Creating a Board

I sent out initial contacts to my possible board today. The board is a very important aspect to the process because these are the main people that I will look to throughout the next year when it comes to refocusing and defining my life.

A board of directors jointly oversee a company or organization. In this example, the board of directors will oversee me. The people I have asked to be a part of my board have, at some point throughout my life, made an impact in one way or another.

Prior to our first meeting, I am going to have all of us read a book so that we can discuss it. This is an activity I want to do to intentionally create community among the group. I think that, because this experience is unique, we will already bond from that, but I think sharing another commonality will help, as well. I have yet to decide what book it is going to be, but I am thinking something by Gallup Press.

Once my board is finalized, we will have to decide on a common meeting time that will happen 4-5 times in the next year. This, I think, will be a challenge, but might surprisingly be easy since we are planning a months in advance.

I am excited to hear back from the people I contacted. I think I am going to have a really good group.

How Full Is Your Bucket?

I read How Full Is Your Bucket? yesterday at Borders. I had some time to kill and was able to read through the whole book (it’s only 80-something pages).

How Full Is Your Bucket? is about the importance of positive comments, individual recognition, and how negativity affects one’s day. This book was written primarily for managers or others in leadership positions; however, I think it is very useful for everyone that works with people. How Full Is Your Bucket? suggests that those that receive positive and individualized praise on a regular basis perform better than those that do not. This means that those who lead others should, when giving praise or recognition, make it personal to the person receiving it.

I really value this book because it reminded me to remain positive and be positive to others, to fill the bucket of other people. I highly suggest reading this book; it is a fast read, it is meaningful, and it has a lot of fun stuff in the back.

Next Steps

I met with Greg Tehven today about starting my non-profit life. I got this idea from Greg; it was really helpful meeting with him.
We talked a lot about creating the board of directors (the 6 or so people that I will be meeting with about my life.
The board of directors is probably the most important aspect of the non profit life project; it will allow me and the six others to come together and work through important aspects of my life, much like the board of directors does for a non-profit.
I am still working on contacting possible board members.

I am also still working on creating a vision and mission. These, I feel, are extremely important aspects of this venture and should not just be made up.

My goal was to have contacted and compiled a board by Friday. I think that will still be possible, but we’ll see.

I am very excited about this journey.

My Non-Profit Life: First Thoughts

Good evening, readers
I have decided to take a new path in life (and in the blogging world, obviously). We talked about living our life like a non-profit in Leadership Class today. Obviously this was something that interests me; I am a big non-prof. fan. However, my interests lies somewhere deeper than calling my life a non-profit…

This is what I’m going to do. I am going to define a mission and vision for my life. I am also going to select a board of directors (six people) to meet with me four times within the next 12 months to help my non-profit (me). My goal is to have all of this figured out by next Friday so I can start in May. I want my board to be six people who do not know each other in any way. I want a diverse group of influential people (to me) to be in my board, but they must also have a basic understanding of who I am (my history, my values, etc).

I really think this will be a positive  experience. I am excited to outline and draw up a mission and vision, but I am more excited for the board of directors aspect. There are other things that will be going in to this, as well, but I am not at that stage, yet.

I am going to make it a goal to reflect every other day on this blog about the process. Not only for me, but for people who are thinking about doing this, too. I hope other people decide to join me because I think this could be a great venture.