I spoke at a Summersearch meeting of board members yesterday and thought I would share my remarks:
- I’m here because of Katherine Kennedy
- Like many of you, I heard Katherine and her wonderful laugh long before I met her
- Katherine and I shared a common passion and caring and belief about the “formula” to form responsible adults:
- love, integrity and discipline, as well as the value of an experience
- I’m from Minnesota, spent my summers paddling the lakes of the Boundary Waters, all the way north to the arctic circle, as well as one trip across the great lakes
- Today I manage a business strategy consulting firm and we are regularly hiring
- One of my favorite questions is to ask is, “tell me about your motivation…when or where or how did you find your motivation?” what gets you up in the morning?
- I don’t get to give my answer to this question very often, but it’s always seemed relevant to why I support summership
- I found my motivation one hot summer day, paddling across a glassy lake, looking at a horizon three miles ahead that never seemed to get any closer, my mind semi-numb from the monotonous motion and dull aches in my shoulders
- Canoeing in my early years was always something of a chore, something I actually didn’t like that much while I was doing it, but liked a lot more afterwards, when I was safe at home lying on the couch watching tv
- But somewhere in the midst of the monotony and beauty of paddling across that lake, I realized that if I could make it across this lake, then I could probably make it across all sorts of “hard” tasks back at home – and so I started daydreaming about all the things I wanted to accomplish when I got back home…and then I achieved those goals
- So I support Summersearch because of that daydream, because my hunch is that summersearchers, who are born to situations infinitely more difficult than mine, will, somewhere in their experience, have that daydream moment, when they figure out why or how or simply that they can guide their lives and the lives of others to better shores.
- Another reason I support summersearch is because of the purity or strength of its mission, combined with the fact, as I’ve heard it, that the mission is carried out in the actions of its staff and leaders. What is that mission? Well, I read the website, but that was too complicated. Here’s how I interpret the core of the summersearch mission: No free lunch. Work hard. Help others. Merit is rewarded. You can’t get in to summersearch if you are not both of need and show sufficient merit or promise. Summersearch is selective. I was searching last night for an analogous organization to summersearch and, because I have young kids, I was drawn to this (light saber). Summersearch has some similarities to the Jedi Academy. Jedi Knights, as any five year-old will tell you, are some seriously cool dudes. They live by a code, they work hard, help others and are incredibly talented…and it’s really hard to be both selected as a Jedi in training (they call that a padawan) and to become a Jedi Knight (Anakin never made it).
- Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of summersearch (and Star Wars) and, although the strength of the summersearch mission poses some challenges, precisely because it is selective and more kids cannot be included, I still thoroughly support summersearch. So my view is that if you can figure out how to build more and more relationships with donors, like the relationship I have with Katherine, where the donor can sense that the mission is real, or, as Katherine and Lissa say, drink the cool-aid, then I know you will be successful.
So my five-year old son is telling me about the other kids, whose parents by them all these cool Star Wars Lego sets, and all I can think of to set him straight is the following: “Michael, listen up, buddy. You can’t always have what you want, but if you try some time, you might just find, you get what you need.” My next favorite parently mentor: 
This book recommendation, “Ten Degrees of Reckoning,” from Ann Phillips, friend of our family. When Ann refers, it is always worth listening!!! I will definitely be attending this reading on May 14th in San Francisco.