JOYFUL ART…“I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.”-Barbara Jordan

This episode is part of our JOYFUL ART OF BUSINESS™ series wherein we explore how to combine the positive benefits of our professional endeavors (“business”) with the overall positive emotional return on our efforts (“joy”). Our episode topic is, “I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.” - Barbara Jordan

This quote encapsulates the concept of having some impact on outcomes in the world due to our actions. It addresses the challenge  that many of us have even naming our secret goals. For anyone of any background born in any time period to assert to themselves that they will “never” be “run-of-the-mill” (or average) is rare. For them to publicly state that to the world is bold. If they were a person born a gender, color and ethnic background that was not viewed as equal to other groups of people, it would sound foolish to make such proclamations. 

The eloquent speaker of the quote, Barbara Jordan, was born in 1936 in Houston, Texas in the USA. As a black female she did not have the right to go to school, eat at restaurants, shop, use the restroom, live or work among the majority population (of a different color). She died at age 59 after having served as a political representative at the state (first woman and black woman to have been elected on her own to the Texas Senate) and federal level in the US (first black woman in the United States House of Representatives from the deep southern part of the US). She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in 1994. You can read about her and watch a clip of her Keynote Speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1976 online (including here at -http://www.biography.com/people/barbara-jordan-9357991?page=1). She held an undergraduate degree from Texas Southern University (1956) and a law degree from Boston University (1959).

What are your intentions?