"Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude"

Speaker:

• Hon. Raymond M. Kethledge - Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

6:30 - Wine and Hors d'oeuvres
7:00 - Program

Please RSVP to [email protected].

Throughout history, leaders have used solitude as a matter of course. Eisenhower wrote memoranda to himself during World War II as a way to think through complex problems. Martin Luther King found moral courage while sitting alone at his kitchen table one night during the Montgomery bus boycott. Jane Goodall used her intuition in the jungles of Central Africa while learning how to approach chimps. Solitude is a state of mind, a space where you can focus on your own thoughts without distraction, with a power to bring mind and soul together in clear-eyed conviction. Like a great wave that saturates everything in its path, however, handheld devices and other media now leave us awash with the thoughts of others. We are losing solitude without even realizing it. Through gripping historical accounts and firsthand interviews with a wide range of contemporary leaders, Judge Kethledge shows how solitude can enhance clarity, spur creativity, sustain emotional balance, and generate the moral courage necessary to overcome adversity and criticism. Judge Kethledge's work has been praised by The Wall Street Journal as "a compelling argument for the integral relationship between solitude and leadership," and acclaimed by Publishers Weekly as "a book to digest slowly, a powerful narrative . . . offering an optimistic message that there remain powerful leaders intent on being courageous and moral."