Thursday, December 16, 2021 (Day 349)
Relaxing Music for the week: Journey to Peace: Liquid Mind (11:19) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4iwZ5FD_Y
Question: (December 15) What are some of the things you are doing in your life today that will impact your future? (December 16) Describe a recent challenging situation and how you handled it. What did you learn from this that could be useful for future challenges?
Answer: Since I missed writing again yesterday, I’m going to answer today’s journal question, as well as the journal question yesterday since it’s pertinent to why I missed the day. For the first prompt, I just finished 3 days of Life Design Catalyst Training at UNCG. The purpose of THIS particular Training was to not only share this work with others, but to get strategic partners together to talk about where LDC work needs to go in the future. Interestingly, we were able to gain interest in potential partners that we didn’t even know we had, which was a definite bonus. To summarize, we had 45 participants attend the Training, 21 within higher education and 24 outside higher education. One of the interesting questions I asked the group was, “How many people in this room have recently left a job (within the past year) or plan to leave within the next year. About two-thirds of the participants raised their hands, which told me that I needed to reframe the Training, not to illustrate how we do this work with students, but to really focus on helping them answer the “What now?” and “What’s next?” questions. And that’s the magic of Life Design Catalyst work – since there isn’t a “set” curriculum, you can modify and adjust your workshop to the needs of the participants. Yes, those looking for the “tools” to help their students are still there; but for those interested in exploring their future, we can easily move in a different direction on the fly. It does take a lot of time to learn the skill to be able to adjust on the fly that quickly, but it was so cool to watch transformation occur so quickly for so many people. And that’s my joy in doing this work…to watch the a-ha moments happen again and again….and again. Needless to say, I’m ready to find/create a place that would embrace LDC work and see how it could impact not only students, but the community and the world. So that’s my answer to the first question.
Before I answer the second question, a shout-out to my dear friend Megan Cayton for being so, so awesome in helping me put this Training together. With a group so large, it’s always hard to manage by myself. She was absolutely marvelous in making sure everything ran smoothly. She’s the BOMB!!!
As far as my answer to the second question, I think I’m living through the recent challenge as I’m writing this…and I believe that I’m actually learning as I go through the challenge. Right now, I’ve been told that UNCG won’t reimburse me for the cost for printing the workbooks and for the daily snacks, even though I found much cheaper options outside their “approved” vendors. And that’s despite the fact that we have the money in the budget to cover the cost. I get a sense that certain people at UNCG were trying to get me to cancel the Training, or worse, have the Training fail. However, when I asked why I wanted to do this Training, I thought about the long-term goal – which was to bring together like-minded souls to engage in this meaningful work and to have conversations about the future of LDC work. When I realized the reason why it was important to have the Training regardless of the challenges, it was easy to make decisions regarding the payment – whether it’s covered by UNCG or not. I kept going back to the video by Benjamin Hardy, “This One Question Will Make Every Decision In Your Life Easier – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t16_xGajxI.” The question is, “Will it make the boat go faster?” Watch the video in order to understand the question. So now, I’m looking at the vision of my future work and my future self – and every opportunity that comes in front of me needs to be able to answer the question, “Will it make the boat go faster?”
It’s good to be back writing again…thanks for reading, my friends!
The Dream Dean 