Caring, Courtesy, Community

An interesting thing has happened to me in the past couple of months. Twice now I have left a business and found that someone had parked so close to my car that I couldn't open the driver's side door. I had to get into my vehicle through the passenger side, crawling over the gear shift to get to the driver's seat. During the week of the most recent "people are parking too close to my car" incident, one of my colleagues had the same thing happen to her.

As you can imagine, many a thought ran through my head (some not so kind). In the end, what I found myself stuck on was what this act, although small, said about caring, courtesy, and community. What do my actions say about my beliefs in regards to caring, courtesy, and community. For that matter, what do your actions say about these things? Are we adding to the community or are we taking from it? Are we all behaving in a way that treats our fellow community members with care and courtesy? If not, let's start.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow humans. ~Herman Melville

Bringing the LeaderShape Community Together

The LeaderShape Institute is turning 25 this year and we could not be more excited! We are planning a celebration in Chicago on April 9^th.

Will you be there? We sure hope so!

As you read this, you might be saying: “Oh, that’s neat that LeaderShape is turning 25. But really, I don’t think this event is for me.” STOP right there….this is FOR YOU!

This anniversary celebration is a chance for every member of the LeaderShape community to come together and celebrate an experience that has been so special to so many people. That is the great part about the LeaderShape community! It may have been 6 months or 16 years since you attended The LeaderShape Institute but every member of this community has that experience in common. What a great opportunity to come together, share memories, catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

The night will start with a reception and an opportunity for people to reconnect with people from their session. We’ll then have a delicious dinner. Followed by a keynote speech from Eric Saperston. Eric is a really great guy who is going to share with us a little about his journey in life and the power that each person has to make a difference in the world. Our celebration would not be complete without some balloons (maybe in castle form?!), great food, flipchart paper and lots of fun.

Here are details about the event: https://www.leadershape.org/25th-Anniversary.aspx

Spread the word and make plans to reconnect with your Family Cluster! We can’t wait to see the community gathered together to celebrate this very special occasion.

Impossible Is A Shared Agreement

What is "impossible" is a shared agreement.

How many times has someone told you, "you can't do that?" What about "that will never happen." It's enough motivation for any of us to want to prove them wrong.

How many times have people been wrong about what they thought would never happen?

On May 6, 1954 Roger Bannister, a 25-year-old medical student broke the four-minute-mile (3 minutes, 59.4 seconds to be exact). The "experts" said it was impossible. People thought you would die if you tried.

Within 46 days, Roger Bannister's record was broken by another runner. By the end of 1957, 16 runners had ran sub-four-minute-miles. To date, more than 1,000 runners have run sub four-minute-miles, accomplishing it an astonishing 4,700+ times.

Well, it's February. How are your new year's resolutions coming along? Have you gotten committed yet?

The difference between impossible and possible is often how many times you try.

Remember, nothing is impossible unless you say it is.

Perception vs. Reality

I had a supervisor in my early career provide me with that advice and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. It is so immensely difficult to manage the perception others have of you, your work, your relationships, etc. yet I (and maybe you) spend countless hours worried about what others think (perceive) about us. More times than not, issues that service in our lives, barriers that jump out of no where, are the results of faulty perceptions. We just didn't have the hard conversation. We just didn't take the time to stop and ask, "Is this what you meant when you said that?" It has been said that one's perception IS one's reality. Given that, we all have our own versions of reality. Our purpose and goal should not be to convince someone of our reality, but work hard to understand the perceptions of others to understand theirs. If all of us did that, we would perhaps act a little kinder...lead a little better. Maybe the goal should be to use multiple perspectives to create a collective reality. Hmmm. Nah, that's too deep...or is it?

I'm gonna make it better

I saw this video today and posted it to our Facebook and Twitter pages. It's a pretty simple and straight forward message, "I'm gonna make it better."

I'm gonna make it better.

I'm pretty lucky to work for an organization that I believe does a great job supporting its community to do just that. Make it better. Whatever "it" is. Each of us has our own passions and causes that motivate us to do good, to make better. All of these efforts contribute to the improvement of our lives, communities, and the world. That's so amazing it's almost overwhelming!

I also appreciate that LeaderShape supports what I want to make better, which is the health of our bodies and our environment through plant-based living. They listen when I talk, eat the (delicious) vegan foods I bring to the office, and are mindful of the places we eat while traveling and the food we order for events. My passion isn't my co-workers passion...but they still support me.

Watch the video. Ask yourself, "What am I making better? Who am I supporting as they make their 'it' better?" Now make it better.

YouTube Contest

Hello and Happy New Year! We want to start out 2011 with an opportunity to hear from you.

With that in mind, we'd like to announce our first ever YouTube contest! There are so many stories among the LeaderShape community about how being a part of The LeaderShape Institute has impacted lives. We'd like to hear your story.

All of the details that you will need to participate can be found by going to our LeaderShape YouTube Contest information page.

Lights, camera, action!

The Donate Button

Did you know that LeaderShape is a not-for-profit organization? And did you know that we depend on contributions in order to reach more people with our programs?

The contributions we receive go directly to providing scholarships for participants to attend programs. If you have attended The LeaderShape Institute, you may be someone who has benefited from a donation to our organization. If you have already participated in one of our programs, your contribution could help to provide someone else with the experience, too. Think about it like this…

If every graduate and facilitator contributed $20, we would be able to add $800,000.00 to our endowment.

Wow. That’s a lot of scholarship money! Imagine the impact that would have. Seriously, imagine it. Imagine the number of people out in the world furthering our vision of a just, caring, thriving world where all lead with integrity and a healthy disregard for the impossible. If you ask me, that’s pretty powerful.

Because the act of giving is so important to LeaderShape and the ability to further our cause, we’ve made it easy to contribute through our website by including a “Donate” button right on the main page. We hope you check it out. We hope you decide that you’d like to make a contribution. No amount is too small.

Of course, no amount is too big either. J