By Dale Avery

A few weeks back I had the chance to attend the annual Global Leadership Summit at Eastveiw Christian Church.  The Global Leadership Summit is a two-day event telecast live from Willow Creek Church near Chicago every August.  The broadcast is sent to sites in 125 countries and translated into59 languages. The Summit was founded in 1992 by Willow Creek Association as a means to assist business, clergy, and every day leaders in ways to improve their leadership.

I have been attending on and off for the past six years andhave found the event and speakers have a huge impacton my personal development.  I have to confess, the previous two years I didn’tgo because I allowed other options to take precedence over my attendance.  It was shaping up to be another miss again this year, when suddenly my calendar opened upand allowed me to attend at least one day of the Summit.

I am so glad I was able to be there.  As I listened to the speakers, I realized how much I needed the one day time out of my busy schedule to self-reflect and take an inventory on my life.  At the event I not only heard from great speakers, but was able to spend time with my father-in-law, my wife, and friends new and old.

Now that it has been two weeks since the event, I am working at incorporating the learnings I was exposed to into my daily routine.  Some of the key items I am pursuing include:

• The world is looking and needing leaders who unite not divide, build up not tear down, put the interest of others before theirs and put in bold workable solutions instead of continue to kick the same can down the street.
• You need to find your passion and you need to feed it. Find ways to keep your passion bucket full. Life is too short to live with an empty passion bucket. Pursue your passion every day. If you do not know what your passion is, God will unfold it to you if you ask.
• Enlarge Your Vision – Think of things you have always wanted to do and go for it. People may make fun of your vision or actions because they simply do not have a goal of their own.  But you must execute on the vision and gifts inside of you given by the Creator.  People will do anything for a passionate and vision filled leader.
• Embrace Risk – In our Western society, it’s all about eliminating risk. When we bring that risk adversethought process into leadership, we move from pioneering to preserving. Most of us took significant risk when we started how career or endeavor, but back then we didn’t have anything to lose. Once we got comfortable in life with where we were, we went from taking risk to preserving our position.  This thinking does not allow us to live out the life God has planned for us.  We should embrace risk and fear as our friends – that is the only way we will grow.

These are just a few things I took from the Summit.  I am choosing to focus on my passion, feed my passion bucket, and expand my vision to include risk taking without the fear of failing.

I hope someday you can take in the Global Leadership Summit.  Find this or a similar motivational event to feed your leadership – whether that is in the corporate world, your small local business, or your home.Look out for your life to change!

Dale Avery, CPCU, is the assistant vice president – Enterprise Services at State Farm® Corporate Headquarters in Bloomington, Ill.

Avery began his career with State Farm in 1982 as a personal lines underwriter in Lincoln, Nebraska and assumed his current position in 2006. Avery, a native of Missouri, received his bachelor’s degree from Central Missouri State University. He earned his CPCU in 1991.

Dale resides in Bloomington with his wife, Laura and their two daughters; Megan and Jenna.

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