Some of you may be looking for some options to take time out for self-renewal and reflection about your own leadership. Here are a few retreats I’ve heard about recently that could enhance your inner life beyond your 9 to 5:

Freedom to Be All That I Am: In this weekend we will look deeply into ourselves to free the qualities within us that are our unique contributions at this critical time. We will honor and expand our highest creative expressions and manifestations to serve ourselves, our communities and the Whole. With Christine Kloser, Author of The Freedom Formula and President, Love Your Life Publishing

Women’s Leadership Retreat: Spend a weekend away in a beautiful retreat center and return home with renewed leadership energy.

Young Women’s Ethical Leadership Training: This core training program is designed to educate a small group of women in the practical skill sets that are so necessary to succeed in today’s businesses, political and community environments.

Life’s Golden Ticket: Brendon Burchard is bringing 2,000 people together for a transformational personal growth training event along with his friends Dr. John Gray (Men Are From Mars) and Marianne Williamson (Oprah radio host and author of The Age of Miracles). (Thanks to Kristy Hall for the link!)

Photo by graphistolage.com

Last week, I wrote a series of posts to really target the theme of career empowerment:

• Take Back Your 9 to 5: Develop a Personal Mission Statement

• Take Back Your 9 to 5: Cultivate a Slash Career in the Nonprofit Sector

• Take Back Your 9 to 5: Ditch the Martyr Lifestyle

Each of the posts talked about an aspect of improving or enhancing your nonprofit career. But those are just some ways you can become empowered in this field. During this Saturday’s Women Rule Meetup in DC, seven awesome ladies sat around a table in a tea shop talking about so many ways we struggle and succeed in our work. I wanted to share one thread of our conversation that came from Gabriela Cadena, who is one of the most positive people I know.

Gabriela said that we need to see ourselves as co-creators in our careers. Our employers and even the nonprofit field itself are only one part of the relationship that we enter into when we come to work. And we should seek to take responsibility for that relationship. I took a step back in my mind when I heard that, because I meet so many young nonprofit professionals through my blog, at conferences, through my day job…and we have a lot of gripes with the nonprofit sector. Most of the time, our attitude is that our bosses are doing us dirty with these low salaries, our supervisors give us projects that are impossible to complete during regular working hours, and our clients need so much more than we can provide. No wonder so many talented people end up quitting before they’ve had a chance to make a difference. We give up because we don’t think about the other possibilities. We forget that everything is negotiable.

Gabriela reminds us that we have to stop blaming other people or institutions or the culture of our sector for what we don’t like about our careers. If we can start to think of ourselves as co-creators of each relationship that we are a part of, it can lead us to more creative ways of structuring the way we work, so that it works for us.

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
— Rumi

Try keeping it real. It’s a simple concept, but one that young people especially have a hard time wrapping our minds around.

What I love about the blogging experience is being able to talk through what I’m feeling as I go through my nonprofit journey and figure it all out together. And I gotta be honest…sometimes I just lose the fire to be in this work of trying to create social change.

What is my contribution if I give up seeking truth in order to avoid getting in some kind of trouble? Where are we going if we lose our drive for the pursuit of truth at all costs? And what good are we if, when we find it, we are too afraid to speak truth to power?

What do you think about Paul’s viewpoint that the retirement of baby boomers from the federal sector could bring about needed change in the ‘federal machine’ by incoming young people? Are there any lessons we can apply in the nonprofit sector?

I personally think it is super important to understand the audience you are speaking to, and frame the issue as well as propose solutions in ways the audience will understand and be receptive to. That will make all the difference.

But there’s one thing about Generation Y that’s not so radical that I’m not really proud of. Young people are afraid to risk failure for the sake of the greater good.

The NAACP may have made one of their best strategic moves in recent years by hiring someone under 40 to lead the still relevant, but ailing civil rights organization. Benjamin Todd Jealous was named President/CEO of the NAACP this week. He is only 35 years old, the youngest leader to ever take the reins of the organization […]