Stu Saunders Presentations

Stu-Pendous Blog - Archives for July 2008

These are the thoughts of speaker, author and camp director Stu Saunders.
For Stu’s original blog, you may still access his archives here.

A vision

Jul 22, 2008

Can you trust me on this one? Can you stand outside of reality for just a few moments and pretend that you have boundless possibilities in front of you? You could grab them, any of them, anything you want is right there… waiting for you. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? I know, it’s hard, in fact I bet when I asked you to do it, many of you laughed at your own ideas and dreams. It’s the way we are brought up, most of us anyway.

“Be realistic!’

“Don’t be silly”

“Stop dreaming!”

“Come back to reality.”

“That’s a dumb idea!”

If I could get a dollar for every time I was told that I would be able to vacation for a few weeks in an exotic place… I truly believe that you can do anything you put your mind to. If you push out the voices of doubt, yours and those around you, whatever you conceive can become reality.

I heard a great story yesterday about former US President, Bill Clinton. When he was a young teenager he toured the White House and told the then President “I’m going to have your job someday!” I am sure thousands of children have said that, many have truly believed it but then most come back to “reality” and move on.

Last summer I was driving through Algonquin Park and saw a legendary camp… Tamakwa. If you have ever seen the movie “Indian Summer” you may recognize the name. It’s been around for a long time. Many famous people have attended the camp. There is a sign at the boat dock that is made out of Birch that simply says, “Tamakwa”. You have to drive through it to get to the camp. I love that sign. When I drove past the camp last summer I stopped and got a picture of myself just underneath it. It was kind of cool.

On Friday, while I was away in London, Ontario, the campers and staff did something that I am SO proud of. They built me (the camp) a YLCC entrance just like Tamakwa… but better. I have had many visions of events that will happen in my future. I dreamt once of this happening, I could see it. When I arrived back at camp at midnight I was met buy a bunch of campers, staff and senior staff. They stopped me on the road and asked me to get out of the car. I was then blindfolded and walked down to the entrance. They removed the fabric from my eyes… I was in awe. I was in tears. I was proud. My vision had become reality. I feel good about it, the campers and staff that built it feel good about it and in the end a new piece of the YLCC quilt has been sewn into our story.

What is your vision of the future… what do you see happening to you? Remember to let go of reality and write a list… you just never know what will happen.

Posted by Stu Saunders in Goal Setting Leadership Learning and Growing Motivation Team Work on Jul 22, 2008 at 6:16 am | Permanent Link | Comments (8)
Frustrated?

Jul 14, 2008

So I got this great new iPhone. I have been excited about this product for about 2 years. I really wanted it. I waited and waited and well… waited. It arrived last week and wow do I love the technology. It is slick and sweet. I was a hit when I arrived back at our camp… everyone wanted to see it, touch it.

So now that I have had it for about 4 days I am completely frustrated by it. I can’t make my email work, sync my calendar and some of the apps I downloaded simply have disappeared. I have been sitting at my computer for about 2 hours… trying SO hard to figure it all out… no luck. I decided to reset my entire phone and try again. From the beginning.

At the height of my frustration I got up to take a deep breath and try and relax, I don’t usually get upset about… well… anything, but I was. I took a brief walk around the building I was in and came back to my computer. I am now ready to start over, reboot both figuratively and literally. I will get through this and I need to realize it’s not important, not a big deal.

Put your problems in perspective, for every issue that seems so horrible there is someone else going through something much worse. This doesn’t mean that your frustration or challenge doesn’t hold validity. It does, it’s just that if you try and put it in perspective you can deal with it better and usually get a BETTER result. That’s a simplification I admit but I do believe that it works!

Keep breathing, keep leading… come on iPhone work with me.

Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Jul 14, 2008 at 9:56 am | Permanent Link | Comments (4)
Evolution

Jul 11, 2008

I love innovation! I was one of the silly ones that got up super early and went to my local Rogers store to buy an iPhone! I was third in line to get my new apple product. I knew there might be some issues with it launching in 22 countries but I went anyway! To say there were some glitches would be an understatement! Rogers computers crashed keeping me in the store for about 2 hours, there were only 6 phones of a designated 16 and then Apple’s web crashed frustrating hundreds of thousands of new users. My friends and I remained calm and about 6 hours later… I am typing this blog on my new iPhone!

Too often we get so upset about things that we can’t change. It wasn’t the sales clerk in the store that caused the problem and in the grand scheme of things I still have what I wanted and I love it! I hope that we all take a giant lesson from this. When times are tough, take a deep breath and stop. Most times in the end it all works out!

Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Jul 11, 2008 at 11:26 am | Permanent Link | Comments (0)
The Zone

Jul 8, 2008

If you have been following my BLOG’s then you know I was working on a 22 day challenge. It was a HUGE succes, then I got busy with camp. Had some friends visit and fell off the challenge. It has been really upsetting me. Then I thought back to a book about a diet called the ZONE. It is one of many books that used to be around my house. The first page shared some brilliant life wisdom. It said something like this…

“If you fall of the Zone diet, don’t panic because you can get right back on it the next day.”

That’s the key isn’t it? You need to continue and work hard on the ultimate goal. Don’t beat yourself up. I am back on it again tomorrow. Back in my 22 day zone. I needed to tell you that so that I could remember it for myself. If you believe in what you are doing, keep at it.

Posted by Stu Saunders in Goal Setting Leadership on Jul 8, 2008 at 7:59 am | Permanent Link | Comments (6)
Panda

Jul 5, 2008

What a brilliant last seven days! Our first week of YLCC is now done. There were so many amazing moments, too many to mention. There were simply great days of pure summer joy.

One of my big moments happened on Tuesday. I took my son (happy birthday Matty) and youngest daughter to the movies. We went to see Kung Fu Panda. The movie was full of laughter, adventure and a really great message. Basically, the point was that (I am sorry if this gives anything away) if you believe in yourself you can do anything.

There was a BIG scene in the movie where the Panda (Jack Black) realizes that he has the power to do what he needs to do. As soon as he said that, my son who is eight today turned to me very proud of his discovery and said…

“Dad! Do you get it? All he had to was believe in himself, he has the secret power by just believing in himself! Do you get it?”

I almost yelled out loud… “DID YOU HEAR MY SON!?” I was so proud!

We all need to find the power with ourselves. It is incredible what I can do, what you can do, what we can do… think about it.

Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership Family Life Learning and Growing on Jul 5, 2008 at 2:22 pm | Permanent Link | Comments (2)
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