Royal Spirit Alive! How to be a Beacon in a 40-watt World

Golden opportunities are most often associated with good times, those peak experiences that bring success and happiness.

Not so, according to Alan Cohen, author of The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Golden opportunities are all of life’s experiences, both the ones that bring happiness, pleasure and success, as well as the ones that bring challenges. Challenges push us to our limit and strengthen our character. Challenges form grit, shape indomitable spirit and propel us to grander achievements.

If you’re looking for tips to embrace grit-shaping challenges, welcome to this month’s Y.E.S. Showcase.

Y.E.S. (You Expressing Spirit) Showcase

Adelaide Key, NC Philanthropist at work.

Adelaide Daniels Key, humanitarian, philanthropist, businesswoman and former owner of the Mountaineer Publishing Company in Waynesville, NC, has grit and she knows it. She’s a long-term resident of Western North Carolina and widely known as the turbo charger behind Lewis Rathbun Center, a home away from home for patients undergoing medical treatment in Asheville and their families; and Key Learning Center at Carolina Day School, whose mission is to create a supportive educational environment that removes major obstacles to learning for children with learning disabilities.

Her philanthropic accomplishments, as well as her triumphs over personal setbacks, reflect her larger-than-life-size expression of an indomitable spirit. She’s faced spousal betrayal and breast cancer—not once, but twice—with dogged determination and a bias towards optimism.

She’s a self-described “cockeyed optimist,” a person who’s always looking at a situation from different angles until there’s something to hold onto with hope. When she hears “can’t be done,” Adelaide begins asking questions and seeking solutions. The status quo trembles and change happens.

Yes, Adelaide Key’s got grit, but where did she get it?

Adelaide was born into privilege, the daughter of Jonathan Daniels and granddaughter of Josephus Daniels of the Raleigh News & Observer sensation. Social privilege, though, brought expectations, which made no sense to Adelaide. She had an out-of-the-box style and a common sense approach. Neither was embraced at home, in school or anywhere else. Adelaide gave herself permission to be who she was. Grit was taking shape.

Adelaide was suspended from school in first grade because of her common sense problem-solving approach. During a field trip to Washington, D.C., when the temperatures were soaring with record heat, the group chaperone discovered Adelaide and her friend in the girl’s bathroom, sitting on the edge of a commode, contentedly soaking their bare feet in cold water. Horrified by the girls’ unladylike behavior, the chaperone suspended both girls. Adelaide learned disapproval did not mean her ideas were wrong. She was not the one standing in the doorway sweating profusely. Grit was forming.

Adelaide made her debut, at her mother’s insistence. However, conformance did not mean compliance to social norms. She left the party, went to the state fair in her ball gown, and rode the Ferris wheel. She learned how to move from either/or solutions to and/so propositions. More grit was forming.

Adelaide acknowledges not conforming to societal and parental expectations was challenging. “Yeah, I got kicked out of school, but I had a damn good time in the process. And, I learned lots of things that I might not have learned otherwise. I’m just me. I don’t know how to explain it.”

What about you? Do you want to embrace your Royal Spirit and be “just me?” Here’s Adelaide’s go-for-it, grit-shaping tips:

It appears Adelaide sees golden opportunities in all life’s experiences when she says, “We are in training all of our lives for the things that we are going to do later. Even in the hard times, I look back and realize that if they hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Today, Adelaide continues to be passionate about solving community issues, particularly the causes no body wants to go after. When Adelaide introduces herself, she says, “I’m Adelaide Key, community troublemaker.” Adelaide Key’s got grit and she’s putting it to work in her community.

Adelaide may be contacted at: 828/251-0515; or via email at awdk@aol.com.