III. The 100 Mile Walk Experience:

The trail of leadership discovery

A three day 25 mile excursion on the trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains with Jonathon Flaum, co-author of The 100 Mile Walk: A Father and Son on a Quest to Find the Essence of Leadership and CEO/Creative Director of WriteMind Communications, a leadership and creativity consultancy based in Asheville, North Carolina.

Jonathon A. Flaum
http://www.writemindcommunications.com/ 

“When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered: ‘Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.’”

--Henry David Thoreau (Walking, 1862)

Only the mountains of the English Lake District with its expansive views, vibrant color and indescribable light could teach Wordsworth what it was he needed to say in his poems. And only Walden Pond and the woods of New England could teach Thoreau what his values were and how he wanted to communicate them. There is some distinct thing that happens to us when we are in nature – we are invited to let ourselves be exactly who we are. And to be a leader of substance that others want to follow you must know what you are about. Nobody can teach anybody else how to lead. Management techniques can be taught, but not leadership. Leadership comes from within. This three day excursion is designed to give participants an opportunity to get away from all their commitments and walk in the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains just outside Asheville, North Carolina. The structure is set up so that each participant, with every step, can come closer to discovering which direction they are going and if this a direction true enough for others to follow.

Participants will stay in the serene setting of the Inn on Biltmore Estate where the evenings after our walks will be spent sharing delicious meals from the gourmet kitchen of the Biltmore Estate, a bit of wine from the Estate winery, and “unplugged” facilitated conversations to help us distill what it is we are intuiting about our own leadership practice out there on the trail and the lessons we can take back to our jobs and lives.