Eight Success Characteristics and Civil Rights Icons! Number ONE: CLARITY -THURGOOD MARSHALL

This is the first of eight blog posts regarding a framework to help increase and encourage your personal development on your journey toward your goals and dreams. The twist with these posts and the framework is that I highlight a Civil Rights pioneer/ancestor who exemplifies the specific characteristic being discussed. Now to the Framework.

The First Success Characteristic is Clarity – Civil Rights Pioneer: Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)

Clarity is so important that it is listed as the first High-Performance Habit in the book High Performance Habits, by N.Y. Times Best Selling Author, Coach, Online Marketer, and Writer, Brendon Burchard. Of all the great information that Brendon shares in this book, he chose to begin with Clarity. In fact, the importance of first having clarity cannot be underscored. I write this as a mid-career professional, with several degrees and licenses, but with a career that has been rewarding but that has at times lacked clarity. The problem with not having clarity from my experience is that you end up spending lots of time or should I say wasting lots of time doing something that you really don’t want to do. The lack of clarity trap is real and it goes something like this…You don’t have clarity, so you jump into anything and everything smoking. You apply to so many jobs that you can’t remember all of them. You find yourself spending your days busy, but not productive. To quote Brendon, you are working on “busywork, but not your life’s work.” This is perhaps one of the greatest personal mistakes that we make for our lives and our careers. Lacking clarity and focus can contribute to unnecessary costs, whether its taking a degree that you really don’t want or need, or incurring moving expenses and experiencing the turmoil of moving from job to job and place to place, but never being satisfied. Like many people, I made a lot of moves that now in hindsight, do not appear to be as advantageous or may have even been costly. As I reflect now, I realize that this was due to a lack of clarity. The cartoon Where in the World is Carmen San Diego teaches us as kids that wandering is ok, and that is true. But lack of clarity is not. Particularly since there are very easy ways to obtain clarity.

The first thing to realize is that action brings clarity. The biggest mistake we can make when it comes to clarity is standing still. For me there were times when I could have and indeed should have made moves, but instead I was "stuck in the mud in Vicksburg." (Civil War fans will get that one). Sometimes its like a revolving door. Lack of clarity leads to inaction and inaction leads to lack of clarity. This is extremely problematic. Think of it like driving, when you don’t know where you are going, you end up somewhere else. Then you look back and ask yourself how did you get here. The answer is simple: lack of clarity.

Ever since former Assoc. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School, he set his vision and his path with clarity that he would devote his life to ending segregation in schools and elsewhere in the country. And he did that with laser-like precision. He won 29 out of 32 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was clear about what his life would be dedicated to. Although to get this kind of clarity, Thurgood had to make some tough choices and endure some personal challenges. For instance it was an incident in college that prompted his older non-traditional fellow student Langston Hughes to comment to young Thurgood that he needed to become serious about what he would do to uplift his race. Also, he had to close his private practice and take the job at the NAACP Legal Department. By and large his legal practice was not lucrative and so it was either go with his former Dean and mentor Prof. Charles Hamilton Houston, or continue to struggle to make ends meet with no appreciable victories for African Americans.

But Thurgood changed course and his decision forever changed this country’s history. He would go on to pick up the mantle of desegregation champion and continue winning legal victories culminating in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, et al., case in 1954, in which the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) unanimously outlawing "separate but equal" educational facilities. Thurgood would eventually become a federal appellate court judge, the U.S. Solicitor General and then a long-serving Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. His life was dedicated to using the law and the Constitution to get this country to live up to its promise of equality for all citizens particularly African Americans.

How else can you achieve clarity? You must get alone in a room, with your thoughts and a sheet of paper and a pen and get very clear on three questions:

1. What is your life’s work?

2. Why is it your life’s work?

3. How will you go about accomplishing your life’s work?

Answering those questions will bring you what clarity always does: peace. Clarity helps you get through the noise to the other side and will help you get to your destination faster and with less detours. Clarity is what you should seek first on your journey to improving your life and achieving the success that you are destined to achieve. You should seek clarity in every area of your life, personal, family, work, community, legacy. So, in order to become successful and improve your life, go get clarity now….

In the next post, I will discuss the next most important characteristic: Consistency.