Recently, my desire to engage in learning about the stories, passions and impactful moments in others’ lives took shape in my own. I’m thankful that I enjoy listening to others present the essence of their philosophy and way of being.
This still gets my adrenaline churning. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm sorry, I don't know what just came over me.
Two months ago, if you’d have asked me about my passions, I’d issue a reply about Cardinals baseball, an entity around which the summers of most St. Louisans revolves. Two months ago, if you’d have asked me about an impactful instant in my life, I’d explain just how monumental it was to stand next to my sister, in a greater sea of red, my city’s color of solidarity, and to watch our team, twice on the brink of defeat, earn victory in the World Series, the pinnacle of baseball achievement. My story, in part, is therefore the story of a sports fanatic.
Yet, I realize that sports, especially in today’s paradigm, are an arbitrary thing in which to place passion. So, as I struggle with how my passion will fit into a thriving, just, sustainable world, I’ll advise the novices within the audience of this post. Hey, you! I recognize that Wake Up experiences, much like everything else in the universe, are perceived divergently between people and spaces. In an effort to be useful, I’m going to share a new framework for learning that I acquired by facilitating two WakeUps.
A question you might have heard or been asked is, “When did you do something for the first time, and how did it impact you?” Facilitating my first WakeUp (with the handsome Adam Hasz) taught me things. Adam and I facilitated for three people, including our Assistant Dean of Students at Washington University in St. Louis, in a room with built-in A/V and a large table, around which we sat alongside empty chairs and framed athletics uniforms from the school’s Division III tradition. In the days before, we ran through the script on our own and together in my organization’s office and at a Panera Cares restaurant.
A novel.
I suppose that the most important lesson about facilitation from my first WakeUp is that audience size, physical space, and facilitator preparation, especially with respect to familiarity with the audience and the material, are critical to shaping the impact of the experience. We framed this WakeUp as a test run because we engaged three people who had already been woken up, and the practice was more valuable for the two of us than our audience of three.
The impact: I was excited to take what I had learned to my second WakeUp.
And this sets up another question for you. ”When did you do something especially meaningful for the second time? How did you apply lessons from the first go-around and what was the resulting impact?” Therein lies the magic of Number 2.
My sister’s proudest Game 6 story was how I congratulated an opposing team’s fan before what I assumed was going to be the Cardinals elimination in the bottom of the ninth inning. Instead, David Freese had a different plan, delivering St. Louis from deep despair and into extra innings. When the Cardinals found themselves in the jaws of defeat again, I only somewhat sincerely congratulated that fan a second time. He believed that what I was doing would save my team and my city, and so did I. And it did.
After David Freese saved the game for the first time, that Texas Rangers fan might have asked for a second chance. In fact, the Rangers lost the World Series a year earlier, so the mindset of the second chance already defined him. However, second chances aren’t always favorable, or even an improvement over the first.
An Insnsbrook tradition.
The subsequent Wake Up Experience I presented was on my own, in beautiful Innsbrook, MO. My audience was the fifteen other core officers and advisors. The downfall was that I assumed a lot about the room we’d be presenting. I resorted to using my quiet laptop speakers after we couldn’t find ones in the room. Air blowing into the room rustled posters that distracted from the video. Most disastrously, the facility closed an hour earlier than expected, and so the program was postponed midway through until the next day.
To my fellow facilitators: don’t try to facilitate a Wake Up by yourself. Cofacilitators are necessary to keep the dynamism of the Wake Up process alive. With this in mind, I would find it valuable to build on the strengths of each facilitator during my next Wake Up in order to make the experience as engaging as possible for the audience. Equally important is the physical space of the experience: make sure someone knows the light, temperature, audio, and other aspects of the room before diving into the experience.
The significance of two is learning the effect and importance of applying lessons from the previous and into present instances of an experience. This knowledge is the primary tool with which one can excel in a given setting. Onward to more WakeUps!
