The sabbatical that changed my life.

In the spring of 2023, I was recovering from colon cancer surgery. I was depressed, unmotivated in my work, and facing what I thought was a midlife crisis. As I recovered from surgery, I knew I had to get in better shape, start eating healthier, and listen to this strange feeling in my gut. This feeling that something in my life had to change.

I slowly started to develop the habit of walking. Each day I would try to get in an hour of walking, which usually equated to two to four miles depending on my speed. As the mayor of our small city, it was a great way to see the different neighborhoods in our community. I continued to walk outside and as the seasons changed, I switched to a local fitness center once the weather got too cold. Walking laps every morning is very therapeutic for me. It gives me time to listen to podcasts, learn things I don’t know, and clear my head or arrange my own thoughts.

“I wanted to have a bigger impact on the world around me.”

In the fall of 2023, I left the position I had held for over a decade. I didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was going to go. The decision to leave a well paying, comfortable position was anything but easy. Deep down I knew I had to do it, I just didn’t know why. I loved the people I worked with, the new customers I got to meet, and building relationships with people, but at the same time – there was something about it that was just not fulfilling anymore. I wanted to have a bigger impact on the world around me.

Soon after leaving my full-time job, a crisis arose in our community that would test my mettle. It was extremely stressful, and at times very intense, and not at all any of my doing. But as mayor, I had to step up and lead the city due to the void left by the absence of a city manager. The thing I leaned on most during this time, the one thing I told myself I had to do even when being insulted at public meetings, or falsely accused of wrongdoing, was to remain kind. I believed deeply that it would be the only way to maintain control of the crisis, and allow me to be seen as a credible, able leader. On several occasions, I had been told during my previous three and a half years as mayor, that I was too nice and that in turn made me a weak leader. In my mind though, being respectful and actually caring about those that I had been elected to lead, seemed like the only way to lead.

My wife had asked me a year or so before all of this started, what job I would keep if money had nothing to do with it. At that time, I was working full time at the sign company, working my own personal business during the evenings and weekends, and trying to hold down the duties and responsibilities that come along with being a mayor. The answer was easy for me, be mayor. The one responsibility out of the three that paid next to nothing. I could tell by the look I received, she probably didn’t agree with me. I explained to her that it was the most fulfilling and gave me the most joy. It was the best way I had available to try and make the biggest positive impact on the most people. Over the course of the next year, and not at all on purpose, that is exactly what I did.

The fall of 2023 has turned into the spring of 2024 and I am continuing to walk every day. I am blessed and grateful that my wife has gone along with my crazy plan of going forward into the unknown. The more I walk, the more I learn, and the more I come to realize that I need to share the idea of leading with kindness. I have been reading articles, listening to podcasts, watching TED Talks, and studying the effects of kindness. The way it changes us on a cellular level, both by giving and receiving. The way it raises productivity and reduces turnover in the workplace. It is truly a game changer, and best of all – it’s free. Our country, our politics, and our society as a whole have all become a misinformed, self- serving mess. We need to change the way we deal with others not only in our work, but in our communities. It is my new mission.

We have a welcome sign in our community with the slogan “Life is Better Here”. I walked by it today and realized that it’s true. I don’t know where I am going, or how I can impact the world with my message, all I know for sure is that I left a job that did not fulfill me and that life really is better here.