What Are You Becoming?

Dear Meeting And Association Professional:

Here are some of my personal reflections, shaped by many of the people I read and those that have touched my life that I recently shared with NACE 2014 participants.

I ask you the same thing I asked them…

What Are You Becoming?

What are you becoming?

We might be shaped by our pasts but our futures are always open.

People ask repeatedly:

“Where’d you come from? What have you done?”

But that’s just a way of putting us into a box for convenience, to label us, to categorize us, to departmentalize us.

The larger question is always, “What are you becoming? What’s next?”

The Honest Answer To What’s Next

The truthful answer to this question—and to all moments of becoming—is, “We have no idea.”

We can move in any number of directions. We will have false starts and dead ends. We will find some paths congenial. We will dodge some challenges and embrace others. But movement will always be forward.

Today, tomorrow and many years from now, we can be blessed by the opportunity to become, the chance to try something new, the occasion to develop into something different, the opening for a do-over.

So I ask you, “What are you becoming? What’s next?”

Your Best You

Your best “you” lies beyond the known and comfortable…

In that wild place where seeds grow, lost sheep are found, prodigals return, and people behave in uncharacteristic ways.

We, you and I, your neighbors and all those around you should be seeking an unmarked frontier where we can be transformed into newness.

So I ask you, “What are you becoming? What’s next”?

Hat Tips to the many people who have shaped my thoughts about becoming. They have made me who I am and am becoming: my parents, my mentors, John Wesley, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Joan Eisenstodt, Judy Zimny, MLK, Tom Ehrich, and countless others!

Share with us what you think you are becoming. Describe how you are not letting your past define you and your future.