What’s Profoundly Important to You?

By Deb Boelkes

As a business or community leader, you no doubt live a busy life and must constantly juggle multiple priorities.  With numerous opportunities and people vying for your time and attention, you routinely search for ways to optimize your effectiveness quotient.

In the final chapter of my book, Strong Suit: Leadership Success Stories from Women on Top, I asked each of the executives featured to answer this question: “Have you been successful in the way you expected?” Not surprisingly, their answers were all over the map. The one commonality was that few of them saw themselves as others perceive them. 

The first time I was personally asked such a question, I was stunned at my own answer, yet what I said was truthful and heartfelt. Essentially, I said something to the effect that since my original career goal was to become the CEO of my own company, I’ve been successful. But achieving that success has felt different than I expected. Along the way, I had to play the cards that I was dealt. It’s been a humbling experience.

Our career goals and priorities can change over time. What might have been of utmost importance at one point in time sometimes takes a back seat to other priorities as we progress on our journeys. These days my top five priorities in life are:

1. My faith
2. My husband
3. My children and grandchildren
4. My country
5. My career     

Each morning, I spend my initial quiet moments giving thanks to the Lord and asking for His guidance for the day ahead. As the day progresses, when too many opportunities vie for my time, those that match my life priorities are the ones I pursue. To the extent an opportunity incorporates more than one life priority, all the better.

For the past 15 years, my career has been dedicated to enabling aspiring heartfelt leaders to achieve their visions of success. Writing my four leadership books has been part of that effort. What I do is not about the financial reward. It’s about the intrinsic rewards gained from helping others achieve their dreams. This is my service to my country.

Having reached a turning point in life, my mission now is more about giving the youth of our nation the tools, knowledge and inspiration they need to become the best they can be as our leaders of tomorrow.

If you’ve been reading my Heartfelt Leadership blog posts for a while, you may have noticed my focus shifted about 3 years ago. That’s when I first wrote a piece on teaching our children to be virtuous and civically responsible leaders. Over the ensuing months, I discussed the importance of teaching the values of integrity, responsibility, respect, courage, and so on.

My initial post in that series, highlighted an amazing classical charter school that had just completed its first year of operation, thanks to the unrelenting determination of a young mother who profoundly desired to give her then-two-year-old daughter the very best education possible. 

The motivation that resulted in the creation of this “Miracle School”—as it’s lovingly referred to by founder Lindsay Hoyt—was driven by the increasingly concerning complaints heard from other parents of children attending the local public schools. Rather than relegate their daughter to suffer the consequences of the rapidly declining standards within the American education system, the Hoyts set out to raise the funds necessary to establish a top-tier classical education academy that would be free to attend and open to everyone.

This enormous undertaking was fraught with seemingly insurmountable odds, yet through undying prayer and perseverance, four years after its founding, the Cornerstone Classical Academy (CCA) now has roughly 1,000 students enrolled and 800 more on the waiting list.

Its mission is:

To sharpen the minds and cultivate the hearts of students through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principals of moral character, civic virtue, and knowledge of truth. 

Their motto says it all:

Learn the truth. Do the good. Love the beautiful.

As you can see in the banner photo at the top of this post, Cornerstone recently celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony for their new upper school building and gymnasium. As exemplified by the heartfelt speeches given by the CEOs of the firms involved in the design and construction of the new facilities, the success of this “Miracle School” is proof that when you pour your heart and soul into something you believe is profoundly important, you will undoubtedly reap what you sow.

My heartfelt kudos go to Lindsay and her amazingly dedicated and ambitious team for proving that you can do whatever you set your mind to if you remain positive and persistent, never compromise on your values, and never ever give up on your dream. At the point when the mountains seem too difficult to climb, just keep going. Believe in yourself. Always exude an attitude of gratitude and clearly express your love and appreciation to all who support and enable your efforts.

It’s been a true honor and privilege to have played just a small part in this team’s success over the past 4+ years.

Rest assured, one of my highest priorities will continue to be the education of our future leaders. Going forward, I intend to lead the process of launching a “Cornerstone 2.0” in the community where I live. I also plan to document the many lessons learned so that others across this great nation might create their own versions of such a morally principled, top-tier academy within their own communities.

What could be more important than enabling our children—and our children’s children—to learn the truth, do the good, and love the beautiful?  If this vision touches your heart and aligns with your life priorities, I encourage you to join me in this profoundly important endeavor.