As the CEO of Rodel, a nonprofit here that works to improve education and the economy, I’ve had my share of unforgettable experiences over some 20 years.
When the DBT team first asked me to consider sharing 10 lessons on life and leadership, I struggled with how to organize my thoughts. Then I thought about a special project I did in 2023 that could serve underscore the importance of some key lessons.
This project, “Career Pathways in a Rapidly Changing World”, took me to five countries and literally around the globe to better understand how young people can be best prepared for transitioning from school to work. Given that I hadn’t done formal research for some 30 years, I was excited, but nervous. As I started the project in Melbourne, Australia, I felt like a bit of an impostor. I remember taking a deep depth and reminding myself that the lessons I’ve learned along the way had prepared me for this moment.
Here are 10 of those key lessons.
- Lean into your Why
I was halfway around the world because I am passionate about what I do. My “Why” has two parts. My dad grew up poor near NYC, but he was gifted with numbers. After serving in the navy, he used the GI bill to pursue his goal, MIT. After a year of trying, he got in. He not only graduated, something his parents had not done, but his four kids went on to college. So, my first Why is: Education is a game changer.
My second “Why” comes from my early days as a teacher in a NYC high school with a 50% drop out rate. When my colleagues and I saw 90% of our students go on to college or the military, we realized my second Why: The kids weren’t the problem, the system was.
I’ve spent my career trying to change lives by changing systems. I keep a picture of my students on my wall to remind me of my Why every day.
- Get outside your comfort zone
For five years, I worked for Outward Bound, an outdoor program that typically involves taking young people out in the mountains for weeks at a time to help them learn about themselves and leadership. “Outward Bound” is a nautical term that refers to leaving the safety of the harbor.
Every time our students or I pushed ourselves to go beyond what we were comfortable doing, our comfort zone, our world, got bigger. I continue to push myself to stretch, to be comfortable with discomfort.
- Know your superpowers, and your kryptonite
Growing as an organizational leader required me to get real about what I’m good at and what I’m not. Leadership is a team sport. I learned a long time ago, that it requires a visionary, a missionary and a bean counter to lead. No one is all three.
I did not get my father’s math gene, I’m certainly not a bean counter. As a result, I have worked to build a diverse team that complements what I do well, and what I don’t. Understanding my superpowers and my kryptonite has helped us build a great team.
- Embrace failure
To excel requires risk, and inherent in risk is failure. Early on in my tenure at Rodel, I asked Bill Budinger, the founder of Rodel Inc., a global leader in semiconductor production, how he became so successful. Without hesitation, he said, “failure.”
He shared that it was his hundreds of failures as an entrepreneur that enabled him to learn, produce new ideas. When he was building his company, he told his researchers, “If you aren’t racking up some failures, you aren’t challenging the status quo, aren’t extending yourself. You’re just treading water.” He shared the same with me. What a gift. Knowing that he saw failure as not a sign of deficiency, but as boundaries being challenged, enabled me to push farther, to fail, and to learn.
- Believe in BHAGs
One of Rodel’s advisors was Jim Collins, the author of “Good to Great” and the person who coined the term “BHAG,” short for Big Hairy Audacious Goals.
Sometimes in our small state we can think small. Our BHAG was for Delaware to become among the best in the nation in helping young people connect to college and careers after high school. In 2014, a group of us from Delaware took a trip to Switzerland to learn more about one of the world’s top performers. When we came back, we worked with one pilot of 27 students at William Penn High School to help them get access to work experience, college credits, and industry credentials.
A decade later, that one pilot has now grown to 30,000 students, or 65% of all high schoolers and Delaware is now seen as a national leader. To get there, we needed to think big.
- Progress moves at the speed of trust.
To move any large, public effort like education, a lot of people need to be on the same page. The saying the progress moves at the speed of trust is true. Multiple actors have “veto power” in education. Any number of state and local leaders from the state house to a school board can put a wrench in the works and stop a good idea.
In this very polarized world, I’m proud Rodel is part of Delaware’s Vision Coalition, a mix of district and charter school leaders, leaders from business and organized labor, and everyone in between. We put aside our partisanship and put forward what we think makes sense for Delaware and our children.
Next month, we’ll be releasing a new 10-year plan for education that was informed by over one thousand Delawareans. For us to be able to center students in the implementation of this plan, we will need to keep building trust.
- Disconnect to reconnect
Thinking big can be all consuming. It’s important for me to create space to disconnect, to recharge, to think.
A formative example of that for me is when in grad school, my future wife encouraged me to take a break from a paper we had to submit the following morning and take a walk in the snow. I reluctantly agreed. Midway through the walk I realized Dana was the person I would marry. We’ve been outside together a lot since then, and we have a great group of people that encourage us to go out even when it’s wet, dark or cold.
Dana helps me disconnect to reconnect. Find that space that makes you whole, enjoy it, ideally with people you love.
- Strive for balance.
Related, if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t help anyone else.
When my kids, all now in their 20’s, were small I wrote them letters each year to help them start to think about balance. Were they being healthy, keeping up in school, being nice to their sister?
I try to walk the talk. I exercise, see a therapist, do yoga on occasion, and I’ve been volunteering as a track and cross country coach at St. Elizabeth’s for years. Finding balance can take many forms, for me it can be as simple as prioritizing a run rather than taking one more call or to simply take some deep breaths in the morning before looking at my phone. Striving for balance helps me be the best version of myself wherever I show up.
- Find your ikigai.
Ikigai, is a Japanese concept that translates into living a life filled with purpose and joy.
It’s the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs.
While your “why” might remain constant, your purpose can evolve over time.
The first rule of ikigai, is never retire. Not retiring doesn’t mean continuing to draw a paycheck forever, it means staying engaged with life. When my mom got divorced, she started her therapy practice from scratch at 46. She worked until she was 91. At 93, she still gets calls from her clients looking for advice. She’s not “retired”.
Whether we’re 30, 90, or anywhere in between, all of us have an opportunity to reassess where we are and where we want to be.
- Be a “Mentern”
At this point in my life, I strive to be a “mentern”: A mentor and an intern; a builder and a learner.
I started this post with a mention of my trepidation in Melbourne at the start of a year-long research project. I was supported on that global research project by an amazing team of young people from all over the world. It was amazing to be learning as much, or more, than I was teaching.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with that group. I try to take that mindset into whatever I do. Always building, always learning.
To learn more about Rodel’s work and to listen to the podcasts or read the posts on my travels, visit www.rodelde.org.
Paul Herdman, CEO, Rodel
