Volunteering's Ripple Effect Volume XVII

Grow Where You Are Planted

Change! Your opportunity to grow

(continued from Volunteering's Ripple Effect Volume XVI Issue 885 March 15, 2022...)

Rockford, IL 1976: Looking back, it all seems to have happened so fast!

I had a billboard-sized sign installed in front of our office. We found a nice church to attend, loved our new home, the boys made friends and were settled into school. We bought our first boat so we could take full advantage of summer fun in our "backyard" on the Rock River. The boys were excited to learn how to water ski.

We were surprised when Charles Weise one of the top Illinois industrialists, asked Donna Lee and I to accompany him to a two-day Liberty Seminar at Lake Geneva, WI with forty prominent business leaders from northern Illinois. Meeting Leonard Read, our presenter the author of I, Pencil, and countless other books, was a privilege.

I'd been in the training business now for over 10 years. Moving from Detroit, (population 1,586,423) the fifth largest city in the United States at the time, with a market area of three million, to operating in a territory made up of small towns was all new to me. I'd never used promotions or advertising of any kind. All my business came from association sponsorships, repeat and referral business, and many next-door cold calls.

I knew, "What got me here, wouldn't get me there." The way I'd operated in Detroit had resulted in international recognition but wouldn't work in my new small-town territory. I had a lot to learn. I attended small-town promotion workshops, "How to Use the Radio" and another, "How to Use Newspapers for Small Town Promotions."

I volunteered to conduct another "How to Sell the Sales Course" program for Carnegie careerists who came into Rockford from all over the continental U.S. and Alaska. We organized an Instructor Training Conference to help ensure a high standard of excellence in all our classes. These efforts culminated when we were honored at the International Convention with The Fast-Paced Growth Award.

The lesson I learned from this experience is when my circumstances change, it is important for me to change. A changing environment is a learning opportunity, an opportunity to expand my comfort zone, accelerate my personal growth, knowledge, and skills development.

The action I call you to take is to see change as your friend, When your environment changes, adjust your approach, learn, grow, and bloom where you're planted.

The benefit you will gain is a life full of wonderful, unforeseen, opportunities and surprising adventure.

We carry in our hearts the environment in which we live.