Whoa… my first semester of grad school is over. When the semester started the end seemed so far out…. I knew I had a huge undertaking ahead, to figure out where I fit and what the rest of my life will be about. Starting school seemed like the right daunting step to take on. Now, fifteen weeks later I feel like the time on this beautiful journey of self discovery was gone in a split second!
ONE STEP BACK TWO STEPS FORWARD
This past week I took 3 days off to fly to New York to attend 4th annual Biofabricate conference and meet with my classmate who flew in all the way from Denmark. I decided to use the time on my flight out and reflect on my personal journey over the last few months. Sadly, still feeling under pressure I ended up reflecting more on the negative than the positive aspects of my life.
Process of Creative Visualization…
After a week long break, which seemed much longer than it actually was, we are back at it! Learning and envisioning the future without limits. Assignment for week 13 was quite fun. In solitude we were to visualize a morning 3 years from now and a scenario that looks something like this…
It’s Thursday, December 2, 2020.
Socrates Cybercafé
I love challenging norms, defying logic and asking “why not” question. This past week wasn’t any different. One of the assignments we had in our Creative Leadership course was to organize a group of 5-15 people and lead a Socratic Inquiry session. [Note: This is based on Socrates Café®, as presented in http://www.philosopher.org/socrates-cafeacute.html].
While it was hard to get complete strangers to sign up and participate,
Wherever you go, go with all your heart. – Confucius
I haven’t traveled much in the last month. But my journey is never void of places to visit and personalities to meet, including my own. In retrospect, this creative leadership journey of self reflection and deep analysis of leadership behaviors left me with more questions than answers. Like an onion, with each new layer pealed there is a new self discovery.
LETTER FROM THE FUTURE: SELF REFLECTION, SELF LOVE & LUCKY NUMBERS (7, 19, 40)
Dear me,
Hopefully this letter from the future older and wiser version of yourself finds you well at present time. You must be busy taking the world by storm. Because you would never let the storm take the better of you. Maybe you’ll get wet in soaking rain, but you’ll enjoy the sound of thunder and the sight of lightening.
Desperately seeking Susan…
No wait, that’s a different movie! I mean, Desperately Seeking Meaning, genre dramatic comedy, staring role: me!?
School assignment for week number 8 was to take a break and reflect upon the distance we’ve made thus far on this journey. While this is just the beginning of my educational journey (literally). I’ve found myself questioning and reflecting on my leadership development and life in general more often than before.
“My life is my message” – Mahatma Gandhi
On my journey to being an ideal leader, somewhere in not so distant future when everything I do would be rooted in my core values and principals I try to live my life by. Which is to help if and when I can and to never stand in the way of other. I would surround myself with likeminded people focused on the good of all not just for the benefit of some.
This week’s challenge was quiet interesting. The class was introduced to notion of creative process and what it means to get $#!T done or make things happen. Two main resources we used was this pretty cool lecture on creativity by John Cleese. It is little dated, but is content still very accurate and applicable to today’s needs. Which makes this resource pretty valuable and timeless.
The second resource was the book called Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky,
At this point in my journey I can’t really tell how much progress I’ve made in being a better leader. It does feel like the time and perspective are changing but I’m still in the same place in life. Then I look back just 3 to 4 short weeks ago and I can see a distance between the person I was at the beginning of this journey and the person I am becoming. While I am not able to confidently say I have it all figured and mapped out.