A few years ago, a friend gave me a rattlesnake skin for my 40th birthday. This led me to a new curiosity about how a rattlesnake shed’s its skin. Did you know just before the snake begins to shed its skin, it is at its most vulnerable to being killed and often hides and if found can be irritable and aggressive? Did you know that after a successful shed, another segment is added to its rattle? And that the rattle wards off enemies and danger and that it is used to confuse and disconcert a potential enemy? How do these lessons about growth and change relate to your personal, community or organizational challenge? These are just some of the rattlesnake lessons for change, to learn more contact us about our Supporting Change and Transitions training and our keynote addresses .
[...] Indeed, when I looked up “smelling salts,” the definitions are: “a restorative” and “a means of restoring a person to consciousness.” Piecing these three words together shed a new light on the conference title. From this new perspective, “Fostering A Restorative Worldview” entails helping grow consciousness about our view of the world, each other and ourselves. Now we are getting somewhere interesting. At the conference this led to a rich discussion about what are the smelling salts of our times? How does growth and change happen? Perhaps, the values embedded in the definition of a fainting spell (consciousness, courage, hope, enthusiasm and energy) could be the smelling salts of our times. The next day we explored Rattlesnake Lessons About Change. [...]