My Leadership Philosophy

Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished. I found this ability within myself at a very young age. Growing up I was constantly surrounded by leaders, people who had no fear in taking the first step in the right direction. My mother was a leader when she got diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and beat it a year later. My Father was a leader when he started his own successful marketing business in the small town of Columbia. So, being surrounded by leading figures, as I got older I found an urge to do a leader-like act on my own. That is when my grandmother and I had the great idea to raise money for my Brothers school, The Hope Institute in Springfield,

The first thing I did was call my grandma, she was always willing to help me with anything and everything that I needed so she was completely on board with this idea to help me. We brainstormed for days on end and then finally came up with our so called ‘Master Plan’. Every night at 9 or 10 we would go to houses around the community and Flamingo their yard. As odd as that might sound, it's not harmful. It's the idea that you put plastic flamingos all over people's yard as fun-loving joke, in order to get their attention about a cause. In the middle of the pack of flamingos we out some fake flowers in the ground and attached a note stating that we were attempting to raise money for my brothers school,including all the details about it. We also explained that we would come back the next morning to pick up the flamingos and that if they would like to donate then, it would be greatly appreciated. Apparently, the community loved the idea because we started to see posts about it on social media, and there was talk about it around the town. I clearly remember the feeling of absolute leadership when my grandma and I finally counted out all the money and found that we had made 3,600 dollars for the school. The next day I called The Hope Institute to share my news, and the outcome was one that I never would've expected. They were so astonished that we had raised the money, that the Principal of the school decided to match my donation