[INTRO: I am extremely lucky, privileged and grateful to be here in Spain this week teaching on a pilot leadership course for girls centred around Basketball training and life skills. This one of a kind innovative pilot program is called Basket Talent Camp, creation of Santiago Puebla Sanz, general manager, strategic coach and expert in high performance teams with his company JOINTALENT.
We are in the stunning 5 star corporate training facility of Gas Natural in Puente Nuevo, just outside of Avila, an hour from Madrid. I have worked on leadership programs twice before here at beautiful place however a pilot leadership program for children has never been seen before... ]
The final day of our incredibly life-changing adventure of Basket Talent Camp saw a coming together and completion of a perfect circle.
We all gathered in the Casa de Cristal, a new and innovative building set in the botanical woodland on the grounds of Puente Nuevo Gas Natural Corporate Campus (http://www.campuspuentenuevo.gasnaturalfenosa.com) for our final presentations, reverences and reflections on what has been an unforgettable and magical week.
I was extremely honoured to be asked to be a panelist for a discussion about women in leadership and weaving in what the girls had experienced and learnt that week. When it came to my turn to share I elaborated on the previous comments about the wonderment, openness and creativity that is always-on in children. This light is abundant in childhood because for children, exploration, inquiry and investigation is a way of being.
I reflected on how amazed I was, like everyone else at the depth and level of empathy, compassion and care that the girls displayed naturally for each and all. In dreaming up questions for fellow children with autism, for our guest Cheija from the Sahara and for future car design, the girls created questions that showed such maturity and a sense of 360 degree insight.
What I noticed is that nothing escapes their noticing, their perception and vision. They seem to see everything and take note and also take action. This high level of others awareness I feel is an extraordinary quality that serves to unite and collaborate. This I feel is a particular asset of feminine leadership, it is the care and concern for the whole as opposed to ‘what’s in it for me’ more linear thinking.
One day we had a workshop on re-writing a popular song and making it about the week’s experience on the camp. One girl volunteered a lyric: ‘we play to learn’ and upon hearing this my heart leapt out of my chest! Bingo, I thought. This just coins it perfectly. This is the epitome of childhood, to learn through play. Everything is a game, is an adventure, is creativity, is play.
When and why is this magic lost?
My work with Body Intelligence speaks to precisely this and re-minds people of this innate wonder-ful way of being. It serves to re-connect adults with their magical child, that inner child that never left them, that’s still in there somewhere inside, its voice growing quieter and quieter the more its requests to play are ignored and pushed further down…
For me the final day's’ conversation was a great completion for this reason. The question of what have we all learnt from our week together for me was this; I was reminded of the majesty of inter dimensional perception that a child is endowed with. I was all the more inspired to nurture this again and again and talk, blog, teach, offer, share, inspire and motivate with it as long as I live!
Amen to that!
We are in the stunning 5 star corporate training facility of Gas Natural in Puente Nuevo, just outside of Avila, an hour from Madrid. I have worked on leadership programs twice before here at beautiful place however a pilot leadership program for children has never been seen before... ]
The final day of our incredibly life-changing adventure of Basket Talent Camp saw a coming together and completion of a perfect circle.
We all gathered in the Casa de Cristal, a new and innovative building set in the botanical woodland on the grounds of Puente Nuevo Gas Natural Corporate Campus (http://www.campuspuentenuevo.gasnaturalfenosa.com) for our final presentations, reverences and reflections on what has been an unforgettable and magical week.
I was extremely honoured to be asked to be a panelist for a discussion about women in leadership and weaving in what the girls had experienced and learnt that week. When it came to my turn to share I elaborated on the previous comments about the wonderment, openness and creativity that is always-on in children. This light is abundant in childhood because for children, exploration, inquiry and investigation is a way of being.
I reflected on how amazed I was, like everyone else at the depth and level of empathy, compassion and care that the girls displayed naturally for each and all. In dreaming up questions for fellow children with autism, for our guest Cheija from the Sahara and for future car design, the girls created questions that showed such maturity and a sense of 360 degree insight.
What I noticed is that nothing escapes their noticing, their perception and vision. They seem to see everything and take note and also take action. This high level of others awareness I feel is an extraordinary quality that serves to unite and collaborate. This I feel is a particular asset of feminine leadership, it is the care and concern for the whole as opposed to ‘what’s in it for me’ more linear thinking.
One day we had a workshop on re-writing a popular song and making it about the week’s experience on the camp. One girl volunteered a lyric: ‘we play to learn’ and upon hearing this my heart leapt out of my chest! Bingo, I thought. This just coins it perfectly. This is the epitome of childhood, to learn through play. Everything is a game, is an adventure, is creativity, is play.
When and why is this magic lost?
My work with Body Intelligence speaks to precisely this and re-minds people of this innate wonder-ful way of being. It serves to re-connect adults with their magical child, that inner child that never left them, that’s still in there somewhere inside, its voice growing quieter and quieter the more its requests to play are ignored and pushed further down…
For me the final day's’ conversation was a great completion for this reason. The question of what have we all learnt from our week together for me was this; I was reminded of the majesty of inter dimensional perception that a child is endowed with. I was all the more inspired to nurture this again and again and talk, blog, teach, offer, share, inspire and motivate with it as long as I live!
Amen to that!