i4 Live 2015: Time To Rekindle & Nurture New Abilities

People have different preferences, ways of viewing the world and aspirations, amongst other things. However when you mix talent, fun and great content with amazing food and a spectacular location, the results are beyond what anyone can expect.

That’s how I would like to describe our 2015 experience in the hinterland of Gold Coast, one of my favourite places in the world.

In this showreel, we share how an eclectic group of individuals spent 4 days learning about leadership, the brain, food, communication, movement, sleep, inspiration and practising the skills of the .

2015 Showreel 

The best way to summarise what happened is to share a section of this beautiful poem spontaneously written at the retreat by Katharine McLennan, a leadership expert, a Stanford graduate, a strategist who worked at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, a former executive and someone who is willing to use her voice. What a beautiful way to describe leadership and what we do.

Thank you Katharine!

A Poem for i4 Live 2015

Here is the story of a beautiful teacher
A facilitator of leadership, certainly not a preacher
A scientist, an Argentinian, a mother and a daughter
With an idea over the Red Centre on her way to Sydney water

… that leadership models of today are outdated
… that today’s frameworks of command and control highly overrated
… that the brain, the heart, and the gut could be integrated
… into a model so colourful, so loving, and so illustrated

What if we could turn the leadership notion
Upside down, and create locomotion
Towards the honouring of each of our gifts with awe
Instead of the measuring of each weakness, each failure, each flaw

“It is time to rekindle, utilise and nurture,”
To fire up the lighthouse for the leadership wisdom searcher
To show us that this wisdom has never been far
In fact... lurking within us, each of us a star

And so the i4 was born, a model for everyone
For CEOs and tellers, for mothers, for anyone
Wanting to discover their strengths and their gifts,
Their passions, their motivations and their need for shifts

First performance, so red, so vibrant and integrated
Starting with Self, a brain-mind-body calibrated
For integration, balance, mental readiness and ethics
We learn to sleep soundly, to eat well and to move with kinetics

Second collaboration, so yellow, so “we”
It takes a village to grow, and an “us” not a “me”
With courage, communication, generosity and inspiration
We combine as a team to reach our aspiration

Third innovation, so violet and free
An energy to create new patterns of thinking, to see
...through imagination, drive, curiosity and attitude
To see life so splendid, with so much latitude

Fourth agility, so blue and so very adroit
Needed for a VUCA world we can no longer exploit
With adaptability, awareness, influence and intuition
We can respond with light feet as we flow toward our mission

Thus the was created and so generously taught
To the pioneers who believed, their talents they brought...
Their integration, inspiration, imagination and intuition,
Their i4 passion under Silvia’s tuition

And now we find ourselves in the not-so-Gold Coast
With Gold meaning collaboration, we’ve been so engrossed
In corporate strategy, in movement, in sleep and nutrition,
In design, in neuroscience, we are forming an i4 tradition

For it is in our i4 community, our hearts can touch heaven,
Our guts are nourished, our limbs are strengthened
Our sleep is 8 hours, our brains are integrated
Our community can begin and our passion celebrated

May you know each step forward, or back or to the side
Is the right one, regardless of fear or of pride
May you trust in your stride, believe in your path
Revel in your life, with humility but without wrath

May you know there are reasons for all that we do
For all whom we meet, and all that we rue
All that we ponder, all that we run from
All that we rush to and all that we come from

So, lift your glass, and toast the moment
That’s all that there is, no need for torment.
About pasts that can't change, about futures that don’t exist
About flaws, about jealousies, about pain that persists...

Katharine McLennan, 20 February 2015