Dear fellow Sealnet adventurers, I have been reflecting on what are some of my peaks and memorable experiences that I have during Project Vietnam, and what I have learned about life, love and leadership of human spirit from those experiences. I am taking my time to reflect and write, and will post them as they becoming clear. I would love to hear yours as well. So here’s the question for all of us: what are your top 3 (and more if you have more) peak and memorable experiences during this Sealnet adventure, and what you have learn about life, love and the human spirit? Here’s the first of 10 from me: 1. The moment when Cadao stepped into the middle of the circle and powerfully claim the Stake of “Commitment to Service, Friendship and Growth” for the whole community. For me this is leadership at its finess because it was about allowing space for trust, patience, acceptance. After a long hour of people naming the creative tension between “current reality and vision”, and brainstorming the stakes, I felt that we were getting stuck. We choose to change perspective by moving from sitting to taking a stand in a circle and face each other as a community. There was a moment right before CaDao stepped in, the silence felt almost unbearable. I had to let go of trying to “figure it out” and trust in the wisdom of the community. I notice that the harder we tried to figure things our with our brains to come up with the stake more confused and competitive we got. Many of us were trying to find the right words. My intuition was that if we keep trying to figure things out with our heads, we will not be able find the stake. So instead we held hands, feel grounded in our bodies, breath and trust in the energy of the group. I can feel the nervousness and anticipation in myself and in the group. When Cadao stepped forth with her whole body, and say the stake out loud, I feel the support of the whole community. We let go of how the words “should be”, people were just being together. For me, this is a powerful leadership moment because it is about taking risk, trusting, and allowing for something to unfold without getting attachment to the outcomes. It’s also about the embodiment of the stake. In the end, even though we arrived to the same stake that we had at the beginning of the project, now everyone can fully align themselves behind it which contribute to the success of the Vietnam project. I feel sure that all of us who worked on this project has experienced the “commitment to service, friendship and growth”…am I right or am I right?

– Hung Nguyen