A Simple Expression of Nature’s Beauty, Awe, Magic, and Wonder

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The old saw says a picture is worth a thousand words. I walked out of my Fairmont State University campus home to retrieve the Sunday paper this morning, glanced to the east, and succumbed to Nature’s greeting of beauty, magic, wonder, and awe. Overwhelmed by humility and lifted by inspiration, once again I know that I have a purpose — to do all I can to ensure that we steward this One Earth… to Care for Our Common Home. We are blessed beyond measure by Nature’s gifts.

Great Blue Heron — by way of my writing, speaking, and consulting — can help you apply Nature’s lessons for living, learning, serving, and leading. Harness the power and passion of Nature’s wisdom.

I will complete my FSU Presidency at the end of December, transitioning then to full time as Great Blue Heron CEO.

Little Things Matter — ‘U’ Better Believe IT!

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What’s a ‘U’? One of the 26 letters in our alphabet. A little less than four percent of the total, with a frequency of usage rate even lower at 2.758 percent (Wikipedia). Yet, look at the Feature Image for this post. Fairmont State University women’s tennis hosted our first home competition of the season several weeks ago. A couple days prior we had taken delivery of our new wind screen to lessen gusts and air turbulence on the courts. The old one was tattered and frayed. The vendor placed the new just in time for a breezy home encounter. We played the match, but with no small measure of embarrassment. The vendor had presented us with a bargain — gave us an extra letter. We swept doubles and singles play — winning on the Fairmount State University courts. Of course, since then the vendor has made good on the error.

Errors are common in Human Nature. A business committing too many mistakes finds itself struggling to generate profit. An individual similarly oriented likewise falls behind. Yet I have observed many times that I seldom have learned by doing things right. It’s the mistakes I’ve made and observed in others that teach deeply. I recall hearing the inarguable wisdom that experience is that thing you get right after you needed it! Thomas Edison famously quipped, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And Michael Jordan said in his Nike ad, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot… and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Let’s hope the vendor, who cannot afford 9,000 missed shots, has learned a lesson.

Errors are likewise common in Nature. In fact, evolution is error-dependent. Our Earth environment ebbs and flows; fluxes and surges; warms and cools; adjusts to episodic and periodic solar activity, meteor and asteroid impact, and who knows what other influences from within this dynamic planet. Dynamism capable of lifting marine limestone to constitute the summit of Mount Everest. Protein, cellular, and other code mistakes lead to adaptation to conditions peculiar to the norm. Organisms evolved of necessity as life altered the environment. For example, from anaerobic to oxygen-rich… as photosynthetic plant life literally took root and prospered.

Dealing with Change

Life on Earth knows no stasis, and likely never will. Nor will your business, enterprise, and life. As humans, we are blessed with mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual adaptability. We deal effectively with change only when we anticipate it, prepare for it, and react to its advance and onset. Nature, too, has seen to each living organism having a set of tolerances within which it operates. Climate offers a wide band of precipitation, temperatures, and conditions within the normal variation that characterizes any place on our tiny planet. No need for evolutionary adaptations to operate within those wide normal bounds. Reach beyond the normal for extended periods… and evolution kicks in over generations. As enterprise managers, we should know the variations within the normal that influence operations.

Again and again, I urge you to look — know what is normal for your enterprise and life environment. See — anticipate the signs and signals that portend operating environment shifts, surges, and influences. Feel — see deeply enough to anticipate the effects on you and your enterprise. Act — stasis does not exist; react to change that is imminent and certain.

My Fairmount ‘U’ is an annoyance, spurring only our action to secure remedy. The vendor should see it as a signal prompting greater attention to detail. The little things do matter. A chill in the air does not necessarily portend the next continental ice sheet advance, yet it may announce an early frost. We are well-advised to know our operating environment well enough to distinguish ice age from an early October cold front. Chicken Little did not, and he paid the price of embarrassment and ridicule.

I close with a bit different twist. Although little things do matter, sometimes little things are just that… little things. Over-reacting is often painful, always stressful, and frequently expensive. We can handle the season’s first frost simply by closing the windows and lighting a fire. We can (and did) manage a bonus ‘U’ with a simple phone call to a very accommodating vendor.

Reverse Sabbatical Leave

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I had planned to work full-time another 3-5 years when Antioch University (AU) reconfigured June 2016 (a month from my 65th birthday). Reconfigured to deeply centralize and eliminate its five campus presidents (me among them) and the local Boards of Trustees. I immediately sought yet another permanent presidency. I thank God, I did not succeed. By June 2016, I did, in fact, need a change. I needed a break from leading a university, especially one tacking in a direction in which I felt uncomfortable sailing. I did succeed in redirecting my actions and interests to writing, consulting, and retirement, and preparing to do so full time and long term. My signing contract with AU relieved me of financial concerns through June 2017. Operating from my retirement home office, I wrote and published Nature Based Leadership and Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading, and created Great Blue Heron, LLC. I completed a major environmental education project in west-central Tennessee. I wrote a near-final version of Harnessing Nature’s Wisdom and Power, which I set aside, unconvinced that a third in the series furthered the tenets and principles already elucidated.

Like these thunderstorms sagging east at sunset, my Reverse Sabbatical brings peace and fulfillment.

No doubt, I made the most of my new-found freedom – in effect, an imposed “sabbatical leave,” which Merriam-Webster online defines as “a leave often with pay granted usually every seventh year (as to a college professor) for rest, travel, or research.” Renewing and refreshing as it was, I was feeling a sort of professional emptiness – a void – when my email delivered notice of the Fairmont State University Interim Presidency and a query regarding my interest. My professional blade felt a bit dull – perhaps now I could sharpen the edge. Although I enjoyed the relative leisure of few pressing commitments, I did miss the action, intensity, and urgency. No, I did not long for another permanent presidency (3-5 years), yet with the prospect of a six-month interim, blood coursed through my veins. And the location near my birth home called to me. I threw my hat in the ring, with nothing to lose. I did not need the job as a means to an end, having retired once, assured that we could live long-term at a level to our liking.

A Reverse Sabbatical

Could this six-month immersion in any sense of the term be cast as a period of “rest, travel, or research”? No, the specific words are wrong, yet the result is surely one of renewal and recharge. I believe I can view it as a reverse sabbatical leave. Returning to deep task immersion as a means for regaining an edge. Like a solar panel reactivating with the sun’s rise.

I view diving back into the deep end as a reverse sabbatical – a return to the game, intensely engaged, and as a time-duration-certain re-entry to leading another university. Now entering the second half of my term as Interim President, I may be operating at a level more intense than at any point in my career. A normal presidency is a marathon. I am a former marathoner, a tested distance runner. Once I had run my first 26-miler, I knew how to pace myself. I maintained a much faster rate per mile for 5-Ks. Six-months is a five-K! My best marathon: 7:12 per mile; my best 5-K: 5:38. A little over five-and-half minutes per mile for me was flying; I am flying here at FSU! I found marathons exhausting; 5K’s exhilarating. Both exacted a toll. Only the marathon, however, left me nearly debilitated for days.

Knowing that this interim presidency is a five-K, I can push, surge, and pound — the finish line is ahead, within reach. Now more than three months into it, I recognize the surge of professional renewal… the rush of vocational adrenaline. I’m back in the race… competing and adding value. The gun fired July 1, and I am off and running! Once again, I have a team, colleagues, a shared cause, and a noble purpose to attend. I am energized in ways more immediate, palpable, and real than drafting essays and establishing consulting relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I will return to writing and consulting when FSU’s new president accepts the mantel of leadership in early 2018. I will do so with relish and joy, yet perhaps with a tinge of regret about letting go so soon after embedding deeply and with full passion for this wonderful regional state university. I see my imminent departure the same way Judy and I view out-of-town guests – we prefer they leave when we wish they could stay longer!

And, I will return to the computer keyboard with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, with the knowledge that I can still do it – that is, lead a university. I will return with stories, tales, memories, and lessons from a brief, yet very deep immersion in yet another university, community, and region. I will draw upon that package of experiences in both my writing and consulting. All of that sure sounds like professional renewal and recharge!

Relevant Lessons from Nature or Inspired by Nature

Granted, I came to Fairmont the end of June, finding it still a bit spring-like compared to the deep summer of late June in Alabama. I admired and appreciated the vibrant greens, lush growth, and special rhythms during an unusually wet July. We had warm days, some hot, yet not at sweltering and unbearable levels. Metaphorically and professionally, I remain in deep spring. Just as I would feel renewal, recharge, and recovery with spring’s arrival after a long winter, those three ‘Rs’ are flowing within me now. This interim presidency is a professional spring elixir.

Over my career, a fourth ‘R,’ rest, has never been too important. During my distance running decades, rest translated to a shortened three-to-five-mile morning jog. Rest is what we knew we would do when life slowed and we desired a slower pace. I am not resting now as Interim President. Anything but. I set my alarm for 3:59 AM – no, don’t ask why such an odd number. May take a psychologist to decipher that one. With Judy spending 70 percent of this period at our Alabama residence, I am pushing hard, demanding much of myself, giving this everything I have. Yet I feel absolute renewal, recovery, and recharge. Hence, this interim opportunity is doing for me what I suppose sabbatical leaves are intended to do for those who take them mid-career.

Nothing about this post-retirement burst, reentering the game, seems unnatural. I feel as though the afterburner ignited. Some might say that writing two books and starting a company did not constitute retirement, yet I felt some lessening. As I reexamine that year, I see a revelation that escaped me until this very moment.

I see this interim presidency as a welcome change of pace, another challenge, and a source of renewal unmatched in professional richness and life reward. I am astounded by the wealth of fulfillment. There is no way that a permanent presidency would be hitting the same buttons, unleashing parallel sentiments and such powerful vocational endorphins. I believe a good deal of what makes this immersion so powerful is that I can feel my writing and consulting batteries recharging, and my reservoir of ideas, stories, and lessons deepening. Not many people can re-enter the springtime of their life. I am blessed to have another shot at a professional vernal recharge. I can hear the vocational equivalent of spring peepers! Spring ephemerals are dressing my symbolic forest floor in carpets of color and vitality?

Actual seasonal changes progress around me. During these three short months, my three immediate neighbors (four-legged) have flourished. The two little ones have developed from intensely-spotted tykes to now long-legged and teen-like, their spots fading.

At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, our biologists in the Institute of Arctic Biology studied the Arctic Ground Squirrel, a little gopher-like high latitude mammal whose body temperature falls below freezing during the long Arctic winter. And picture them fully vibrant come spring and summer – amazing, high-energy, and in constant motion. Renewal and recharge are natural. I did not invent this pattern that I have adopted. I discovered that this is my own rhythm, not forced upon me by social constructs or the dictates of an employer, but one that fits me at some visceral, engrained, and perhaps evolutionary level. Fortuitously, I have awakened to what may be hard-wired in me.

If I am certain of anything, it is that we humans do not stand above nature. We are one with nature. I am blessed to have found where I fit, and I am grateful that, like the Arctic Ground Squirrel, I can live the pattern that is most natural for me. However, none will find their pattern unless able and willing to Look, See, Feel, and Act. Are you engaged in the natural world that envelops all of us? I am convinced that any of us can find the spring in our life. Any of us can discipline ourselves to look; train ourselves to see. Are you looking and seeing? Here’s what I saw on an early August evening from my front yard on campus!

So, as odd as it may seem, I consider this interim presidency a sabbatical… renewing, refreshing, recharging, and in some extraordinary way, even restful! What is natural for you? For your vocation? Your life? I urge you to explore your feelings, ambitions, and fulfillment.

These six months will allow me to serve a higher purpose. Four thousand young people at any one time here at Fairmont who will lead us into the distant tomorrows that I will not see. Who will carry the torch and meet the issues, problems, and opportunities decades beyond. I intend to learn much over these coming months – much about how I can modify my writing and consulting to more effectively reach them and future citizens. They will make the Earth stewardship decisions that will shape humanity seven generations hence… and beyond. My sabbatical may lead me to the key that I need to help unlock the future.

Warm wishes for the many springs of your life. They await your discovery and exploration!

 

Featured Image: Like these thunderstorms sagging east at sunset, my Reverse Sabbatical brings peace and fulfillment.

A New Day’s Dawning

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I took this photo from the back deck at Fairmont State University’s President’s residence this morning.

I could not resist sharing it — with little accompanying text. The image speaks for itself. You do not need my feeble words to interpret Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe.

Each day breaks with promise. We choose our attitude; we decide how to live… and to what end and purpose.

May you make your own day bright… and shine your light on others.

Enjoy!

Homecoming Weekend

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I’m writing these words on Sunday, the day after our 2017 Homecoming football game. What an incredible way to end my first three months! Allow me to restate some of the reflections I shared from the lectern at four venues, beginning Friday noon.

At the Emeritus Club Induction Luncheon, I expressed my view of the essential role that FSU plays in shaping lives, leaving an indelible mark that extends through life. A few years ago, I was driving east to an early fall morning meeting in New Hampshire, passing first through dense valley fog, and then climbing into the mountains, slowly ascending through improving visibility. As I entered a sweeping curve to the left, the sun’s orb burning through, back-lighting a fifty-foot dead birch, its skeleton nicely silhouetted. Every branch held scores of geometric orb-weaver spider webs, each fiber bejeweled by countless dew drops, festooning the barren tree. I embraced the sight, aching to snap a photo. Yet the road had no shoulder, and the fog still too thick for me to stop mid-lane.

I thought about the special alignment of conditions that enabled me to see the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe that were otherwise hidden within, invisible as I drove back down later that day. That image reminded me that what we do here at FSU is to make sure we provide the special conditions necessary to illuminate and reveal the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe that lie hidden within each of our students. Our inductees bear witness to our success five decades ago!

I will observe that the Hall of Fame Banquet Friday evening surpassed even my sky-high expectations! The gentlemen representing the 1967 National Champion Football Falcons carry the torch beautifully. I told them that they exemplify the informal, unofficial, reality-inspired FSU mission statement that I have adopted: To inspire, educate, and develop… values based workers, citizens, and leaders… committed to personal integrity, professional ethics, and selfless service. Again, it’s Steve’s interpretation of what FSU does oh so well!

Saturday morning, I helped welcome and greet the nearly 100 Falcon Family Association participants. Because only a staff member or two had heard my orb weaver tale, I related it again, telling parents and family members that they, too, are part of the equation for assuring the right conditions for discovering what lies hidden within! As an old forester, I do indeed believe that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in, or is powerfully inspired by Nature. I say to you, my readers, never forget my love of Nature and my appreciation for the rich and fulfilling environment of North-Central West Virginia, and everywhere I have resided (and visited)!

I focused my few opening remarks for the FSU Alumni Award Winners Saturday brunch on my already deep sense of attachment to this special institution. I mentioned seeing why folks are rooted here. What brings them back. How this college/university on the hill nurtures; guides; inspires; serves as a rock. A rock that anchors them, their vocation, their service, their spirit, and their life. I reminded them that the Fighting Falcon Spirit is soaring high; reaching deep; and linking the past to the present… and on to the future.

I urged all to take time today and every day… to pause; breathe deeply; feast with their eyes; feel with their heart; sharpen and refresh their  memories; and heed the call of Fairmont State University beckoning… again, and again, and again!

I’m reminded of Robert Service’s The Spell of the Yukon:

“It’s the great big broad land way up yonder.

It’s the forests where silence has lease,

It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.”

May all of us carry The Spell of the Fighting Falcons with us forevermore! Service includes a line, “Oh God! How I’m stuck on it all.”

And I am!

Homecoming Parade

West Virginia Folklife Center

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Here at Fairmont, I write a weekly column for the Times West Virginian newspaper. I offer perspective from my Interim Presidency, and frequently weave a Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading thread. This essay/column appeared earlier in September.

When given the chance to submit my letter of interest and resume for the FSU Interim Presidency, I did what all of us do these days when we want to know a little (or a lot) more about anything. I visited the web site, which immediately piqued my interest. The web site certainly proved helpful, yet I am exceedingly spatial. I must see first-hand to truly appreciate a place.

My June 7, 2017 campus interview visit allowed time only to drive around FSU’s hilly campus, circle through the Shaw House (President’s residence) parking lot, swing by the athletic fields, and duly note the One Room Schoolhouse and the West Virginia Folklife Center. Parking behind Hardway, securing an escort to my interview with the Board of Governors at the Falcon Center, and then returning to Hardway to meet with the administrative team – all that served as merely a teaser. I wanted to know more – a lot more! About FSU and the Fairmont community, which I had seen as I drove into town and then back to I-79. But time ran out – I departed for Pittsburgh’s airport, hoping that I might be asked to return. The call came a week later.

I’ve dived deeply into FSU, Fairmont, and Marion and Harrison counties since July 1. Although I still have not examined the One Room Schoolhouse, four weeks ago I made it to the Folklife Center. Let me tell you – well worth the wait! What a tremendous regional resource. As Judy and I approached the front door, last year’s student Board member, Rachel Ball, exited with her friend Courtney. They had just left a class that meets at the Center. Rachel’s enthusiasm is richly contagious. She was among those who interviewed me at the Falcon Center. Her cheer, dedication, and love of FSU were among the factors convincing me that coming here would be a good result. Rachel encouraged Judy and me to see the new exhibit she is helping to create on the second floor.

Interim Director Pat Musick met us inside. Talk about enthusiasm – hers likewise knows no bounds. Pat’s linkage to the Center is both familial and professional, drawing her back to Fairmont after a long absence across the country. That’s another story… worth hearing and telling – another time! Judy and I fell in love with the Center. From the hemlock flooring and yellow poplar paneling (yes, I am a sucker for WV forest products!) to the local/regional historical settlement sequence from Native Americans to various waves of Europeans. The Center also incorporates FSU history.

The Center’s mission is compelling: The Frank and Jane Gabor WV Folklife Center is dedicated to the identification, preservation, and perpetuation of our region’s rich cultural heritage, through academic studies; educational programs, festivals, performances; and exhibits, publications. Everyone reading these words shares the heritage to some extent. [Note: I remind you Blog Post readers that I originally drafted these words for my Fairmont newspaper column.] Have you visited the Center? If so, come again – the exhibits cycle every few months. If not, make haste – it’s yet another element that makes FSU and Fairmont special.

I wanted to stay longer, reminding me of one of Robert Service’s poems that I read frequently during my Alaska days. From The Spell of the Yukon: There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back—and I will. I feel the same way about the Folklife Center… and about this Wild Wonderful West Virginia. Service ended his epic ballad with words that apply well to the Nature of West Virginia, It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder, it’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

A web site cannot adequately express the magic, beauty, awe, and wonder of our SPECIAL place along the Monongahela River! Experiencing is believing.

The column ends there. Restricted to 600 words, I keep the message succinct and compelling. And I focus on the paper’s readers here in the Monongahela Valley. For the purpose of this Post on Great Blue Heron, I add a little additional context. Every place has its SPECIAL Nature — it’s beauty, awe, and wonder. The magic is there awaiting discovery for those willing and able to look, see, and feel. Admittedly, I am particularly smitten by this university, its setting, and its special Nature. Perhaps because I am residing here for six months, a not insignificant period of time during my early sunset years. Perhaps because it is my own Nature to seek and grasp the positive.

Yet, isn’t that what life and enterprise management entail? Fulfillment and satisfaction do not suddenly appear. We must look, discover, and embrace them. It’s the old glass-is-half-full attitude. I could instead reduce any place or enterprise to its distasteful elements, identifying multiple reasons to wallow in despair. Life is too short to accept the shadows. Seek the light; rejoice in the possibilities; accept the challenge to soar. Nature lifts my spirits… here in Fairmont, and wherever life’s journey has rooted me.

Featured Image: The West Virginia Folklife Center on the campus of Fairmont State University.

Heart of the Team

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As I write these words I am more than two-and-one-half months into my six-month interim presidency at Fairmont State University — 44 percent of my term! I wrote the core of this post for my weekly local newspaper column. This one will appear early October. I often weave a thread of Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading into the column. The column itself this time addresses only Human Nature. I’ll expand a bit at the end of this post to delve more into the Nature realm.

My Column for the Times West Virginian

Jim Valvano coached NC State University men’s basketball to a national title in 1983. Ten years later, diagnosed with untreatable, terminal cancer, Coach Valvano toured the country inspiring, motivating, and moving audiences. He spoke of three essential ingredients to living each day to the fullest. First, think deeply about something important to someone near to you. Laugh whole-heartedly – find lightness and joy every day. And third, feel something daily to the point of tears.

I recall seeing Coach V on TV nearly a quarter-century ago. I visited the display honoring him at NC State’s Reynolds Coliseum when I served at NCSU, tears of mixed emotion on my cheeks. Every couple of years I will find YouTube recordings of Coach V celebrating after the championship game and of his speeches as he faced death, spreading the gospel of thinking, laughing, and crying.

Tuesday September 12, I checked all three boxes at the Feaster Center… in the span of ten minutes. Two days later, the Times West Virginian ran a Sports section front page article and two-column photo about FSU signing ten-year-old Cheyenne Filler to our women’s soccer team. Cheyenne, a Special Olympian and bundle of smiles, energy, and enthusiasm, excitedly signed the letter that commits her to attending games (all of these as her schedule permits), being at practices, wearing FSU jerseys when appropriate, having fun, and cheering the Fighting Falcons.

I stood on the gym floor, watching both the action on the platform and viewing the north-side bleachers filled with some 300 student athletes. No digital distractions… only rapt attention and lots of smiles. Everyone recognized Cheyenne’s signing as a special moment, a selfless act to celebrate and remember. The stands erupted in cheers and standing ovation when Cheyenne signed and looked up… beaming. Misty-eyed, I observed the celebration, thinking about the core of intercollegiate athletics. As we opened the ceremony, I spoke briefly, offering my own unofficial FSU Athletics Mission Statement: “To inspire, educate, and develop… values-based citizens and leaders… committed to personal integrity, professional ethics, and selfless service.”

I saw the Mission being lived at Feaster, as 300 future leaders and citizens stood in unison, to lift a very special young lady. A ten-year-old who will change lives… who already has. Our soccer team will win some games, and will taste losses on the field of play. Most importantly, they will remain undefeated on the field of life with Cheyenne among them. Cheyenne is, quite simply, The Heart of the Team. Both virtual and real, The Heart will alter their lives… from this day forward. I will venture to say that Cheyenne symbolizes the Heart of FSU Athletics.

I’ve said many times that success requires four levels of fitness: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. I commend coach Heembrock for integrating all four – Cheyenne adds magic and substance to the team’s reach for excellence and four-level-fitness. This special four-level sauce is not limited to athletics. Although not catalyzed and symbolized so beautifully as in Cheyenne, other programs have similar recipes and results. I think of our O-SIX Center (National Security and Intelligence), FSU Honors, our Robotics program, and many others.

A confession: I watched the Cheyenne-signing ceremony on video at home the next day. Oh, how my tears flowed freely! We are succeeding at Fairmont State University in so many ways. And I experience frequent misty-eyed-moments as I witness first-hand how we are changing lives. I am thinking deeply… this university deserves all the deep thought I can employ, prompt, and inspire in others too many to name. And I am having fun… laughing just as Coach V prescribed. I tell folks often that I am working too hard not to have fun.

The heart of FSU and Fairmont now beats within me, and its echoes will go with me after this rewarding interim term. I will carry The Heart of Cheyenne within me for the rest of my years. She symbolizes in many ways the FSU I will remember.

The Nature Realm

I remind you that we humans are one with Nature, not separate from it. It follows then that Human Nature and Nature are inseparable. Tomorrow (September 17) I will hike at Dolly Sods, a National Wilderness at ~4,000′ elevation just a couple hours from here. I will certainly develop a Blog post or two around that venture. Dolly Sods will infect me with another variant of the humility and inspiration that the Cheyenne Signing spurred. Special people, special places, and special acts of love and kindness stir us. The Cheyenne Signing evokes the same exquisite elements of beauty, magic, wonder, and awe that Nature inspires.

Interestingly, because I now approach Human events and interactions by employing those same four powerful verb forces of Looking, Seeing, Feeling, and Acting, I experience them through my entire body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit. Life is too short to rush through only skin deep. Full immersion is a requisite for deep experience… with meaning, merit, and fulfillment absorbed and enjoyed. My Board Chair last evening via email, commenting on a Board protocol issue we are jointly addressing, encouraged me while at Dolly Sods to “clear your head of administrative cobwebs!” Such sage advice. Dealing with day to day issues and annoyances pales in significance to the Heart of a Team, and to the Spirit of Dolly Sods.

Great Blue Heron urges you to distinguish true problems from annoyances and to notice and appreciate the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe of both Human Nature and Nature!

 

Three Essential Steps Toward Nature Center DREAM Fulfillment

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August 24, 2017 Dr. Cheryl Charles, Executive Director Nature Based Leadership Institute, and I presented a half-day workshop at the Magnolia Summit, the 23rd annual meeting of the Association of Nature Center Administrators. Our workshop: Three Essential Steps Toward Your Center’s DREAM Fulfillment. Twenty-six nature center directors from 18 states and Mexico participated. We posted this description in advance to Summit registrants, who self-selected to our session:

“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Our careers in forestry, leadership, and nature and environmental education have led us to proselytize that education matters most (and perhaps only) when it is purpose-driven, passion-fueled, and results-oriented. The wisdom applies richly to environmental education centers. This workshop will inspire, educate, and enable participants to identify, leverage, and enhance their capacity to inject passion and purpose into managing centers and spreading the gospel of Earth Stewardship and applying nature’s wisdom to life, living, and serving.

Cheryl and I split the duties and jointly facilitated discussions among the participants. We explained the workshop purpose: To help the choir sing a little more clearly; to deepen the faith of the already converted. And to explore applying the Wisdom and Power of Nature to:

  1. Leading your center
  2. Focusing your approach through a Nature-polished lens
  3. Recasting your vision
  4. Fulfilling your center’s DREAM

I oriented the group to Nature-Inspired Living and Learning via six examples of lessons indelibly written in or powerfully inspired by Nature. Six lessons for living, learning, serving, and leading that we drew from our own experiences in Nature:

  1. Nature is a force lever for humility and inspiration, complementary elements of effective leadership – try leading without deep humility and absolute inspiration. I offered my tale of climbing Mount Quigley and seeing Denali up close for the first time.
  2. Making the most of living and learning necessitates knowing, understanding, appreciating, anticipating, and acting in response to the seasons of life, enterprise, and every single thing! I reflected on the high latitude seasonal fluxes in Fairbanks, AK.
  3. We can effectively live, learn, serve, and lead only if we know our place in the world, and cling tenaciously to impermeable principles, value, and tenets, including personal integrity and professional ethics. I excerpted Robert Service’s “Security,” a limpet-themed parable for “Clinging Like Hell to Your Rock.”
  4. Longfellow once said, “The purpose of that tree is to add a little new wood each year.” Nature instructs that every organism, and for that matter every enterprise, must have purpose. What is yours?
  5. The eagle evokes different viewpoints in man (noble, regal, inspiration) and rabbit (peril, death, fear). Nature teaches the imperative of perspective among all enterprise participants.
  6. Our role as leaders involves revealing the magic, awe, beauty, and wonder that lies hidden within. I employed my orb weaver tale of hundreds of webs be-jeweled with dewdrops backlit by morning sun, as illustration of how the right conditions can reveal what lies within.

Again, these are six examples – not The Six Lessons, but merely six of many.

We then presented our three essential steps toward nature center fulfillment:

  1. Viewing your center as an organism within an ecosystem. I have written about this approach extensively in other GBH Blog posts. This is how I see any enterprise, individual, organization, or even educational institution. The same holds as the basis for my Forestland Legacy Stories. Any enterprise can be examined in such an ecosystem context.
  2. Learning to Look, See, Feel, and Act. Those four basic verbs are central to all that we at Great Blue Heron, LLC do. Again, so many of us suffer sensory deprivation, glued to our digital devices, unable, unwilling, and unfeeling to the glorious world around us. We are deprived by the tyranny of the digitally urgent.
  3. Defining and realizing your center’s DREAM. Some of my fundamental guidelines include:
    • Be aspirational
    • Reach beyond your immediate grasp
    • Understand your limitations
    • Know your strengths and weaknesses
    • Catalog your competition; identify your symbionts; carve your niche and exploit it
    • Distinguish DREAM from fantasy
    • Be specific in defining your center’s future desired condition
    • Dedicate your team to the DREAM
    • Develop Strategic, Business, and Operational Plans; remember that nature’s plans are embedded in DNA, complete with a full set of time-tested contingencies

We enjoyed discussing these topics and many more with our workshop participants. We are eager to see whether our precepts take root. We learned a great deal – we hope the nature center administrators did as well. We remain convinced that the emerging field of Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading will infect, enable, and motivate others.

I closed by offering how a mission statement for a nature center of my creation might read: To inspire, educate, and enable values-based Nature enthusiasts, committed to practicing Earth stewardship, applying Nature’s wisdom and power, and seeking a brighter tomorrow. After all, that is my mission as Great Blue Heron, CEO and author.

 

Featured Image: Great Blue Heron, LLC co-sponsored the ANCA Magnolia Summit

August 2, 2018 One-Month Reflections

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I spoke last Wednesday evening to the 300 folks gathered at the University’s Falcon Center. I include it as a GBH Blog to provide a sense of what GBH can do with a deep dive into any entity… perhaps yours.

My Condensed Remarks

Such a pleasure for me to speak at the 64th Annual Dinner of the Marion County Chamber of Commerce! I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce myself and spell out my dream for this six-month interim presidency.

I’m a forester who just happens to be a university president. Since my 12 years in the paper and allied products manufacturing industry, this is my ninth university; my fourth as president. Coming here is my 13th interstate move. Those moves and the experiences along the way have shaped and sculpted who I am. Four words encapsulate deep lessons from my life’s journey — lessons that guide me today. Humility; Inspiration; Adversity; Adventure.

I vividly recall seeing Alaska’s Mount Denali, North America’s highest at 20,322 feet, for the first time. From my vantage point atop nearby Mount Quigley, Denali struck me like a thunderbolt. There before me stood the most magnificent sight of my life. Craning my head back, I strained to visually capture the overwhelming image of snow fields, glaciers, and vertical rock faces towering above me. In that single instant, I felt absolute humility (I was nothing; I had accomplished nothing). Simultaneously, a powerful sense of inspiration washed over me. I feel that same sense of humility leading FSU and an equal measure of inspiration.

Eight years later, as Judy and I enjoyed a daylight walk after dinner, the driver of a two-ton SUV ran a stop sign, plowed into us, ejecting us many feet. Ambulances transported us to the hospital, banged up, hurting, but nothing life threatening. The incident awakened us, brutally reminding us that life is fragile and fleeting. That each tomorrow is a gift… not a guarantee. The lead character in Bernard Malamud’s The Natural observed, “We have two lives to live; the one we learn with, and the life we live after that one.” This FSU interim presidency is an element of my second life. Adversity led me into deeper purpose.

Helen Keller noted during her sunset years, “Life is either a daring Adventure, or nothing.” Serving FSU is the next chapter of my own daring adventure. I am grateful for the sculpting life forces: Humility; Inspiration; Adversity; and Adventure.

A month into my six-month appointment, I have precious little time to effectively bridge the gap to my permanent successor. I am determined to pass the torch with my conscience clear… that I have done all I can to smooth the transition. Here are the highlights.

I will dissuade our FSU community of the fatalistic notion of our perceived total dependence on the fortunes (or mis-fortunes) emanating from Charleston (WV’s Capital). I will insist that we avoid being a victim of a woe-is-us attitude. Jettison our absolute despair because West Virginia high school demographics are declining. Forget the pitiful wailing that the state doesn’t give us enough money and that we are doomed forever to do more with less. No, I do not suggest that we abandon our West Virginia regional university status

Instead, we must rise above that self-fulfilling, doomsday prophesy! Clearly establish and express our brand, identity and image. Capitalize on the magic, beauty, awe and wonder of this special place. We are a collection of compelling stories – seek them; capture them; tell them! Attract increasing enrollment from out of state and internationally. Forge intimate, reciprocal partnerships with business, industry, organizations and communities. Strengthen and expand our online programs and degrees.

Enable the new president to rapidly accelerate, embed in this wonderful community, and rely upon the interdependence that will lift FSU into a bright future

I am blessed and privileged to serve FSU, Fairmont, Marion County, and our collective future.

Application to Great Blue Heron

As I have observed in previous Blogs, I view every enterprise through an ecosystems lens. I have concluded that this university is not exploiting the fertile ground it occupies. It has self-imposed attitudinal and aspirational constraints. The gap between potential and realization is one of Human Nature… not the bounds of Nature (i.e. virtual ecosystem attributes). This first month, a period of discovery, must now shift to five months of action. The team is behind me. The action is underway. Together, we are passion-fueled; purpose-driven; and results-oriented. I am having the time of my life!

Football Season Already!

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It’s August! Still summer, yet I’m preparing remarks to welcome new and returning football players and coaches to campus for the August 5, first official day of fall practice. My remarks, while crafted specifically to this purpose, fit any enterprise. Although I will not preach my full-throated Nature-Inspired sermon to the team, I could easily do so. My approach, instead, will be more Human Nature than Nature.

I will explain the fundamentals of leading a university… in terms familiar to them:

  • Coaching and mentoring
  • Assessing performance; improving performance
  • Learning from my teammates; from my mistakes
  • Understanding my own weaknesses
  • Trusting and depending upon others
  • Knowing the playbook
  • Calling the right plays; executing them
  • Reaching beyond our grasp; then mastering the grasp, and reaching again
  • Inspiring and motivating
  • Rewarding
  • Celebrating success; learning from failure
  • Setting goals
  • Keeping the mission clear… and foremost
  • Working hard and having fun
  • Maintaining fitness; staying sharp and focused

Sounds a lot like football — and, too, like life and business.

I will review the four essential and inter-connected dimensions of fitness:

  • Physical — preparing the body for optimum performance.
  • Mental — Yogi Berra said, “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”
  • Emotional — relationships provide support, stability, and anchorage. Mind and body cannot function fully in the absence of a strong emotional core. Nobody stands alone.
  • Spiritual — nothing is more important than believing and trusting in something larger and greater than we.

I will tell them about Jim Valvano, coach of the 1983 NC State University men’s basketball National Champions. Coach Valvano hit the motivational speaking circuit ten years later, facing a terminal cancer diagnosis. He implored audiences to employ three things that everyone should do each day:

  • Think deeply about something important to someone in your life — spend time in thought
  • Laugh hard and often
  • Feel something to the point of tears
  • “If you think, laugh, and cry — that’s a heck of a day!”

Failure — we seldom learn by doing things well. Michael Jordan famously observed this about failing:

  • “I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career
  • I’ve lost almost 300 games
  • 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot… and missed
  • I’ve failed over, and over, and over again in my life
  • And that is why I succeed”

Raw talent alone amounts to little. General Colin Powell observed:

  • “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic
  • It takes sweat
  • Determination
  • And hard work!”

I will close my remarks to the team with some personal reflections:

  • I am 66 years old
  • I think, laugh, and shed tears every day
  • I begin each morning with vigorous exercise
  • I can still bench press well over my body weight
  • I am a former marathon runner — I still do cardio training pre-dawn every day
  • I am addicted to living
  • I am committed to serving

Now I will close this Blog — Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure… or nothing.” My interim presidency at Fairmont State University is a daring adventure. Same for my work with Great Blue Heron, LLC… and for my writing. What about your life and the enterprise you lead — a daring adventure? Are you daily incorporating Nature’s elixir into living, learning, serving, and leading? Glance at the photo of FSU’s football stadium — wooded hillsides; lifting morning fog; the promise of a new day in north central West Virginia. The beauty and setting alone mists my eyes, lifts me for the day, and stirs deep contemplation.

Great Blue Heron can open your eyes to harnessing Nature’s Power and Wisdom. Please keep reading these Blogs. Drop me a line if you want to explore how we might together lift your enterprise… and boost your life.

Featured Image: Fairmont State University’s stadium emerging from dawn fog.