5. Kindergarten and inadvertent leadership

Gathering power from visiting the ancestral lands

Hello friends,

I returned from the Madrid and London trip long trip with the same number of items in my suitcase but many new awarenesses about my company, people, and the world. One was the importance of doing this project. The video below was shown on a large screen in an auditorium of 400 people for the Employee Talent segment at a company all-hands meeting.

A handful of colleagues came up to me afterward and told me they loved the idea of the project and how it made them think about doing something like it for themselves. The Talent segment also contained fun and inspiring employee experiences with music, cooking, renovation, and sewing. One never knows how pursuing your interests can inspire others; I believe creative acts are doorways to infinity, and today’s Fifty-Fifty excerpt offers a take on how sharing what you love and simply being who you are can demonstrate leadership and open doors for others.

5. Kindergarten

Big John, the man in this picture, was my mother’s boyfriend in my younger years. He was in a band and we lived in three different houses with him, his bandmates, and their partners. His two sons lived with us; Chris, pictured in last week’s photo, was just a year younger than me. The white house sat a ways back from a dirt road. My younger neighbor Erika (Hi, Erika!) and her family lived up the road. This rural life wasn’t lonely or quiet; the band rehearsed in the attic and we kids made the most of the empty barn, the woods in the back, and the short hill in front of the house that was barely steep enough for sledding.

Every day, my mother walked me up the road to Route 25 where I met the bus for North Haverhill Elementary School. There, I met another neighbor, Jen, who is still a good friend. (Hi, Jen!) Compared to the chaos of young kids at home, I loved the structure school offered. Looking at my proud little self in mucky snow on the way to school, I’m reminded how we all are inadvertent leaders to different times in our lives to different people. Simply because I was older than Erika and Chris, I was a leader modeling what it was to be a Kindergarten student.

The London Tower Bridge, withstanding rain and tourists since 1894

Before this trip, I asked several friends for tips for London and long international flights. Sometimes I got tips without even asking: a London-based former colleague called me up with tips while another friend who lives there sent lists of favorite London sights and things to know. They were leading the way for me to have an enjoyable visit. The best tip I got was to book a tour of Parliament, which offered a refreshing look at at an older form of democratic government than the United States, plus the most ornate interiors I’ve ever seen.

Enter the halls of Parliament, no photos allowed beyond this point

For whom have you been an inadvertent leader in your life, simply because of your age, experience, or whereabouts? Who were your inadvertent role models, and how did they shape your development?

The Parliament visit awakened something ancient within me, perhaps owing to my 93% British DNA: my biological father was born there, and the Prescotts on my mother’s side came to America from England in the 1600s, before it was called the United States. My ancestor James Prescott left England in a politically tumultuous time when Oliver Cromwell rose to power and called for the execution of King Charles I. Living through political turmoil is in my—and perhaps all of our—blood.

Statue of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) outside Parliament

Whether we know much about their individual lives, our ancestors can inspire us when we study the history of what they lived through. What’s playing out today will be written about years hence, and perhaps future generations will draw strength from us.

May you be inspired by those who showed bravery by simply being who they were meant to be in the times and places in which they lived.

Love, Lee Ann

Parliament and statue of King Richard I (1189–1199)