Keith, Kent M. 1948–

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Keith, Kent M. 1948–

(Kent Marsteller Keith)

PERSONAL: Born May 22, 1948, in New York, NY; son of Bruce and Evelyn E. (Johnston) Keith; married Elizabeth Misao Carlson, August 22, 1978; children: three. Education: Harvard University, B.A. (government), 1970; Oxford University, M.A. (philosophy), 1972, M.A. (politics), 1977; University of Hawaii, J.D., 1977; University of Southern California, Ed.D., 1996; Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan), certificate in Japanese.

ADDRESSES: Home—2626 Hillside Ave., Honolulu, HI 96822-1716. Agent—c/o Putnam's Sons Publicity, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Called to the Bar of Hawaii, 1977, and the Bar of Washington, DC, 1979. Cades, Schutte, Fleming & Wright (law firm), Honolulu, HI, associate lawyer, 1977–79; Hawaii Department of Planning and Economic Development, Honolulu, coordinator, 1979–81, deputy director, 1981–83, director, 1983–86; State of Hawaii, Honolulu, energy-resources coordinator, 1983–86, member of state policy council, 1983–86; Aloha Tower Development Corporation, chair, 1983–86; Castle & Cooke Properties Inc., project manager for Mililani Technology Park, 1986–89, vice president of public relations and business development, 1988–89; Chaminade University of Honolulu, president, 1989–95; YMCA Honolulu, vice president of development and communications, 1998–2001, senior vice president, 2001–04; Carlson Keith Corporation, president, beginning 2004. Manoa Valley Church, Honolulu, president, 1976–78; Hawaii Democratic Convention, member of platform committee, 1982, 1984, 1986; Hawaii Loa College, trustee, 1986–89, vice chair, 1987–89; Manoa Neighborhood Board, chair, 1989–91; member of board of directors, St. Louis School, 1990–95, Hanahauoli School, 1990–98, and Catholic Charities, 1997–2003; Diocesan Board of Education, member, 1990–95, chair, 1990–93.

MEMBER: International House of Japan, American Association of Rhodes Scholars, Nature Conservancy, Pacific Club, Harvard Club Hawaii (secretary, 1974–76, board of directors, 1974–78), Rotary Club of Honolulu.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rhodes Scholar, 1970; named among Ten Outstanding Young Men of America, U.S. Jaycees, 1984; Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Hawaii, 1993.

WRITINGS:

The Silent Revolution in the Seventies: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council, Harvard Student Agencies, 1968, new edition, Terrace Press, 2003.

The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World, Inner Ocean Publishing (Makawao, HI), 2001, published as Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments, Putman (New York, NY), 2002.

Do It Anyway: The Handbook for Finding Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy World, Inner Ocean Publishing (Makawao, HI), 2003.

Jesus Did It Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments for Christians, Putman (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of more than eight hundred presentations, conference papers, and seminars that focus on leadership and finding personal meaning in one's life.

SIDELIGHTS: Kent M. Keith's background is both impressive and varied. As an undergraduate at Harvard University in the late 1960s, he wrote about student leadership and delivered dozens of speeches in which he encouraged young people to treat others with care and respect. After receiving his bachelor's degree in government from Harvard, Keith went on to earn master's degrees in politics and philosophy from Oxford University, as well as a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California. Keith then passed the bar exam and worked as an associate at a Hawaiian law firm for two years. Later, he held prominent positions in Hawaii's state department, worked as a vice president at the local YMCA, and served as president of Chaminade University for several years.

Despite his many accomplishments, it was a piece of writing that Keith published when he was nineteen and still a student at Harvard that made him known worldwide. At a local rotary club meeting in 1997, one of Keith's fellow members started reading a poem he had found in a book about the late Mother Teresa. As Keith sat and listened, he realized that though the author was listed as anonymous, the poem was actually part of a booklet that he had written over thirty years earlier. He searched the Internet and found that the ideas of respect and love that he had named the Paradoxical Commandments had managed to spread all over the world.

In 2001 Keith expanded his original list and wrote The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World. The book is based on the idea that although we live in a world where bad news and tragedy seem never-ending, people can find meaning through love and honesty even when faced with negativity and cynicism. The title has since been translated into over a dozen languages. As its popularity grew, the book was reprinted in 2002 as Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments. In 2003 Keith developed Do It Anyway: The Handbook for Finding Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy World as a companion to the best-selling Anyway. The handbook includes real-life experiences of people who practice the Paradoxical Commandments and suggestions for how others can incorporate them into their daily lives.

The author's next book, Jesus Did It Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments for Christians, uses stories from both the Old and New Testaments to illustrate the importance of the Paradoxical Commandments. Keith points out how Jesus and other biblical figures managed to do good deeds and respect others despite being mistreated and persecuted themselves. A contributor to Library Journal felt that this installment in Keith's "paradoxical" collection "sheds important light" on what many find to be one of the most incomprehensible aspects of Christ's teachings, namely his willingness to love and care for those that did not care about him. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that Keith presents the information in a "straightforward" manner that makes the author's connections and conclusions easy for readers to understand.