Where did it come from?

Posted by Kelly Lewis Share Your Voice

Creating what I call, "Communities of Learning", has been a constant theme in my work since 2006.  Over the weekend I discovered it has really been a constant theme in my life since 1982 and there is one courageous and compassionate person that I have to thank for that - my Dad!

No matter the fun and fancy names (Community of Citizens, Women's Leadership Community, The Workbox, Learning Circle, Teachers as Learners, Leaders as Learners) all of these Communities of Learning share a similarity - the space for people to feel safe expressing themselves fully and feel challenged to become all of who they are.  

This past weekend, while coming off of the unbelievable launch of Leaders as Learners (our most recent Leadership Learning Community), my curiosity got the best of me and thank goodness it did!  

I thought to myself, "When did this all start for me?  What experience did I have that made this work feel like a part of my DNA rather than work?"  As I reflected, I remember saying to myself, "I wished it was school and it wasn't.  I wished it was home and it wasn't.  I wished it was my swim team, my tennis team and it wasn't. I wished it was the business world and it wasn't."  So what was it?  And on queue in came a visual of my dad's face, like a beautiful cloud floating across a clear blue sky.  And as clear as the sky was in the visual so was the answer to my question - it was AA. 

As a young girl, 10 to be exact, I was invited to accompany my dad to his Sunday morning Serenity meeting.  Every Sunday we would head out to breakfast and then to the old Holiday Inn on Broad Street to meet up with his newly found AA family.  I met so many cool people - men and women, young and old, rich and poor, famous and infamous, black and white - and listened to them courageously share their stories, parts of which they were not proud of, for the sake of their own growth and the growth and recovery of their fellow AA member.  It was an amazing place where I experienced (maybe for the first time in my life) zero judgement, complete acceptance, and full transparency - something I have since learned are some of the key ingredients to creating a powerful Learning Community.  

Dad - from the bottom of my heart, Thank you!  YOU are a fabulous, courageous, compassionate human being and I am grateful that you did and continue to share your AA experience with me. You could have hid it or kept it all for yourself and instead you opened up and shared it with me.  That experience, more than any other, has impacted me and my understanding of what it means to create a safe space for learning.  A space that allows someone to come and be exactly who and where they are without judgement, with boundaries, and most of all with love.  Thank you for modeling what it is like to be vulnerable while at the same time confident, for trusting me, for teaching me about love, acceptance, and courage, and exposing me to a very powerful community of learning that many people might have been scared to share with their ten year old "little girl".

I believe we all deserve to experience this kind of environment and I look forward to the continued opportunity to create them! 

⇐ Previous Post: Where did it come from? Next Post: Servant Leadership: In... ⇒

Kelly Lewis Hello! Here are a few things that I have found support me in creating the life I want, keeping myself in check, and leading with courage and compassion: a slow walk with my hubby and our pups, my work, honesty with myself, the smile of another, and mother nature.