This morning, via Twitter (the ultimate source of news sharing), I found out I made The
Fab Empire’s The Fab List–a list that “honors innovators and leaders from field such as technology, fashion, communications, medicine, ministry, politics and more.”  I was shocked and surprised.  You see I do what I love.  Volunteering and enlisting others in service, advocating for better educational opportunities and ensuring the low-income students who make it to college, make it through college are all my passions.  To be honored doing exactly what I love and what comes extremely natural to me is the ultimate compliment, and a key sign that I’m working in my purpose.

Before I share you the link to check out the list that includes stellar changemakers and movers and shakers in DC, I want to leave you with a quote from The Radical Leap by Steve Farber, a book I’m reading for graduate school.  In the book, Steve meets a man named Edg who reignites his fire for leadership, and challenges him to think about leadership as an extreme sport.  In one of their conversations, Edg shares this with Steve:

The ability to lead doesn’t come from a snappy vocabulary, the books you’ve displayed on your shelves, your place on the organizational chart, or that fashionable title on your business card.  Leadership is always substantive and rarely fashionable.  It is intensely personal and intrinsically scary and it requires us to live the ideas we espouse–in irrefutable ways–every day of our lives, up to and beyond the point of fear.

Edg is right.  Authentic leadership comes from within.  It is a part of how we live our daily lives.  Some people never tap into their authentic leadership source because they are afraid to really go after their dreams.  Today, I encourage you to think about your passions and live them!  You will often surprise yourself–and like in my case, catch the eyes of others, too.

You can check out The Fab List here.