the best leaders know how to play
A week ago I road tripped to Charleston with LeaderSurf Founder, Brian Formato for PitchBreakfast:
(Link to video here. Around 11:30 I pop in a two thumbs up testimonial.)
If you’ve been following here this summer, you know I attended the LeaderSurf June class in Nicaragua. Anyone I know has heard about this program and what an amazing, insightful experience I had, about a zillion times at this point. I’ve joked that I’m a walking billboard for Brian’s leadership development + learn to surf program. This single experience feels like it has completely catapulted my personal and professional life into places I never expected. Serious positive impact.
I’ve always been a travel pusher; The person who encourages exploration, trying new things, and the importance living outside the drone zone. I’ve traipsed the globe, and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Of all the fun I’ve had during my travel, the fun hasn’t even come close to comparing to what I’ve learned by stretching myself in foreign environments. I really stretched some muscles that have needed it for a while now during my LeaderSurf time, and saw my fellow participants come alive and become inspired again about work, too. It was awesome.
I think all of us adults have forgotten that we can have fun AND be incredibly productive and responsible. It seems like there’s some kind of rule that we have to sit inside a classroom, boardroom, or conference center to learn anything new about our company, our jobs, or ourselves. Who the heck had that terrible idea? People are uninspired. They lack drive in their everyday because their passions are squashed. They’re not encouraged to keep cultivating their talents and interests and relate them back to their work. They’re bored out of their minds in training situations because they are in cold and vanilla spaces.
Maybe we should shake it up a little around here?
It seems like common sense for any organization to jump at the chance to send their executives to a leadership development program like LeaderSurf; Throw your best and brightest outside of their comfort zones to learn a new skill in a foreign place. They meet other executive peers, learn more about themselves, and have a blast doing it, then come back to your company refreshed and ready to take on the world.
Send your people to step out of the gerbil wheel and let some waves hit them in the face. It will be a challenge, but they will love every minute of it, and then love you for sending them. Who wins? Everybody.
#LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #StepOutside #WorkUnstuck