The Vanderbilts and Intentional Engagement
One of my goals is to love reading again.
When I was a child, I would stay up well past my bedtime, engulfed in story after story. Sometimes I’d crawl over and lay on the floor near the door to use the dim light from the hall to read the words that I couldn’t get enough of.
As the years have passed, I’d stopped reading for pleasure. There came a point when I couldn’t tell you the last time I read an entire book from beginning to end. Much like many of us, the tech age has shortened our attention span, and left us impatient and unsatisfied with anything that takes more than 10 minutes.
To take full advantage of neuroplasticity (my brain's ability to to adapt and change continuously based on what it receives), and to thoughtfully progress my success as a leader, I made a conscious decision to read more.
At the time, I limited myself to non-fiction. I told myself a story that fiction was for daydreamers - just a bunch of fairy tales. I decided novels weren’t going to help me, because it wasn’t “learning.”
Except what I found after years of trying to drudge through leadership and management and emotional self-help books was that non-fiction can be really boring. And instead of learning to love reading, I was learning to hate it.
Last summer, while in a bookstore and feeling whimsical, I picked up A Well-Behaved Woman; A Novel of the Vanderbilts, which is a fact-based work of fiction. I finally began (and finished!) reading it last month.
Fascinatingly, I found an enlightening parallel.
A Well-Behaved Woman tells the story of Alva Vanderbilt, a southern-born woman who intentionally and artfully attracted the eye of W.K. Vanderbilt, grandson of the 1800’s American railroad businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose death made W.K. Vanderbilt one of the wealthiest men in the world. Alva married into the Vanderbilt family for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain wealth and stability for herself, her two younger sisters and her dying father.
As she matured, she leveraged that wealth to build the Vanderbilt “brand,” brilliantly and craftfully elevating the family to a highly revered social status, making them one of the most famous nouveau-riche families in the world.
Alva Vanderbilt defied the feminine mystique. She utilized all she learned in the course of finding and securing a stable family name, not to stay home and keep house but instead, to leverage her name in pursuit of architectural design, supporting the welfare of destitute children in NYC, and later, the suffragist movement.
While I don’t recommend anyone marry for money (except maybe the second time, as Jackie O famously suggested), I do recommend the thoughtful and intentional progression of your brand, whatever that may be.
Alva Vanderbilt knew the recipe she needed to elevate her family’s status and success.
I knew what recipe I needed to elevate the status and success of my personal brand.
Just as Mrs Vanderbilt, made conscious choices as a young woman to intentionally engage with her future husband’s family, I made conscious choices to begin reading in a way that engaged my thinking brain.
Today, what do you need to intentionally engage with?
Apple Crisp
adapted from The New York Times Cooking
Today’s recipe is a quick and easy dessert. Apples are in season in the Southern Hemisphere, so if you’re Down Under, this is the perfect time to have a crisp like this. I’ve also added pomegranate seeds in the past, which gives it a special kick.
INGREDIENTS
6 cups peeled, cored, sliced apples or ripe pears, 2 to 3 pounds
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup flour
6 tablespoons butter, plus more for greasing the pan
¾ cup oats
½ cup walnuts or pecans
PREPARATION
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Toss fruit with half the cinnamon and 2 tablespoons sugar, and spread it in a lightly buttered 8-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan. Place pan in oven to begin the softening of the apples while you make the topping.
Combine remaining cinnamon and sugar in container of a food processor with vanilla, butter, oats and nuts; pulse a few times, just until ingredients are combined (do not purée). To mix ingredients by hand, soften butter slightly, toss together dry ingredients and work butter in with fingertips, a pastry blender or a fork.
Spread topping over apples, and bake about 40 minutes, until topping is browned and apples are tender. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.