Twice a year, I read the same leadership development content: the same articles about authentic leadership and asking the right questions and managing conflict and the power of influence. In class, we discuss the same general questions.
But although the content is mostly the same, I find, each time, that I am not.
My coworker described it like this to me a while ago: it’s a spiral, revolving around a fixed point but we’re at a different vantage each time we come around. I can read the same sentence and it takes on new layers of meaning with another six months of life and experience.
Because I facilitate our leadership program I am in every class for ten weeks, twice a year, for the past four years. I can zoom out enough to see the spiral of how I’ve changed. I can share my strengths and weaknesses with the group and see, to some degree, that they have not remained static.
Visualizing the spiral helps articulate why I love to reread and rewatch. It’s not that the story changed, it’s that I’ve changed, and the story now has new things to tell me based on who I am today. I’m hungry for that. It feels like a miracle that what I love still has more and more to give me.
With Love,
Natalie