIfe was good.  I had just found out I was pregnant again.

On the way to the interview, I received a call from my office.  The voice on the other end of the line advised me to pull over before continuing the conversation.  The update was, the IRS had levied our operating account.  There was no money for payroll.  I continued on to the interview where I was asked the hypothetical questions that interviewers often ask, the "what would you do if"... questions.  I gave them my real life scenarios and told them:  "This is what I know, we are going to deal with it."  Some would say it makes no sense to interview with an agency under investigation.  Makes no sense? What do you say?  YES IT DOES...when you have the audacity of faith.

Come back with me to an emergency community meeting during this time.  Just when we thought it could not get any worse, in the middle of this meeting, a representative from the water department came into the meeting looking for where to shut off our water.  To many, it made no sense to take the executive position in an organization where the city threatened to turn off the water and the IRS empteied the accounts.  Made no sense?  What do you say?  YES IT DOES.

Our predecessors gave us a quality organization with integrity.  A foundation so solid it could withstand the tides that almost took us out to sea.

One year ago, the Urban League moved into our new home.  Can you picture the excitement of our new glass headquarters?  A new facility.  We have raised 5 million dollars for our new facility and our staff has quadrupled.  

It makes no sense to have gone from IRS devastation to our new building, from the water almost being turned off to an endowment being turned on..Makes no sense?  What do you say?  YES IT DOES. 

Then, you have to ask:  Does it make business sense?  For me, it took a paradigm shift.  I learned to heat seek the bottom line.  Decisions have to make business sense.  In this day and age every decision I make as a CEO has to make business sense.  That's why our President's Hall rents out as a reception hall for wedding receptions and events of all kinds.   It has to make business sense.

That's the reason we have Transitions.  Hundreds of people have been placed in this challenging program to work with employers.  That's why we lease child care.  It has to make business sense.  We have to pay our own way in the future.

Many times through my journey, I have come so close to victory, to achievement, to accomplishment, only to have victory almost snatched from me, to have to consider failure as an option.  Until I realized, through the audacity of faith:  God Would Not Bring Us This Far to Fail.

I am the first in my family to graduate from college. Many times in my academic and professional career I met unexpected obstacles.  Even with all of my Aunt Bobbie's prepping, I met unexpected obstacles.  And when I did, I would tell myself:  God Would Not Bring Me This Far to Fail.

The Urban League kitchen, of all places, tells this story.  Our kitchen needed to pass inspection in time for our grand opening Black-Tie event.  We were down to 24 hours with no official approval to operate our kitchen.  I kept telling myself:  God Would Not Bring Me This Far to Fail.  To bring us to the day before the event...I called the city, only to find out I was to call the county...I did all I could do.  Then I let it go.  It was in the hands of God because I had the Faith - God Would Not Bring Us This Far to Fail.

When you deal with challenges immediately, you will find that you will not fail.  Not just because God will not let you fail, because you are proactive in your journey to make your whole world better, not waiting for others.  You may not know the answers, but your proactive approach will find them faster.

One lesson I learned along the way has been to make your company and your professional life transparent.  From the IRS levying our account to the court proceedings in my former job, I have learned to be open with both the current status and what it is you need as a person and an organization.

Find a place to be just you.  For me it has been working on my Master's of Public Administration.  Some people marvel that I am working on my MPA, while CEO, Mother, Wife, and community activist.  The time I spend in class is time that I am just Bernett.  Not the boss, not the one with all the answers, not the disciplinarian, just Bernett working on her MPA.  Find a place you can just be you.

Within the Urban League we refer to ourselves as a movement.  I want people to know that it is one of the finest organizations I have been a part of.  Founded on principles for all people, for the purpose of uplifting the African-American community.  Founded in 1925, even today the organization thrives because it has diversity.  Founded with the philosophy that "you don''t have to be poor and pitiful."  Through entrepreneurship and small business, we continue to reinvent ourselves as we ask each person we touch to reinvent themselves.  After 80 years, we may think there is no place to grow, but there is.

Because God Would Not Bring Us this Far to Fail.

If you are like me, from time to time you might wonder:  what is the purpose of your ife?  How do I make life better in this season?  How do I leave things better for the lives that I touch?

My work's purpose is to make the Urban League a better place...moving forward in the 21st Century.

This season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.  My task during this season is to remove any barriers that might hold back the organization, ensure they can focus on this being a time to plant...Because God Would Not Bring Us this Far to Fail.

As leaders, our responsibility is to leave our organizations better than we found them, to take it to its next level of excellence.  The next CEO will take the Urban League to its next level without experiencing what I had to experience. Those that follow me will not have to relive the same challenges.  It's OK to have your own growing pains, but not OK to live mine.  My commitment to our Board -- I would make mistakes, not the same mistakes over and over, I won't make the same mistake twice.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun.

Are my kids secure should something happen to us?  It is my purpose to give my childen, Justin and Jacob, a solid foundation so they can grow up to be good solid men.  To evertything there is a season, a time to rend and a time to sew.  I look forward to my children reaping and sowing the rewards that life will offer them.  I believe this will happen because God Would Not Bring Me this Far to Fail.

Faith is a part of our lives at home...it is not just a breakfast, lunch and dinner prayer, it is who we are, it is how we live.  Everything I do is by faith.  I've taken risks, but never for the sake of taking risk.  I decide by what I feel and what I feel comes from faith.  My oldest son broke his leg in two places on December 29.  Listen to a conversation we had about healing.  I asked him:  "Justin, you know God, don't you?  "Yes, Mom."  "'Do you believe that you are going to be OK?"  "Yes, Mom."  Why do you believe that?  "Because what God is going to show me is that I will be better."  Faith is a part of everyhing that we live in our household.

My husband, Todd.  Our journey has truly been a partnership.  Sometimes with me in the driver's seat and sometimes with Todd in the driver's seat, but always with US in the front seat together.  Our children have shared me with so many organizations and meetings on this journey.  I worry at times about nights missed with family.  Then I ask myself:  "How many children talk about Mayor Plusquellic as if he was a favorite uncle?"  

I could not have come so far without the faith, love and work of so many.  To my staff, I say thank you.  Because everyday I say "yes we can" and everyday my staff figures out how to make it happen.  

We return to where we began.

I was fortunate to have my Aunt Bobbie.  Although cancer took her from us too early, her lessons will live with me for a lifetime. 

Who in Your LIfe is Getting You Ready? Who is asking you the hard questions that help you avoid your blind spots and release your inner brilliance?  And, at some point, you will want to ask yourself, who in your life are you   getting ready?  When others say it makes no sense, do you have the faith to tell yourself and the world, YES IT DOES?

With an Audacity of Faith, energized by the obstacles we have overcome:  can you say both to yourself and the world:  YES IT DOES.

If you believe God Would Not Bring YOU this Far to Fail, then answer with me:  "YES WE DO."

To everything there is a seaon, a time to keep silent and a time to speak:  THANK YOU Father Norm, Larry Vuillemin, the Heart to Heart organization, for giving me this time to speak.  Another woman, in another century, stood before another audience and said:  "I did not prepare a speech, I plan to speak from the heart." Today I tried to do both.  to prepare and to speak from the heart.

Thank you for the honor to stand here this morning and share with you my belief in the Audacity of Faith.

DO YOU BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT WE ALL HAVE THE AUDACITY OF FAITH?  Then, please...Answer with me:  YES WE DO.