It seems like it's been forever since I last posted an entry, and so I'm sorry to all of those people who have been wanting to read more! Your patience and gentle nudges have finally brought me to this point.
This past weekend, I attended a leadership conference at Paradise Lake with the individuals that I work with on Union, as well as some of the other councils that are actively involved in the school. It was an incredibly revealing experience and I truly enjoyed every moment I spent there.
There are three moments that really stood out for me (in a positive light) this weekend that I want to share with all of you. Maybe this is something that you can relate to, or maybe it's something that you can learn from.
The first moment hat really stood out for me was being on the High Ropes course. I was completely confident in my abilities to do this. I have no fears of heights, and a lot of trust in the equipment that is used. Nonetheless, getting out onto the course I was overwhelmed by the amount of support that was shown to me and to all of the members at the conference. People were shouting words of encouragement to people they barely knew, focusing on motivating them through the difficult challenges that they faced. Watching people that I know well struggle to face their fears, and then loving life after they had achieved their goal was an incredibly humbling experience. My congratulations to all of my teammates who made it through the courses.
The second moment that stood out for me was a fantastic speech given by Sister Martha, or as she preferred to be known while on the retreat, Martha. Martha spoke to us about how important it is to find balance between our own personal lives, and the challenges we face when we come into contact with the lives of others. She taught us the power of centering ourselves and becoming comfortable with where we feel that we belong. She taught us that the strength of a team comes not from how much we accomplish, but from how we relate to ourselves and to one another and how these relationships impact and drive what we do. This is something that I find personally challenging. I often forget to take care of the person that I am, and what my core values are when I'm working at achieving at task. It was nice to have someone validate for me that it's okay for me to take a time out and breathe. That is something that I will need to continue to remember while I am stressed out and overworking myself during the year.
The last moment that really stood out for me was hearing David Perrin speak. Dr. Perrin spoke to us about what it means to be an outsider. This is something that I found incredibly inspiring. We often lose sight of how much we take our positions for granted, and it is not often that we feel we need to challenge our surroundings and become an outsider for a little bit. Dr. Perrin reminded us of that, and I am forever grateful.
Along with all of the leadership building and communication building with others that we took away from the experience we shared, each of us also got a book on leadership. The book was Strengths Based Leadership, and it talked a lot about how the best leaders are the ones who effectively use their strengths to guide other team members. We were each given a code to take an "inventory" online to discover our strengths. This is something that I was incredibly excited to do! I love learning more about myself, and I was curious to see how close I would actually be to the results that would appear. I took the test today and laughed as I read, word for word, the story of my life. And so for your enjoyment, I have included in my post today, my 5 strengths, and a little bit of information about each of them...
1) Restorative
-I am a good trainer and teacher
-I help students overcome their failures and conquer their weaknesses
-I like working alone to figure out why/how I fell short of my goals and prevents me from making them again in the future
-I desire to be influential and be pit in charge of groups or projects
2) Significance
-I gain a sense of purpose by working
-I want people to listen to me
-I encourage others by celebrating their successes
-I provide motivation for people to reach their goals
-I am eager to take on responsibilities and make decisions
-I look forwards to the benefits that I get out of rank
3)Input
-I give good advice (usually)
-I enjoy reading
-I desire to gain additional skills and talents
-I make great leaps when I am given the chance to exchange ideas in a group
-I love complicated procedures and I can reduce them down to simplistic terms
-I enjoy helping other understand how to follow these terms
4) Strategic
-I find the right words to say to express myself and my ideas
-I love to share my ideas
-I pay close attention to everything that goes on around me (even if it looks like I'm not)
-I figure out what is actually important in the information I get, and am able to focus on the and pinpoint problems and emerging ideas
-I can find links between things that other people can't
5) Learner
-I enroll in challenging situations willingly
-I expect to be in the loop about everything, whether it effects me or not
-I am always looking to find new ways to do things
-I try to get out of situations where people want me to keep doing the same repetitive tasks.
I couldn't believe it as I was reading the descriptions of these skills. I was finding myself agreeing with everything. i highly recommend that everyone go and check out the book/website!!
http://strengths.gallup.com/110659/Homepage.aspx
All in all, I had a great weekend, and I've learned so much about myself and how I can work to be a better leader to the people that I will be coming into contact with over the next year. I'm so excited to see how everything is going to turn out!!
