Six Insights For SADD Nation: Part 6

I spent the past six weeks diving into some insights for the future of SADD Nation . While I am still fairly fresh into my role as Executive Director, it was important to me to acknowledge some of these as I (and we) continue to lay the foundation for our future together.

As a recap, here are my first five:

• SADD's youth-led, student-driven foundation will continue to influence our work in youth prevention and youth development well into the future.
• The future of SADD requires it to continue to be bigger than just one person or group of people, and yet ultimately embraced by all.
• SADD can drive the needed change in youth prevention and awareness by leading, listening, participating, and engaging across multiple fields and players.
• Funding for SADD needs to go well beyond our current partnerships, and our mission, a rallying cry for donors to make a difference.
• SADD must continue to professionalize itself in the business of doing business.

All of those lead me to my sixth and final insight from six months into my role as Executive Director:

• MY SIXTH INSIGHT: We still have more to learn and must embrace the learning aspect of both our work and our passion.

SADD maybe 43 years old, but we are really 43 years young. We have progressed as an organization—in amazing, impactful ways—but not without missteps, mistakes, and (in golf terms) a desire for a mulligan or two. If I can quote or paraphrase about a hundred different people, including Samuel Smiles and Jay-Z, we all learn way more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. While we can remain confident and push through with determination, we must never leave behind the opportunity to learn and grow.

I believe SADD's future is not just bright but has the opportunity to shine even more than its past (and that's a pretty awesome past, by the way).

We must learn from ourselves and those around us, working to grow from our mistakes while setting the course on new (and renewed) opportunities.

We must be willing to acknowledge struggles while educating ourselves on overcoming them.

We must shoot for the North Star but expect missteps along the way.

I tell people all the time that I am a life-long learner. I believe that to my core. I may come off as confident and able to tackle life and work challenges, but that is because I know success is not out of perfection but rather education.

SADD is no different.

What I have come to love about SADD and my role in it is the elevation of our mission: to empower and mobilize students and adult allies to engage in positive change through leadership and smart decision-making. Our mission inherently acknowledges that mistakes, struggles, and missteps happen. It's what we do with them that charts our path toward success.

Onto the next six months...