Nine years ago, when I said goodbye to my grandfather for the last time in Ohio, I was working on Capitol Hill. The vision for Liberatus was already forming, and when I saw him in his final days I was embarrassed by what daily life in Congress was like.
My vision for Liberatus is not to create a personal brand. After a traumatic brain injury, I of course would like to go fast because I want quick wins, and the societal dignity that comes with them. But making our country more just and free is about going far together. Before she led free people away from the abusers who treated them like slaves, Harriet Tubman survived a brain injury too.
The participation by Liberatus stakeholders in the mission to inspire American unity over the last nine years made it possible to publish 19 writers, include 60 people in content creation, create and ship 215 copies of Volume One to people in 21 states so far, and contribute $666 in funding to three partner organizations to fuel their work to care for people who have been displaced or marginalized.
Craftsmanship in politics is about listening, asking questions and doing deeper research to search for wisdom, and it’s about creating new solutions for the next generation. We can also take David McCullough's advice to “learn to edit yourself” a step further, to its broader meaning: lead yourself.
Over the last nine years, more than 200 stakeholders have brought the mission to inspire American unity to life. Thank you to all of you for your shared passion! We all want leaders who make our country stronger. We want a basic sense of sanity and justice. We want quality craftsmanship, and we want to make the next generation stronger.
You can’t control the great outdoors. They are wild, untamable. That’s how it should be. I needed that reminder desperately one beautiful and unusually mild fall day with my family hiking in the Midwest. And I need it today. Working on Capitol Hill only fed my desire—no, my need—to control. It becomes a bullet point on a resume.
