Hi hello! First off, if you are reading this, that means that you not only made the effort to subscribe to this experiment, but you’ve actually opened the email too. It’s an honour just to be nominated. 🙏🏼
Just a quick recap on how I’m envisioning this little book club of ours is going to work. Each month, I’ll be selecting a book that I will personally read. The book is going to somehow fit the theme of better leadership, although some selections will not be as obvious as this one is. If you’d like to read along, amazing! But if you’re overwhelmed by the time commitment, or otherwise unable to follow along, that’s ok - I’ll be sharing my insights and lessons learned anyway, and I hope that you’ll get something out of that too.
The first book I’ll be tackling is Stacey Abrams’ 2018 memoir, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change (previously titled, Minority Leader). This is not her most recent memoir - it was published after she narrowly lost the governor race in Georgia. Deservedly, Abrams has gotten a ton of press and praise for her recent influence in the 2020 presidential election, and I’m ashamed to admit that I only really started following her story recently when hearing about how she helped to register 800k new voters, historically flipping the state. 🎉
So now I’m interested in going back a few years and seeing what she was talking about in ‘18 because change does not happen overnight. Leaders do not emerge out of nowhere - it often takes years, and sometimes decades - to achieve the things that make people call you an overnight success.
What really sold me on this book was an excerpt posted in the #whatimreading channel in the Raw Signal Group Slack, which I mention because you should absolutely sign up for their newsletter if you don’t already.
When you decide what you want and why you want it, take action immediately. Do not wait for an invitation to act, I promise you, the letter is not in the mail. Know what you want. Know why you want it. Know how you will achieve it. Then get started. Take a class, apply for a job, read a book about it. But do something that moves you forward at a constant pace. If you can walk away for days, weeks, or years at a time, it is not an ambition — it’s a wish. Wishes feel good and rarely come true. Ambition, on the other hand, fuels your days and refuses to be ignored. It challenges your sense of self and fulfills your sense of wonder. So pay attention.
And get to work.
Wow, chills right!?
So if you’d like to join me on this journey, grab the book from the library (linked for my Toronto peeps) or please consider supporting an independent book store near you! I’m going to be really bummed if they all go out of business by the time this pandemic is over, so we’ve gotta show them some love.
I’ll be hitting your inbox up with my thoughts by the end of March, and I’d love to hear if you’re planning on reading and want some accountability, or if anything is hitting you in any kind of way as you read through too so I can share with everyone… or you know, let me know that you’re here so that I feel less weird about writing into the void of the internet. Please? (just reply to this email!)
If you read this far, you’re a real one.
xx Kristen