ENTHUSIASM 101
Image Credit: Annie Leibovitz
Everything I’ve ever done, everything I’ve ever learned, I’m using all of that stuff right now. And all the women that reside in me are now operative.
Betty Reid Soskin (1921—) At 99 years old, Betty Reid Soskin is so much more than America's oldest National Park Ranger. As a community and civil rights activist, songwriter, field representative, and park planner, she has devoted her career to uncovering and telling the stories that are often left untold – and helping all people discover that they belong outdoors.
Soskin considers herself “an absolutely ordinary extraordinary person.” She has dated Jackie Robinson, co-founded Reid’s Records in Berkeley with her first husband, served as a “bag lady” (delivering cash) for the Black Panthers, and hobnobbed with the leaders of the human potential movement as a faculty wife with her second husband.
She also served in a Jim Crow segregated union hall in Richmond during World War II, experienced redlining in Berkeley when she tried to build her first house, moved to a racially-hostile Walnut Creek in the 1950s, and accidentally catapulted to fame in her 80s, as she brought her lived experience as a non-Rosie to the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park.
Soskin’s historical talks at the park museum’s small theater routinely sell out, and she has become what she calls with some surprise “a D-list celebrity.” At barely five feet tall and 90 pounds, Soskin’s power comes from her personal history and from her willingness to talk about it plainly and honestly, not mincing words.
Soskin’s mother and grandmother both lived into their tenth decade, so Soskin expects to have a few more years to make a difference. She is “obsessed” with being “all used up” before her time comes. She doesn’t want to leave anything on the table.
From The National Park Service:
I’ve outlived all those whose memories don’t agree with mine, so I’m now also a historian! Who argues with dinosaurs?
At 92, I’m still feeling relevant. I do two presentations in our theater each week, guide two public bus tours each month, and carry a full schedule of engagements for educational institutions, corporate events, and civic organizations.
And I will be here until the day that I wake up and find that I’ve lost the ability to tie my own shoes, or really can’t find my car keys!
A conversation with local and national legend Betty Reid Soskin. She’s currently the oldest serving career park ranger with the National Park Service—just one chapter in a long life of public service and her active role in the social evolution of the United States.
ENTHUSIASM 101
Enthusiasm is about fairness (equity), achievement, and connection. Achieving these qualities brings joy that rubs off and gets results.
Enthusiasm is not about blind optimism or positivity. We marvel at people who have “energy and enthusiasm for life.” As we go about our business day-to-day, we can easily succumb to boredom and feeling invisible—and lose our enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm consists of three qualities: fairness, achievement, and connection. Fairness is a fundamental need and one we assess by comparing ourselves with others and how they are treated. Achievement is succeeding at meaningful goals that are an appropriate challenge. Connection makes us more effective and efficient, as well as enjoyable to be around. When we experience these three factors in tandem, we are generally more enjoyable to be around and helpful to others. In this way, our enthusiasm is linked to our productivity and effectiveness. We are more willing to learn, to share, to engage in the right risks, and to be open to new ways of looking at things.
When we make big decisions in our lives—like changing jobs or moving to a new city—we can start to wonder what we got ourselves into. The people are different, and we are used to something else. They go about their work differently, and we don’t know their ways. The conditions in which we are working are different (faster or slower, more technical or less). We are forced to admit these observations get us down until we can decide to become enthusiastic about the challenge before us.
Our enthusiasm diminishes when we allow circumstances over which we have little control to impact the aspects of life in which we do have control. It can take us a while to realize, but eventually, we conclude that we have to make the most of the resources we have, instead of worrying about the things we don’t have. We can feel some regret in the failed connections and opportunities we miss before embracing this more enthusiastic perspective. In the end, it’s more productive to accept our mistakes and learn from them.
Regardless of the task, we must find our enthusiasm to genuinely enjoy what we are doing if we expect our teams to reach their true potential. There are exceptions to every rule, but an unenthusiastic person will hold others back from doing their collective best.
Enthusiasm is contagious. It rubs off on everyone within our proximity. Used in moderation, it can be useful. Too much or too little can be counterproductive. It takes a lot more energy to recover from high highs and low lows. Managing the middle is about maintaining a neutral stance and gives us greater visibility to more creative alternatives. From this vantage point, our thinking is at its clearest, unclouded by emotion. Quiet enthusiasm gets results, exudes confidence, and rubs off in beautiful ways.
How do we mitigate our doubts and tap into our enthusiasm during difficult times?
PRACTICE
Out of all the tasks you do, list three that you enjoy the most and the three you enjoy the least.
Which of your responsibilities do you enjoy the least? Are these expectations from others or duties you have created for yourself?
How can you develop enthusiasm to compete for these less-than-enjoyable tasks, particularly the ones over which you have no control?
COMMIT
[ ] I commit to myself to a practice of enthusiasm—to finding enthusiasm for the tasks I undertake.
FURTHER READING/ WATCHING
Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life: This memoir offers a personal experience of living through periods of great social change. Reflecting back, Soskin noticed that her life seems to change drastically every 10-12 years. By her own count, she has lived eight or nine lives. “I’ve known a complicated set of identities,” she said. “I have been many women, sequentially.” And she takes you along for the ride.
Betty Reid Soskin wins the 2018 Glamour Women of the Year Award (watch)
In Her Words…
“What gets remembered is determined by who is in the room doing the remembering.” —Glamour
“Democracy has been experiencing these periods of chaos since 1776. They come and go. And it’s in those periods that democracy is redefined.” —Glamour
“History has been written by people who got it wrong, but the people who are always trying to get it right have prevailed. If that were not true, I would still be a slave like my great-grandmother.”—Glamour
“In my younger years, I aspired to changing the world. Then reality kicked in, and I settled for 500 square feet.”—Glamour
“Everything I’ve ever done, everything I’ve ever learned, I’m using all of that stuff right now. And all the women that reside in me are now operative.”—Glamour
“[I] wear my uniform at all times; because when I’m on the streets or on an escalator or elevator, I am making every little girl of color aware of a career choice she may not have known she had.”—Glamour
“I am so aware I’m living in my final decade. The truth, that Kamala Harris talks about, has become the lifeforce for me because I don't have time. If I don't get it right, I don't have time to do it over. But that's also true for the nation. It's also true for us."—Glamour, acceptance speech
“The period I was most marked by, was the 60s where I was an activist in the black revolution. Along with millions of others, I helped to create the future that I'm now privileged to now be living in. You can't imagine what that is like.”—Glamour, acceptance speech
What we don’t see on the resumes we review or the job descriptions we want is the litany of emotional entanglements we bring to our roles, uninvited, to the team and organizations we work in. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves in the presence of setbacks. In short, those who learn lead.
Observing subjective qualities in others past and present gives us a mental picture for the behaviors we want to practice. Each figure illustrates a quality researched from The Look to Craftsmen Project. When practiced as part of our day-to-day, these qualities will help us develop our mastery in our lives and work.
References:
Betty Reid Soskin: The extraordinary life of the nation’s oldest park ranger (article)
Rangering In The Tenth Decade (article)
Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Sirota, D., Mischkind, L.A. and Meltzer, M.I. (2005). The Enthusiastic Employee.