For someone like me who lives in what most say a “never heard of” small city far down in Northwestern Ontario, a taste of the outside world does not come along handy. And what a taste of what awaits me in the future I have had here at our 12th day at Shad Valley.
Today in our SHAD community of a little more than fifty success and excellence driven students and staff where the “Why not?” overpowers the “Why?” making a difference is a very important lesson that we have learned.
The morning lecture on Intellectual Property (IP) has driven us into “making it our own”—a bigger insight into the legal rights and protection of our ideas, inventions, and creations. It has built a foundation for strategic planning from patents to copyrights of a future and possible business’ product or service.
We also wrapped up our workshop by implementing ideas for the improvement of the SHAD community— ideas that suggest the possibilities of a diverse group of people working together, putting each other’s guiding principles into practice, and bringing those values into interactions.
After lunch, we had a lecture on social marketing that brings about a planned process for influencing change—an approach that uses marketing techniques to generate discussion and promote information, attitudes, values and behaviours that would influence and solve the problems of the general society.
Later on, we got ourselves immersed into our project—Designing for Canada’s Aging Population—that enables us to go beyond the boundaries of visions, and create an environment where we can experience true leadership.
More importantly, after-dinner’s lecture on life lessons has provided us to reflect that “in order to succeed, one needs to fail”. Success and failure? You might ask. While most people think of them as opposites, they are really not. They are companions because “the greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”
What lies beneath our 12th day is no secret. We take up this lesson and hope to make this lesson our life—we’d think of it, dream of it, and live on it. This is the SHADs’ way to success!
What a flavourful taste of our future! Though personally, it is one step ahead shaping my town from what seems to look like just a small dot on the map into what most will say, “I know the place.”
Shaundrei Mabriel Espiritu, Shad Valley University of Waterloo 2010
Hometown: Dryden, Ontario
