My involvement with Leadership Rhode Island (LRI) has impacted my life in ways that I'd never imagine.
The first time I heard about LRI was a few years back at a Millennial of Rhode Island (MRI) annual networking event at a bar in downtown Providence--every millennial in RI should join MRI. I walked around the bar to meet new people and expand my network; eventually, I came across Matt Coupe who was the Alumni & Community Engagement Liaison for LRI at the time.
One thing that I appreciate about the MRI networking events is that the participants will skip the small talk to have genuine conversations and so Matt and I quickly began talking about something more interesting, the Clifton's’ Strength Base concept and LRI's approach to it. Although I had some familiarity with personality tests such as the Myer Briggs', Matt sold me on the Clifton's approach to strengths because it defines each strength and provides the insight on how each trait influences a person's work ethic, learning style, career choices, and relationship building.
After the conversation, I immediately knew that I wanted to get involved with LRI. At the time I was still pursuing my bachelors degree, so Matt recommended that I first look into College Leadership Rhode Island, the student version of Leadership Rhode Island. CLRI focuses on educating college students on the different sectors: for/non-profit, private/public sector and government at no cost. Matt gave me his business card and fast-forward that summer to September, I became a CLRI participant in the 2016 cohort/class.
I will talk about my CLRI experience in dept in another post, but fast forward three years later and I was offered the opportunity to be the Co-Chair for CLRI 19’, the first cohort to meet for an academic year. I was excited to accept the opportunity knowing that I would get a refresher on what I've learned as a participant, but I also looked forward to learn about the new topics introduced into the curriculum. Lastly, and since networking is a core components of LRI/CLRI, I knew that I would get the chance to meet more alumni and expand my network.
As Co-Chair, I collaborated with the other Co-Chair, Paige, and LRI staff such as Michelle, Kristin and Kim to develop the curriculum for the new session days and enhance the old ones . We brainstormed for each session day and added new exercises, relevant activities or modified existing ones.For example, on the Financial Well-Being session day, each participant prepared a personal budget. They wrote down their income information and personal expenses to give them a visual sense of where they were financially (students can choose to keep their information private ). On that session day, the participants played a game of Life Happens- a game with the aim of educating individuals on the implications of socio-economics by dividing players into mock families with different, but very real, financial situations; players are then given Life Happens cards that would affect the family budget in a positive or negative way. This game has been effective in past CLRI sessions and so we kept the game, however, the speakers invited for the day were all different from the ones selected to speak to my cohort.
My experience as Co-Chair has left me inspired and motivated. I’ve met impressive students and community leaders of diverse backgrounds. Serving in this capacity has given me tremendous personal and career growth. I highly recommend CLRI/LRI to any person interested in learning more about their strengths and how to use them to their advantage, but also to meet other like-minded individuals that would inspire and motivate them to become successful as they have with me!
