Youth Leadership Camps Canada

STU-Pendous Blog

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

• seventy three

  Apr 6, 2009

  Here’s the amazing thing. My father is 73 years old. He and my mom who is 70, have been living in the jungle for 5 weeks in Costa Rica. Their days are full of adventure. Hiking through the mountains, riding rafts down the river, waking at 5 am to swim under a waterfall.

  I just got a bunch of pictures from them. The one I have included is of my father repelling down a cliff into a warm pool at the base of a waterfall.

  He’s 73 years old. Stop putting off the life you were destined to live people. Do something amazing today. His actions have inspired me for sure.

  

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Family Life Learning and Growing Motivation on Apr 6, 2009 at 10:01 am | Permanent Link | Comments (5)

• Rejuvenate

  Apr 2, 2009

  I am sitting at my dining room table. Steaming cup of coffee in my hand. My windows are open. The song of a thousand birds echo from the trees. I close my eyes and feel their excitement to be awake. They are soaking up the brilliant morning sun. I look out to the grassy hill in my front yard. The long grass has been pressed down by the snow. It looks like a heard of wild animals had perhaps stampeded through.

  Amongst the open yard there are two radically different worlds. A small patch of snow is holding on. Defying the warmth of the sun. Refusing to melt away into the soon forgotten season. Inches away, a small patch of neon green bursts through the trampled grass. Reaching for the sun. Its tiny leaves stretched outwards like a father waiting for his child to fall into his arms.

  I see myself as both the snow patch and the green new growth. Holding onto my past, trying not to let go of the coldness of what I know needs to be cut free. I live though for new growth… reaching for brighter, warmer days. To grow and learn and be stronger, more alive.

  What are you doing today to grow? Let what you know needs to… go.

  Spring.

  Rejuvenate.

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership Learning and Growing Motivation on Apr 2, 2009 at 8:04 am | Permanent Link | Comments (7)

• What’s your best?

  Mar 28, 2009

  4 years ago I attended a conference that changed my life. I was working hard at my business, the business of leadership development. I was doing the same thing I had done for years and years. Making small changes, doing little things. Then I was invited to spend a weekend with Robin Sharma in Toronto at his Absolute Best Self Weekend. It quite honestly changed my outlook on life and how I perceived my limits.

  Within two days I had created a new plan for my life, my business and my future. I continue to use the tools I learned at ABS every day. I also can’t tell you how many great people that I met that are now friends. One of the most powerful nuggets of wisdom I picked up was a quote by Arthur Schopenhauer

  “Nearly Everyone takes the limits of their own vision as the limits of the world. A few do not. Join them.”

  That single quote and the skills that I learned at ABS transformed my life. Is there a quote or an event that has changed yours? It’s good to remind ourselves that we need to challenge ourselves daily to be better, to do more. Please take a moment and share a quote here on the STUpendous that has had a great impact on your life.

  If you are interested in spending three days that can transform your life I strongly encourage you to experience ABS!

  

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Mar 28, 2009 at 7:31 am | Permanent Link | Comments (6)

• Short… sweet

  Mar 25, 2009

  I am sitting at my favourite Starbucks enjoying a latte. I know all the staff, I am a regular. The manager is sitting at the table beside me. She has just promoted a young barista to a shift supervisor. I am happy to see her so excited. I open my Macbook and look at my dozen new emails.

  “I don’t know it you heard?” says the manager as she leans over to me.

  “No, what’s the news?” I reply.

  “Sandy the other Starbucks Manager, her husband passed away on Sunday.”

  “How?!”

  “Sudden, don’t know all the details. Went into hospital on Wednesday and was gone on Sunday.”

  “How old?” I asked.

  “39”

  “I’m 39.”

  We were all silent for a few minutes.

  Life is short, we need to make it sweet. Be great, be awesome. Stop complaining about silly things that are truly silly. Hug your children, love your spouse, smile at a stranger, lead without title.

  Now.

  You know this stuff. I talk about it all the time. This is not new.

  “The sad part about it is we all go back to our lives and not think about it in a few days.” the manager adds as I empty my inbox.

  True.

  Need to stop that, need to stop.

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Goal Setting Leadership Family Life Learning and Growing Motivation on Mar 25, 2009 at 1:26 pm | Permanent Link | Comments (6)

• Celebrate?

  Mar 17, 2009

  Just a quick BLOG today. It’s St. Patrick’s Day and I hope everyone enjoys this the most green of days. I challenge you though to do it wisely… you don’t need to get drunk to celebrate.

  Please be safe, approximately 207 people die or are seriously injured each day in Canada from drinking and driving. Please know that the only people that truly benefit from you drinking to excess is the companies that make the drinks we buy.

  More money is spent every year promoting the use of alcohol than on any other product on the market.  The alcohol industry generates more than $65 billion annually and spends more than $1 billion on advertising.

  Please remember A.C.E. today and every day… Awareness - Choices - End Results.

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership Family Life Learning and Growing on Mar 17, 2009 at 5:53 am | Permanent Link | Comments (1)

• Focus - Commit - Follow through

  Mar 9, 2009

  My dearest friend returned fro a three week life changing program at the Hipprocates Institute in Florida. She is a breast cancer survivor and went there to detox and I mean DETOX! I won’t get into the details of it, but it was serious!

  When we got together for a tea yesterday I asked what she would tell someone about what she learned if she could only tell them one thing. She said…

  “Focus, commit and follow through.”

  If you do that with anything in your life you can change dramatically. Think about those three simple but powerful steps today. I am.
  

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Goal Setting Leadership Learning and Growing on Mar 9, 2009 at 12:57 pm | Permanent Link | Comments (3)

• Perspective

  Mar 2, 2009

  I would walk up the path to the shop almost every morning to say hello. In at 5 am there wasn’t much of a chance that you wouldn’t find Gord already there, cleaning up his workshop, painting a door, fixing one of the tractors. You knew he was there, he had the morning news playing or perhaps the all oldies station. Humming to himself, tapping his feet.

  “Morning my son!” came the chipper and fatherly voice from the back of the shop. “Morning Gord! How’s the day lookin’?” I would reply.

  “Incredible, did you hear the birds this morning? Incredible!”

  That was Gord, pretty much every day. Until he got sick. After a mis-diagnosis by the local hospital… Hernia they said. He moved to Calgary to be closer to his son. When the pain continued he went to the Alberta hospital. Not a hernia at all, nope. Cancer.

  He has battled it for the last three years and we have thought about him often, hoping and praying for him to get better. I hadn’t seen him since he left. Had a couple of telephone calls, a few holiday cards back and forth. Then on Sunday morning came a knock on my door. There he was Gord and his wife. Big hugs all around, so good to see him. We all gathered around the dining room table to catch up. It was great… until… Henni leaned over to me and said, “Gord’s here to say goodbye. The doctors have said he has 6 months.”

  SLAM! Wow, what do you say. I just tried to smile and soak up the moment. His smile, making everyone laugh at the table. Henni, wiping away the tears that were forming in her eyes.”

  After about a 45 minute visit, I went to show Gord the Dining hall, we renovated it since he left. He said he was so proud of us, of me. He gave me a big hug. Just before he left he said, thank you for letting him be part of YLCC. It meant a lot to him. Then he drove away, tears in both of our eyes.

  It’s strange to think… I may never see you again. I felt empty.

  Life has a strange way of trying its best to show you its fragility. My dearest friend Laura who is 29 is recovering from her Chemo for Breast Cancer, another example of how life couldn’t care less if you feel you’re to young or to good to be hit by its incredible power. It may not be fair, but it’s life. I was diagnosed in September with progressive MS and that is scary as well, who knows how my life will turn out from this point on. I don’t plan on getting sicker, but I can only do so much. What I do know is that I am getting less and less patient with the petty little problems that people (me included) waste their time and energy on. Complaining about their situation, their cards that they were dealt, the place they live, the way a friend treats them. Here’s the point. YOU can CHANGE anything YOU want.

  The new rip in my jeans doesn’t deserve anger, it deserves to be fixed, or patched or perhaps to make some styling seventies jean shorts out of them. People who complain about their weight while eating a sticky bun should stop and look in a mirror. Put it all in perspective. I remember being crushed in high school by a girl who broke my heart, devastated in fact. I was trying to remember her name the other day…. perspective. How much time did I waste being upset? Yes, I know that at the time it was important but that’s because I was unable to put it in perspective!

  My daughter was sick last night, she was coughing and hacking. At 2 am she began to cry because she just wanted to fall asleep. I started to get a little frustrated, thinking ‘come on just take a drink of the water I gave you suck it up’... then I thought of it from her perspective. So I got up, talked to her, wiped the tears away, fluffed up her pillow and went to the 24 hours drug store. I purchased some couch medicine and returned to give her a tablespoon of the cherry flavoured concoction… within 30 minutes she was asleep. Thankful, I did my job, I’m her dad. Nothing else matters.

  I sat in my bed at 4 am, thinking of Gord and saying good bye. I thought of my life and my kids. I think I need to keep working on putting things in perspective. I need to focus on what’s truly important.

  Today could be the day that it all changes. For you as well…

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership Family Life Learning and Growing on Mar 2, 2009 at 9:34 am | Permanent Link | Comments (14)

• Doctors orders

  Feb 19, 2009

  I am a baseball fan, not obsessed, but a fan. My team is the Toronto Blue Jays.

  Roy Halladay is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Won the highest honour a pitcher can get, the Cy Young. Won 20 or more games twice. Was part of 5 all star teams. Good at what he does.

  A.J. Burnett, another pitcher, left the Blue Jays this year to sign a BIG deal with the New York Yankees - 86 million dollars. He was asked about his time in Toronto, he said he learned a lot from the Ace Halladay. He learned from one of the best.

  Halladay was asked what he thought of the compliments that Burnett showered him with… here’s his response;

  “It’s nice to hear those compliments, and I’m glad to be a part of that…but I think I learned things from him as well,” said Halladay. “And that’s the great part about baseball, if you keep your ears open and pay attention, you’re always going to learn something from somebody.”

  Roy hit the nail right on the head… except that statement isn’t only true in baseball it’s true in life.

  Keep your ears open. Listen. Learn. Lead.

   

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Feb 19, 2009 at 8:27 am | Permanent Link | Comments (3)

• Lesson’s from a tea cup

  Feb 17, 2009

  Sitting in a Starbucks, just finished interviewing a great young man for a possible job with our organization. I asked him what his passion was… great question.

  I was looking around the coffee house and saw a tea cup for sale, it has a tag attached to it that read…

  sip.
  talk.
  write.
  read.
  eat.
  listen.
  be.

  I love that. Aren’t those powerful words and actions. I like how each word is followed by a period. Which means that each one is singularly important. We need to SIP. We need to TALK. We need to WRITE. My favourite is BE, because we need to sometimes stop pushing for tomorrow and BE in the moment. Live in the moment now, do what you love now, cherish the moment now.

  It was a beautiful night this past Sunday and the sky at my home was incredible, millions of stars. My daughter suggested that we put on our winter gear and grab the sleds and enjoy the night. So much laughter… beautiful. My favourite moment, my BE, was when we lied down in the snow and looked up… magnificent. That was a time to not think about the next day, week or month, but to BE in that moment.

  Write down each of those words and then write a little after each word. Sip - Who do you have coffee with? Talk - Who do you have conversations with, are you spending enough time in good conversations? Write - Do you journal, write letters (real letters, cards, notes)? Read - What are you reading? Gossip rags or great books? Eat - What do you eat? Good food, bad food, healthy food? Listen - Are you listening to yourself, your body, to what matters (two ears, one mouth for a reason). Be - Are you in this moment. Enjoy it!

  Write your list, in your journal and perhaps share it here on STUpendous BLOG. Maybe you will inspire someone else with your list.

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership Family Life Learning and Growing Motivation on Feb 17, 2009 at 1:15 pm | Permanent Link | Comments (3)

• There is a difference

  Feb 12, 2009

  I am sitting in the Apple Store at The Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto. I am so excited about the vibe… I want to buy three more Macs. Here’s why Mac is SO successful, they take customer service to a completely new level. There are more then a dozen Apple reps walking the floor, but not so much to sell, but to help. I do mean help.

  Yesterday we came in to just make some inquiries about Mobile Me and ended up having a 30 minute chat with Scott “our” guy. He spent so much time with us. Answered every question, calmly. Then Angela mentioned that she was having some issues with her iPhone. Next thing you know Scott had made us an appointment to get her phone looked at. No charge, no hassle.

  All the staff wear t-shirts that say different cool sayings like, “I could talk about this stuff for hours.” or “Not all heroes wear capes.”, there are other fun cool sayings. I am sitting across from a man who is about… 60. A young man from Apple, wearing a shirt that says, “No pain, all gain.” is spending tons of time with him, no frustration, no time constraints. It’s not like when you go into a Future Shop or Best Buy and everything is password protected and they hover over you like you’re a thief. It’s friendly, it’s… cool. That’s the what a leader is… different then the mass, friendly, helpful and a hero.

  Oh, I just had to add this. Angela just met with Matt our “Apple Genius”, explained her challenge and then Matt said… “Ok, let’s get you a new phone.”.

  Done, no other questions. Awesome.
  

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Feb 12, 2009 at 9:05 am | Permanent Link | Comments (4)

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