gleaning wisdom in Grants Pass
I’m out here for a week in the sticks of Southern Oregon, in a town called Grants Pass. This place is among the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest, and supposedly one of the fastest growing retirement communities in the country.
I’m really glad to sit under the sagely teachings of a master facilitator to learn his process for strategic operating planning. It’s a different spin on strategic planning, and in many ways more wholistic than what little I know of other systems and carries with it a simple elegance. But more than that, to glean from his wisdom. I have always gravitated towards wisdom, even though I haven’t figured out what to do with it, but usually can’t remember the stories that make truths come alive. So I’m recognizing the value of stories, and I’ve gotta figure out a way to remember them so I can retell them.
And hearing life wisdoms this time around, I’m finding motivation to get past my psychological self-defeating mechanisms, and I think by the end of the week, I’ll turn the corner from being a lifelong resistor of personal ambition, personal success, personal gain, personal performance, and personal accomplishment. Yes, I know there’s a lot behind those personal words, but that’s what has been a part of my personal story.
The funny thing about Grant’s Pass for me being a Seattleite who has taken many a roadtrip to California to visit relatives:
I’ve always passed through Grant’s Pass.
I’ve never stopped there once to see what the actual town is like.
Wisdom is something that fascinates me too… and I suspect the most powerful wisdom stories are those we see lived, rather than told. (Besides, these go on longer and so help us to remember them!)