You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.  - Beverly Sills

This morning I had the honor of listening to a talk from, and then meeting, Marie Wilson, President and Founder of The White House Project. You wanted to bottle the energy in that room. Complete blog post coverage of the event forthcoming.

Then, this afternoon, the iPad was released. It happened, there was some fanfare. I'm squeezing it in between two items of business I believe were more important in the grand scheme. (Nevertheless, I will remember today as a day I ate my words about Steve Jobs's brand strategizing brilliance.) 

Finally, this evening, we watched the President give his first State of the Union Address. Twitter was lit up with commentary, but what resonated most for me was the call for unity across party lines. Just because my grandparent's generation wasn't able to accomplish this doesn't mean ours can't.

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Tying this morning and this afternoon together, read Marie Wilson, founder of The White House Project, on President Obama. Wilson writes,

Two of Obama's strongest assets in leadership have come into focus in the last few weeks.

The first is what I learned (and try to emulate) from one of my early mentors: a recipe for successful leadership is to keep the intensity down. President Obama's adherence to this advice has been evident throughout his career in office, and it is what I think makes him a successful leader, one year into his administration.

...

Commitment to keeping an even keel is what gives a neophyte leader gravitas, and in an ideal world, time and space to earn trust. In his first year, President Obama has had neither of those luxuries, his first 365 days have been fast and furious. But what we need right now is exactly what he has always given us: no highs, no lows, just steady as she goes.

Read the full piece, written for The Washington Post: In Praise of Steadiness.