Life of Significance - Nadja West

This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity

Sanyin Siang: Want to live a life of significance? The choice is yours, and our series will help you to do that. 

Hi, I'm Sanyin Siang. I'm your host for the series and I'm the executive director for the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. And how I live out my significance is that I help leaders and their teams discover and apply their superpowers so that they can live their fullest lives and make the biggest possible difference. 

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Nadja West. Dr. West is a pioneer in so many different ways. She is the first African-American female to reach three-star general rank in our nation's history, and she is also the first African-American female surgeon general for the U.S. Army. And after her retirement from the military, she continues to live a life of service. She currently serves on the boards of Johnson and Johnson, Tenet HealthCare and Marymount University, and she is also a distinguished fellow with our Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics. 

Nadja, welcome, and my first question to you is what does it mean to you to live out a life of significance? 

Nadja West: Leading a life of significance to me just means being your authentic self. I know we hear that a lot. When you think of what's important in leading and what's important in living, it's being your authentic self, being who you are. But what does that mean? A lot of times, when we think about significance, we think of fame, importance, and popularity. But one thing that hit me as a leader were words from Pope John Paul II. He was talking about humanity, and he said that every single human being is unique, precious, and unrepeatable. That really struck me because he didn’t say, “Every human being that’s known by all or of a certain status are important.” He said, “Every human being is unique precious, and unrepeatable.” There’s dignity in that.

So, I think a life of significance is influencing those around you, even if it’s one person—although, that doesn’t sound very specific. But being who you are and using the gifts you were given are significant. And we all have gifts. Something as simple as smiling at someone you pass on the street. That may seem insignificant, but that one interaction, that one human to human interface, may speak volumes and may actually change someone’s life. That sounds dramatic, but it’s true.

Here’s an example: I was a colonel at Fort Eustis, Virginia. I was stationed there from 2003-2005. In this story it was around 2003 or 2004. There was a Martin Luther King Day celebration—we had a program. My sergeant major, who was a senior enlisted advisor for those who aren’t familiar with the ranks, and I were at the event. And—for context—Fort Eustis is in the Tidewater area of Virginia. It’s a small installation. There were about eight colonels on the entire post, and I was one of them.

As we were leaving the program, there were two soldiers, private, first class (PFC). PFC are one rank above private. (So, they were very junior.) When we passed them, I just made a brief comment, something like, “That was a great program, wasn’t it?” And then I kept walking.

But then they started giggling. So, I was looking at my uniform, looking around. I asked my sergeant major, “What’s wrong?” He walks over to them to ask why they’re laughing. Then he says, “Ma’am, they want your autograph.” I asked if he was kidding. When he said they weren’t, I asked them why. Then one of them said, “You’re the first colonel who has ever spoken to us.”

I said, “What do you mean I’m the first colonel who’s spoken to you? Don’t you see colonels often?” He said they see colonels, and that they speak to their sergeants, and maybe speak to a lieutenant, the captain. But they had never had a colonel speak to them—much less have someone say something nice. Then I told them that it wasn’t a big deal, and that I wasn’t much different from them—just older. I said that they could do what I did if they wanted to. That was 2003.

Fast forward to 2010. I was one star general, and I was in Germany. And for those of you familiar, we have this Armed Forces Network (AFN), which broadcast military commercials. We used to have these public service announcements. So, I did one about not missing your doctor’s appointments—it was just a health announcement. This was broadcast in Afghanistan. 

I know this is a long story, but I’m getting there.

A few days later, I got a call from someone named Lieutenant Wright. First Lieutenant Wright. And she said, “Ma’am, I saw you on AFN. You may not remember me, but I was at Fort Eustis, and you spoke to me. I don’t know if you remember. You probably don’t remember.”

I said, “I do remember you and your giggly friend.”

And she said, “Well, ma’am, when you spoke to me and told me that I could do what you did, it inspired me.”

So, she was a PFC. Then she made it to sergeant, went to prep school at West Point, graduated from West Point as a military intelligence officer, and was then First Lieutenant in Afghanistan with an MI—military intelligence—unit. She told me that if I hadn’t spoken to her that day, she wouldn’t have thought she’d be able to do anything else. She came from a single-parent home. She went to high school but didn’t think she would ever do anything else. And now she’s a captain.

Long story short: What if I hadn’t spoken to her? It gives me goose bumps to think that a single comment motivated her to do something different, that it changed her trajectory.

But the other thing that chills me is how many people I have passed by and didn’t say something to. You very rarely see the follow up of one comment. And I never saw her after that.

I get kind of choked up because you don't know who you can inspire. So, to answer your original question, when you talk about a life of significance, you don't have to do a whole lot. Something impactful can require minimal effort. And then it’s just watching the ripple effect. 

Sanyin Siang: So that is so moving. I'm tearing up as I'm listening to you speak. 

Your story took seeing. A lot of times, our heads are in the clouds, and while we want to make a bigger impact, we fail to see people around us. But you saw the people around you and made them feel that they mattered. That was a big impact in a small moment.

But I also know that you have made a major impact in the big moments, like when you oversaw our military’s response to the Ebola crisis a few years ago. 

Something else about you that I find so compelling is your joy. You’re a joyful, energetic person. How do you maintain that posture?

Nadja West: Well, quite a few ways. One of the sources of that joy and energy is my faith. I’m not proselytizing, but I’m Roman Catholic by tradition. There was a homily I heard not too long ago that really hit me. It quoted the apostle Paul who said that as believers, we should always be ready to tell the source of our joy. (And I’d argue that anyone who believes in anything can find merit in that statement.) Even during the bad times, know the source of your joy. Paul was writing to the early Christians who were being persecuted. But because of their faith, they knew that there was something greater than themselves. And, it just so happened, that their faith blew all the precepts about who was worthy out of the water. Their faith told them that they were all equal, all unique, precious, and unrepeatable. 

My faith gives me joy because I know there’s something else. There’s a greater good.

It’s also important to me to live a life of gratitude, especially given where I started. Folks may not know that I was an orphan. I had an uncertain future. But I was put in a loving family, myself along with my 11 brothers and sisters, all of us adopted. How can you not be joyful realizing that I could have wandered off the face of the earth? Or worse, never even seen the light of day, depending on the choice my birth mother made or didn’t make.

But I was put in a loving home, so anything else is just icing on the cake. That’s my context. Staying joyful is about maintaining a context. In my case, it’s where I came from, and knowing how the situation could have been worse.

Of course, you don’t want to minimize pain and suffering. There’s always a negative side, and you have to deal with it. But living a life of gratitude, of hope, of optimism, and thankfulness helps me deal with those more difficult moments.

Sanyin Siang: One final question. You have a tough career. A military career is a tough career. And I know how much family means to you. You’re a mom; you’re a wife. How did you balance those things as you were trying to live a life of significance—of making an impact on a big scale, but also being mindful of what’s at home?

Nadja West: That's a good question. In my family of origin, my dad was in the army. So that’s why I’m in the army. My dad joined in 1939 when it was still a segregated army and then stayed in for 33 years because he saw the promise of the organization. My mom, who is from Hot Springs, Arkansas, was an activist in her own right. She worked for a newspaper in Baltimore called the Afro-American (this was also when there were segregated newspapers). She was a reporter, and she’d try to uncover things in order to make a difference. So, my parents were incredibly hardworking. But they took care of the family. And their example was the best legacy they could leave. They had a strong work ethic, but also spent quality time with the kids and were intentional about making memories.

My husband, who’s also in the military, came from a large family, too. There were six in his family, and he had the same family example of working hard and being intentional with family. So, we knew that we wanted to continue to work and serve and have a family. We shifted our attitude. Instead of thinking, what are we doing to our kids? we flipped the script and focused on making the life we were living normal. We’re making sure they understand the importance of serving our nation and our commitments to our work, not depriving them of some “normal” childhood.

I think the way we’ve approached it has helped. And they love the experiences. We lived in Germany for four years. Then we went to Korea for two years. Our youngest doesn’t remember those experiences as well, but our daughter does, and she loved those experiences. That was her normal life. 

So, to answer your question, we’ve tried to be intentional with family time, while stressing the importance of our work commitments to our children.

Sanyin Siang: One of the things I’m hearing in your answer is that it’s about the values we extrapolate from the situation, rather than trying to change the situation. I think that’s one of the hardest things for leaders to do sometimes—cede control, and instead finding meaning.

Nadja West: Yes, as leaders, it’s important to do that. The army definition of leading is “providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.” That’s the manual definition. I think that definition is great because it doesn’t say “you’re in charge and you tell people what to do.” It says that you provide purpose, direction, and motivation. And, importantly, you can do that even if you don’t have a title or a nameplate on your door. 

There are a lot of times when I’ve been able to lead from the side or from the back. I didn’t always have to be the person saying, “We’re doing it this way.” Instead, I can show what our purpose is and provide direction. You can either be prescriptive in your leadership, or you can provide parameters and motivation. I’ve found that people are very creative if you give them leeway and the parameters of the job.

Sanyin Siang: So, what we heard today is, living a life of significance is really about helping others feel they matter and helping them see possibilities in themselves. That's how we can most matter. And so, in the big moments or in the small moments, being able to be mindful of the words that we say and how we show up is so important. Kind words versus unkind words. 

The second thing is, how do we activate that? We activate that by having a sense of gratitude and knowing our story, where we come from, our own history and be able to derive a sense of wonder and gratitude going forward. That's how we retain that sense of joy. 

And then third is the sense of control. Being able to cede control on things that in the big scheme of things don't matter, but really hold on to the things that matter, such as making memories with family, being able to develop others. And a big part of knowing what to hold on to, is knowing what you are for; your purpose. And if we are able to know what we are for, our purpose, we can then help others frame their purpose and create a sense of belonging for others. Then spark them through how we show up; spark their sense of motivation. 

Also, I heard the word co-create. So, to be able to co-create that sense of direction, the how of how to achieve that purpose. Enable and empower that creativity. 

Thank you so much, General West. You're amazing.