Connecting The Dots

This is where I'm training. Isn't it breathtaking?

I could barely sleep last night. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach this morning like it was the first day of school. With endless mind chatter streaming through my head, “What if I fail?” “I hope they like me,” even worse, “I hope I like them.”

Silly worrisome butterflies that rarely flourish into real threats or concerns. So far everyone and everything has been wonderful. Everyone part of my team and other countries teams have had such amazing journeys of travel, social change and their passion for the world and I’m honored to stand beside them.

Picture Courtesy Of Fellow Adviser April Brewer
Check Out Her Blog Here!

We are up in the mountains of Denver at Estes Park for training at the most epic YMCA center I have ever seen! We literally saw Elk grazing on the grass that we walked by on the way to our first training meeting.

A Magpie I saw!

We also wake up to Magpies chirping and walk alongside little ground squirrels running around. They are the cutest thing EVER! Check out what they look like here!

Tonight we did fun exercises of reviewing fears, assumptions, expectations and goals that staff and scholars expressed in a pre-trip survey. The more I listened and was reminded of my own fears, assumptions, expectations and goals as well as others the more it confirmed for me that I don’t really know what to expect and that nothing is for certain. That makes this trip even more terrifying and exciting.

When I told a mentor of mine about my trip he advised, “Go in with no expectations so you will not be disappointed.” At first one might feel offended at this statement. ‘Well why wouldn’t I go in with expectations?’ And it’s not even about the mentality if you set the bar low then you’ll be pleasantly surprised but it’s about having no expectations, no predictions. Just living in the moment of ‘this is it’ and be present to that every second. We never know what will happen next. But isn’t that the beauty of life and something to be celebrated and praised not condemned and feared.

We were asked to create and share our life maps with 10 significant events in our life that have lead us to this point, the Institute with ThinkImpact being the last event. And the thing that’s crazy is that it’s exactly like Steve Jobs said in his commencement speech to Stanford. The jist being that you can’t really see or understand how the events in your life connect until you look back on the things that you’ve done. Not when you are looking forward trying to figure it all out. Not until you look backwards does it all seem to make sense how you came to this very moment at this precise time and place.

Here’s his exact quote that is way more eloquent and poetic than what I recreated:

“Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Watch The Whole Commencement Speech Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=787FjaJ9kXs

Something that came up in our training today was the obsession with results that has infiltrated the culture that is America. We want the product. We want the results – FAST! Sometimes in the narrow tunnel vision so focused on the end result that we lose site of the beautiful art that is process. The journey not the destination, right? I vow to enjoy the journey this summer and continue to look down at my first and only tattoo that I have on my foot to remember that it is all part of the journey.

I have no clue of my future in terms of what is going to happen in the Institute. I have a general structure in mind but nothing can be sure. I’m so excited to be living in process of this unknown frontier.