Values/Mission - Climb On...

Wednesday 1/12/11 – 1/16/11 at the Soderquist Center in Arkansas

This was an incredible few days where we were challenged as individuals and as a team with how we lived.  The Soderquiest Center has one mission: Equipping People with the transforming power of ethical leadership. I had no idea going into this just how deep and hard I would look at myself.  We started our time at the Soderquist center meeting our presenters and soon to be new friends.  Five days that would encourage us and focus us.  Check out a short clip about the Soderquist...

The first steps were surrounded around “me.”  I learned more about my own strengths, the shadows to them (negative tendencies), my way of handling conflict, and my basic way of thinking.  Taking a brutally honest look at me was much needed and showed me that I often try to control everything around me.  Instead of focusing on myself and the things the Lord has put in my realm of influence, I try to control things around me and “fix” them to become perfect in my mind.  God has given each one of us specific talents to be used for His glory and I pray that I will use myself for His purpose instead of being selfish in trying to “fix” people.  I go into conversations with the temptation of what I can teach the other person or how I can help them…instead, why don’t I look to the beauty within each other person and learn from them, their experiences, and also how God is using them?!?!

After taking that look at me, we took the next step to determine and search for what we hold as our own personal values.  I have identified five key values to my own life..

·         Faith

·         Joy

·         Love

·         Trying

·         Learning

We then combined our own values to develop our team values, create a mission statement that captures what is in our hearts, is clear, provides daily actions to live by, and defines why we get up in the morning, and finally writing our legacy platform for the rest of our year.

Once we identified all of these things in our team and as individuals, we were taken through a series of tasks and challenges that really put our values to the test to see if we lived our values.  A big part of these tasks were a high ropes course that physically and mentally made us check our attitudes when we were faced with challenges that we sometimes failed at in front of our teammates.  Things that I learned…zip lines are EPICJ

To wrap up our time at the Soderquist Center, we had a dinner/reception with the presenters and Don Soderquist himself.  He is the founder and has been a very successful business man with Wal-Mart.  He is a great person and envisions leadership and leaders that are continually grounded in ethics.  He shared his story and encouraged us with our role throughout the year.  We all walked away a much stronger team and a team devoted to serving others and to live out our values and mission each and every day!!!!