Fresh Eyes for a Renewed Perspective

Encourage others?

Remember your purpose?

Yes and yes.

Before traveling to Southern California to speak to the coaches and parent leaders of the Walnut Valley Unified School District, I held a series of webinars to help athletic director friends kick off their school years. In the webinars I briefly touched on a sampling of topics I’ve addressed in professional development sessions, including creating a unified team, inviting hard conversations, fostering an environment of creativity, and remembering your purpose.

Those sessions seemed like no big deal when I was scheduling them, but by the time I’d finished (10pm to catch the group in Asia, 5am for the Europeans, and 10am for the Americas) I was beat.

Then, when I landed that night in Los Angeles at 1am, I was totally wiped. (Side note: how can sitting on a plane be that tiring?)

And then I received an email from one of the athletic directors, who was a couple of weeks into the new year, half a world away:

Thanks again for the great conversation and pep talk on Tuesday.? I've been thinking about it a lot the last few days as we are now in the thick of kicking our school years and sports seasons off.? Teams are formed, goals are being created and lots of leg work lies ahead of us.? But, the idea of what our purpose is gave me pause a few times when the workload seemed heavy, and maybe a tinge frustrating :-) ? It's always good to have these thoughts circling around to grab onto when needed, and I appreciate that!

He’s been an athletic director for twenty years, and honestly, he wasn’t one of the ones I was picturing as I spoke (even seeing him right there on screen); he always has it all together.?

His email reminds of two things: we all need encouragement. Even those of us who “have it all together.” And…even those of us wonder if it was a good idea to schedule webinars before flying to Los Angeles.

And second, remembering our purpose (“Find your why,” as Simon Sinek says) is always a good idea, even if we’ve been leading for years.

Maybe especially if we’ve been leading for years.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae, those necessary details that can sap us of our energy and our view of the big picture.

Every now and then it makes sense to step back and reflect on our purpose, to ground ourselves with fresh eyes and a renewed perspective. To remind ourselves of the reason we started down this path in the first place.

A good reminder for me.

So…you can do it! You can have a great day. And as you do, remind yourself of your purpose, of the big picture.

Have a great day!

~ Nathan