Finding Resilience Through Life's Experiences

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was previously published on Substack, after being presented to students at Shorecrest Preparatory School

Like you, I was once a high school student. It may have been more than 36 years ago, but some moments you don’t forget. I’m not talking about the time our football team competed for the state championship and any student who wanted could endure an 8-hour bus ride to Pensacola to see the winningest team in St. Pete High’s history suffer a brutal loss. I’m not referring to Prom at the pink castle, also known as the Don Cesar. It’s not getting my driver’s license.

     No, one of the moments from high school that I now know shaped me was the day I walked up the glass door of the classroom where all the names of the girls who’d made the Devilettes dance team were posted. I’d shown up before the other girls, and I scanned the list three times.

     My name was not there. Despite attending every practice and doing what I thought was a decent job memorizing the choreography for the audition, I wasn’t chosen. I wouldn’t wear the cute white, sleeveless mini dress uniform with a sequined green devil across the center. I’d never wear the patten white leather boots. It was the first time in my life that I wasn’t chosen for something.

     Truth be told, I’d struggled to learn the choreography that everyone else seemed to pick up quickly. I can play the piano, but I don’t have much rhythm. Still, I didn’t think I would be the only one to not make the team.

     After not seeing my name on the list, I practically ran through the halls, head down, hoping I wouldn’t run into the other girls, to wait for my ride home. The mother of one of my friends who also tried out – and was chosen as an alternate – was waiting to pick us up from school.

     I got in the white conversion van with shag carpeting on the walls and swivel chairs and took a seat all the way in the back. I didn’t say a word. Thankfully, the mom didn’t either. She knew it was decision day. Thankfully, my friend was kind enough to keep her excitement bottled until they dropped me off at home.

     No one was home, which meant I could cry, and no one could hear me. I was all cried out by the time my mom got home from work, but having raised a son and a daughter who are 26 and 21, I know that parents often know when their child is truly hurting.

     You may be thinking, so what, it’s a silly dance team. No big deal, right? But I want you to think about your high school years. The memories are still fresh because you haven’t yet graduated. Right now, these are your most important years. You may have already experienced this kind of setback or disappointment. If you haven’t, I’m here to tell you that you will.

     Thankfully, I have an incredibly sensitive and intuitive mom, the kind my friends called cool. She let me play hooky the next day to avoid facing the newly minted Devilettes. She took me to lunch, and we went shopping, something she loves more than I do to this day. She bought me five pairs of shoes. It’s true what they say about retail therapy.

     But it wasn’t the shopping spree or long weekend that healed my hurt. I knew that on Monday I would have to face my fear of embarrassment at not being chosen. When I returned to school, I was sincerely happy for my friends who had been chosen.

     I was embraced with compassion and understanding.

     I’m not going to lie. Rejection feels terrible. Whether it’s a job, love interest, or something else, it will happen at some point in our lives. How we move through, then emerge, from adversity is how we build what I call “resilience coffers.”

     Our life experiences have a cumulative effect. If we’re lucky to live a long and full life, then our chances of experiencing a range of setbacks and adversity increases. While that doesn’t sound ideal, the magic is in reframing how we move through moments of uncertainty and angst so that we increase resiliency, which is vital for effective leadership of any kind.

     Whether in the boardroom, on the ball field, or among friends and family, we find leaders. Often, they’re found in unlikely places, and after an event that at first glance can seem tragic or sad.

     When we lost our home and two dogs in a 2008 fire, our community embraced us and held us during that time. Jordan and Samuel were 10 and 5. We had a life to rebuild, and children to shepherd through this period. Even though none of us were home during the fire, we couldn’t escape a certain amount of trauma.

     I may not have realized this at the time, but navigating the aftermath of a fire and loss of our home was an opportunity for growth. We were already a tight family, but my husband and I had to lean on each other more than ever before. We had to seek answers to the hard questions our children asked about loss. Then, just a month after the fire, Rick was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease that took a year to resolve. All of this, plus rebuilding a home in 9 months, just so we could get back to normal.

     The loss of our dogs and destruction of our home changed our family forever, but I believe we gained a greater appreciation for life. We also served as resources for others who later experienced loss. We may not have been presiding over a group, or leading a team to a championship, but our resilience after our own experience gave us a unique perspective to share when others experienced their tragic losses.  

     Reframing adversity to look past what is lost or denied and see what can be gained, learned, and used for good is a hallmark of a leader.

When we think of leaders, many of us envision politicians, CEOs, or team coaches. But I want you to think about the seemingly ordinary folks you encounter daily who empower others. They didn’t become that way overnight. This type of leadership was harnessed because of how they navigated life after adversity. That’s resilience.

     Years later, when my daughter became a talented ballet and Irish step dancer, other parents assumed it was passed on from me. I laughed in their faces, remembering how I didn’t make the dance team in high school, and can’t follow the Electric Slide at weddings. I was able to laugh at myself in a non-degrading way. The ability to find even a sliver of humor in a challenging situation creates resilience.

     Speaking of humor, when I was diagnosed in 2019 with stage 2 ovarian and uterine cancers, I decided to have a little fun with the inevitable hair loss I would experience. Knowing that the medicine I’d receive would save my life but make me bald, I had two choices: fight it until every clump of my hair fell out or take control of the situation and schedule an appointment with my hairdresser. Cancer isn’t funny, by my husband, daughter, hairdresser and I popped some champagne while he cut what remained of my long hair in phases, trying out new styles like popping champagne, and trying out new hairstyles like Cillian Murphy’s Peaky Blinders texturized crop.

     Telling my cancer story wasn’t a choice at first. Because my husband was mayor during that time, his work calendar was a public record. On the day of my first chemotherapy treatment, a reporter questioned why he was out of the office on a Thursday.

     I’d been slowly telling friends and family about my cancer, which wasn’t easy to do. Even though I’d accepted the diagnosis, embraced the idea of chemotherapy, and was ready for the marathon, telling someone I knew required me to relive the shock and sadness around the diagnosis. When the media started asking questions, my husband’s communications team urged me to go public with my diagnosis to prevent an inaccurate news story.

     This didn’t sit well with me. Healthcare is a private matter, and while I was adjusting to the idea of being labeled a cancer patient and forever checking that box on medical forms, I resented having to share my health crisis with the world before I was ready to do so.  

You may wonder, “How does getting cancer make you a leader?”

     The way I approached this major setback, adversity, and request to publicly announce my diagnosis created an opportunity to lead.

     I conceded to telling my story, but on my terms. I wrote the statement, not the City Hall communications team. I didn’t disclose the type or stage of my cancer since ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological cancer. The last thing I wanted was my announcement to be met with questions about my prognosis or whether my husband could still lead our city. I decided I would post my statement with a photograph of my friends and me at a wig party I hosted at Wig Villa on Facebook at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning. I would take no questions. The media could publish all, part, or none of my story.

     That Friday, Dec. 12, 2019, I took a deep breath, hit the post, then went for my morning walk. I braced for calls from reporters, negative comments on Facebook, or a public relations situation at City Hall. Instead, I received more than 400 comments from people who wished me well, sent prayers, and offered meals.

     The most surprising comments were the ones from people who told me I helped them in their cancer journey, or that I inspired them, or that they would share my post with their friend who was on their own cancer journey.

     I decided to post a photo from each subsequent chemotherapy treatment, with a message of whatever was on my mind or in my heart that day. I didn’t intend to create a community who shared their struggles with me. I simply wanted to demystify the process of chemotherapy and assure people that I was okay, and that the city was still in good hands.  

     I may have been in a recliner, snuggled under a blanket, loaded up on steroids and Benadryl, and hooked up to an I.V. that pumped Carboplatin and Taxol through my body, but how I battled cancer became a form of leadership.

     I’ve given you a couple of examples of adversity, how I handled setbacks, and how I transformed each into leadership opportunities. However, my wisdom came after having survived these challenges. I wasn’t aware until long after each event that I’d displayed any leadership qualities at all. I was merely surviving.

     Not making a dance team isn’t as significant a challenge as fighting for your life, but experiences build upon themselves, which is why we must learn from them.

     If you can find ways to approach situations with your eyes and hearts wide open, then you can undoubtedly emerge from any obstacle or challenge more knowledgeable and capable. If you can do this, then someday, someone will see you as a leader because of what you have overcome and how you chose to meet challenges and respond to adversity.

     Each of you has the capacity to lead. Even now, life experiences you’ve had thus far are already teaching you how to lead. Every one of you has what is called a 10% edge. That means that you possess at least 10% more knowledge about something than someone else. That positions you as a leader in a certain area.  

     Consider this example. You’re a soccer player who has been on a team for many years. The longer you play any sport, the more likely you are to suffer losses and injuries. Chances are that has already happened to you. But you recovered. You’re healthy. You came back to beat the team that crushed you last year. You have probably more than a 10% edge over someone who is a new player, has never played a team sport, or has never suffered an injury or loss of any kind.

     The breadth of your experiences, whether from soccer or something else, can position you as a leader. The fact that you suffered loss and injury and continued to play demonstrates resilience and passion. The wisdom you gained because of your adversity is now a tool for teaching, an example for others, and an opportunity for leadership.

     As you prepare for college and adulthood, it’s important to remember that adversity will be a part of life. Even though it may sometimes appear that your peers have no hurdles or challenges, it’s simply not true. Many of us don’t discuss our setbacks because we’ve learned how to move forward. We’ve leaned on our community to help us through. We’ve learned how to talk about challenges as a catalyst for growth. That is another trait of an effective leader. Good leaders know how to find the courage to be brave and vulnerable so that in sharing struggles they inspire others. Effective communicators have one thing in common. They’re also good listeners.

     I was a political spouse for 22 years. For me, that meant supporting my husband while he climbed the political ladder. For most of those years, I figured if one of us in this partnership were deemed “leader,” it would be him. What I learned from more than 2 decades in the public eye is that how we embrace a life we never envisioned can position us as a leader.

     He may have been the one at the podium, on the television screen, or presiding over the dais, but I quickly learned that people were watching me. They paid attention to what I said and how I carried myself. The night Rick was elected mayor, I received many texts congratulating me as the “first lady of St. Petersburg.” I chuckled at first. When I think of first ladies, I think of president’s wives, not me. As his political profile was raised, so was mine. I quickly learned that people sometimes sought my opinion and counsel on city issues. I had to learn how to balance confidential information with what was appropriate to say to someone in the grocery store when they questioned me on a ballot initiative.

     Months after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, there were protests throughout the country, even in St. Pete. Two Saturdays in a row, protesters camped in front of our house. They blocked access to our street, broadcast messages over a megaphone, and repeatedly rang our doorbell. They wanted to speak to Rick, but our front yard wasn’t an appropriate setting for the kind of conversation they desired. So, we stayed inside.

     You may wonder, where is the evidence of leadership in this story? Leaders routinely encounter tough decisions. How one responds to a stressful situation determines what happens in the ones that follow. Many thoughts went through my head as I peeked through closed wooden blinds in our office, watching and listening to the protestors.

     I knew they had a right to be there. I knew they had a right to share their message. I knew that I was a little angry at their presence. I knew that people were broadcasting live on Facebook from the street in front of our house. I was aware of my feelings of vulnerability, frustration, and confusion. I knew that while I could share my feelings on social media, I shouldn’t. My form of leadership meant that I would endure being uncomfortable if it meant not making a tense situation worse.

     Later that day, neighbors came to our house to thank us and express appreciation for how we handled the situation. We hadn’t presided over anything or anyone, but how we responded to this situation provided comfort to our neighbors.

     As you move forward, think of cultivating resilience and leadership as a toolbox you always carry with you. Consider incorporating these traits and practices into your resilience and leadership toolbox:

     Self-Awareness Hammer: This is a fundamental tool for resilience and leadership. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and values can help you make better decisions and adapt to challenges effectively.

     Adaptability Wrench: This means learning how to adapt to new situations in the face of setbacks and changes. There will be times when you’ll need to adjust your strategies and plans to embrace change as a natural part of life.

     Communication Screwdriver: Effective communication builds relationships and resolves conflicts. Remember to incorporate active listening, clear expression, and assertive communication.

     Decision-Making Compass: Leaders are decision makers, and it’s important to develop a decision-making compass that considers your values, long-term goals, and ethical principles when making tough choices.

     Empathy Pliers: One of the pillars of strong relationships is empathy. It’s important to remember to understand others' perspectives and feelings. Incorporating empathy into leadership style can help resolve conflicts and create a supportive network.

     Perseverance Saw: As hard as it can be sometimes, you must never give up. Persevere. Push through. Move forward in the face of adversity.

     Trust Leveler: Trust is the foundation of leadership and relationships. You can build trust among your peers, no matter the task, when you’re honest, reliable, and consistent.

     Problem-Solving Multi-Tool: The ability to solve complex problems demonstrates leadership and resilience. One way to do this is to break down the big parts into smaller, easily manageable tasks. Celebrating small success along the journey creates a sense of resilience for thriving through a tough challenge. Seeking creative solutions can lead to success.

     Positivity Tape Measure: Maintaining positivity when overcoming obstacles creates success. Measure your progress in a positive light and focus on accomplishments. Take note of what you can learn from setbacks.

     Goal-Setting Ruler: Setting goals creates a sense of purpose and direction. Short-term and long-term goals can guide your actions and decisions.

     Resilience Jackknife: A jackknife is small enough to fit in your pocket. Resilience is like that tool. Think of your resilience pocket as that consistent voice in the back of your head that is carried everywhere. It’s easier to bounce back from challenges and setbacks by staying flexible and learning from your experiences.

     Leadership Blueprint: As you embark on your unique leadership journeys, some that may have revealed themselves and others that you may embrace decades from now, craft a vision or plan for your leadership journey. Create your leadership blueprint, define your values, goals, and the impact you want to make in the world.

     I hope the experiences I shared with you have been helpful. Try out some of the traits in the leadership toolbox. Remember to incorporate the heart-centered traits of resilient leaders.

·         Embrace openness and vulnerability

·         Keep your eyes and hearts open

·         Lean on others through communication

·         Understand and embrace the power in sharing your unique story

·         Believe in the concept of community

Thank you for being such an attentive audience. I trust that all of you will summon the leader in you, and that you will learn how to cultivate the resilience that will guide and shape you, enabling you to positively impact others.