November 8th, 2017
Dr. Sean Lessard—Keynote Address, North Grenville Municipal Centre
- Young people are the way forward.
- Relationships are a transactional experience (you give but also take back what you learn)
- Deficit stories aren’t the only stories – shift stories, tell a different kind
- There are all kinds of possibilities if you hang out with good people
- How can situations be looked at as a gift?
- Internal fame should always be celebrated (what is that fame?)
- Move in a different way – build the shift.
- Figure out the solution, don’t get stuck on the barriers.
- Disrupt what we know to recognize a different perspective.
- NO SPACE (what space do disconnected people need and what does that space look like?)
- Shift the language – co create the space, reciprocally work to imagine and work differently
- Learn to listen, look sideways instead of looking at what pats right in front of you – try to understand what might be happening – change the language.
- When somebody believes in you and guides you, then you can.
- How will you create dialogue and connections?
- If we find a reason or reasons to become connected, we are more likely to start and be a part of the journey.
- Intentional conversations – create and sustain visions.
- What sustains, not retains people? Kids in school… people at work… people in relationship…
- How do you make more circles than squares in the spaces you create and move within?
- There are no straight lines…many pathways exist.
Sean’s Session with Students
- We are all indigenous (from the earth)
- Take time to think, you can never do enough to think.
- Sometimes stories can lift your spirits, because stories can do many things for you, for your heart and mind and spirit.
What does leadership mean?
- You can make things happen.
- Turn leadership into action and movement. Don’t let it be a noun.
- What are the possibilities you can imagine? What conditions need to exist for these possibilities to be realized?
- There is a difference between leadership and noble acts – leadership considers perspective and space and voice and possibilities. Leadership is about listening and connecting.
- Mistakes help us learn.
Documentation by Carrie Seguin