My mom never stopped smiling when things were hard. I learned it's a leadership superpower.

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My mom's positivity is pervasive. When I was a teenager, my parents took my sister and me on a backpacking canoe trip in the Adirondacks. It wasn't the sort of thing we did often, and our heavy canoe was difficult to carry through the necessary portages. On one particularly steep, weed-riddled stretch, Mom struggled with Dad to get the canoe over the hill. Every time they set it down for a break, she'd shake her head, smile, laugh a little, then continue onward until the canoe was back in the water.