Trusting is not as hard as we make it out to be

By KIM KUBIAK
I’m proud to be part of the Leadership Greater McHenry County Class of 2008. So far, we’ve enjoyed our first introductory reception and a weekend retreat at the beautiful Resurrection Center in Woodstock.

Like most everyone, I was dreading the weekend away from my husband and kids, but now that I’ve experienced it, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Here are a few highlights:

• A learning type measurement exercise that confirmed my Myers-Briggs and True Colors personality testing. I’m definitely an orange-blue type that primarily likes to conceptualize, experience and do something, rather than watch. I’m a No. 3-type learner (for those LGMC alumni who knows what that means!)
• Team-building exercises in the woods included getting close to one another inside a hula-hoop laying on the ground, and then sharing what we learned. We also found a partner and performed a few trust-building exercises. One was being blindfolded while having our partner walk us through the woods over mulch, logs, leaves and the like. I had a great partner and one that I’ll call a dear friend for a very long time.
• Once the team-building exercises were completed, we were presented with a keychain with an important imprint; but before we could accept our gift, we had to tell the group what we had learned that day. I said that trusting is not as hard as we make it out to be. I had just met my partner hours before we were walking through the woods together blindfolded. I completely trusted her, so why do we often pretend that trusting others is so difficult? That was a revelation to me. The keychain reads, “There is a new adventure coming and I know it will be a good one.” By Sigurd F. Olson.
• The following day we were divided into four groups and sent on a road trip! One group traveled to Union; one traveled to Woodstock; one traveled to Harvard and my group traveled to Richmond. Each group took a few hours to get to know their assigned community, and then created a production about that community to present to the rest of the class. We were “Google-ing” Richmond on our Blackberries as we drove there, asked a few residents about their community, took several photos on our digital camera, bought a few items for the class from Anderson’s Candy Store, then put together a complete Power Point presentation together. What a blast!
• Over the weekend, we also were assigned teams. Now we’ll work to create an entire day’s presentation on the subject of our choice.

I can’t wait to get started.