What Do You Want To Stand For?

Dear Reader,

Over the weekend, New York City surged into a summer heat wave.

This happens at least once a summer.

And we pray that ConEdison (our electric company) won’t have to brown out sections of the city.

So far, our air conditioning keeps cranking!

While the city is slowly coming out of COVID quarantine, most of our summer escapes remain off limits. Because, like many Manhattanites, we don’t own a car and we’re not yet comfortable going anywhere we can’t reach on foot.

Unfortunately, the weekend started with the sad news that Congressman John Lewis died of stage IV pancreatic cancer.

Lewis started on his public service career while doing his chores on his parents’ farm in Alabama. The book, Preaching To The Chickens, a
children’s book written by Jabari Asim and illustrated with watercolors by E.B. Lewis relates:

“One day, John is put in charge of the chickens and so begins his foray into leadership. His heart ablaze with the dream of becoming a preacher, the boy begins practicing before his willing — or, at least, tacitly agreeable — avian audience.”

Hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio made Lewis decide to join the Civil Rights Movement.

Through his on-going efforts, Lewis was dubbed one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. From 1963 to 1966, Lewis was the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

At age 23, he was one of the architects of and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963 where King gave his “I Have A Dream” speech.

To demonstrate the need for voting rights, John Lewis with Hosea Williams led over 600 peaceful, orderly protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. The march became known as “Bloody Sunday” when the marchers were attacked by the Alabama state troopers. This march sped up the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence.

John Lewis was called “the conscience of the U.S. Congress” according to his Congressional biography.

Rollcall Magazine stated:

Often called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced,” John Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” in America.

Lewis’s passing underscores the need for every one of us, regardless of race, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation and/or other differences to examine our personal lives.

Let’s ask ourselves:

What do I want to accomplish or be remembered for?
How does this guide my life going forward?
How can I help my community and my country change for the better?

Actionable Marketing Lesson:

Take advantage of the opportunities and lessons that life gives you. Be like John Lewis. How many of us complain about doing household chores or dislike our early jobs? Yet we can learn from them if we have the right mindset.

For example, after losing my job at The Economist during the Dotcom bust it was difficult to find a new marketing job. Through networking, I got my first break teaching Finance and Analysis for Marketing at NYU.

Since the course had no textbook, I learned to organize and create all of the class materials including the lectures, the homework and the tests. More importantly, I learned to break the concepts into easy-to-understand sections so my students—many of whom were mathphobic—could do the work.

What did I learn?
I loved teaching and engaging with the students. They challenged me to be a better teacher and marketer.

Even better, this part-time position helped me to get my ClickZ column, Actionable Analysis. I had the “expert” halo of being a “professor” (even though I was only an adjunct!)

And, it built my credibility to attract clients for Riverside Marketing Strategies, my marketing consultancy.