Be yourself

Last Friday was the Masters Alliance Young Leaders episode of the Good Leadership Breakfast, presented by TCF Bank. It was the perfect example of our mantra: when good leaders, work together with good intentions, great things are possible. Looking back now on 77 of these breakfasts, I consider it a great outcome that we hosted more than 125 Young Leaders to hear the “Goodness Pays” message. It means the established leaders in our midst are paying their goodness forward.

Intensely personal

Our speaker was charming, handsome, and extremely vulnerable in presenting his goodness pays story. Alvin Abraham, who is the Dean of the Dougherty Family College at the University of St. Thomas, leaned on his familiarity with young leaders to deliver an intensely personal message.

His talk centered on the work he and his husband were required to do in the process of applying for adoption. Together, they established a family motto: Work hard. Be nice. Be yourself. It was the “be yourself” part of his message that stood out the most. He tugged at our hearts and created tears of frustration and joy in explaining the twists and turns of communicating his sexuality with his parents and family.

My words can’t do him justice. You can listen to our Goodness Pays Leadership Podcast to get the full picture.

No straight line to success

What both Alvin and I shared with the Young Leaders was a simple message: there is no straight line between the aspirations you have today, and the person you want to be when you grow up. Life has it’s ups and downs, it’s twists and turns. And if lead with goodness, things have a way of working out. In other words – you don’t have to lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead in life. It’s goodness that pays.