Internship: Getting Ready
For my Junior Internship I have the great opportunity to work with Helice Bridges, a real world leader who strives towards really making the world a better place. Creator of the Blue Ribbon Ceremony and Founder of Difference Makers International, Helice Bridges works to create environments where everyone is appreciated and cheered on for their dreams.
Throughout my time with Helice Bridges I will be working to learn from the work that she does and how I can begin to make a difference in the lives of millions. I am eager to learn not only how she is working to make a difference, but how specifically she works to make a living, as this is still important. I am eager to begin working with her and hope that I can not only learn from her but from the large network of change makers that she works with.
Throughout my time with Helice Bridges I will be working to learn from the work that she does and how I can begin to make a difference in the lives of millions. I am eager to learn not only how she is working to make a difference, but how specifically she works to make a living, as this is still important. I am eager to begin working with her and hope that I can not only learn from her but from the large network of change makers that she works with.
Internship: First Day
My first day working with Helice Bridges helped me not only get a deeper insight as to the work we would be doing, but it also helped me learn on a deeper level something that I needed to start doing to be really efficient in my work. That is finding a strong passion, not just for the work that I do but the outcome which is the changing of lives. The empowering of others to strive for what they want to do and for their dreams. It was beneficial to me learning a little more as to how and why I'll be working towards this cause of bettering the world.
Internship: Learning a little more: Ignite What's Right and the Blue Ribbon
For Internship I am spending my time with Helice "Sparky" Bridges, creator of the Blue Ribbon ceremony and founder of Ignite What's Right. I've talked about her a little but I want to talk a little more about exactly what Ignite What's Right is looking to do.
The Goal of Ignite What's Right is to have 1 BILLION DREAMS COME TRUE & 1 BILLION PEOPLE HONORED by Year 2020. Ignite What's Right is looking to do this through the Blue Ribbon. As to what the Blue Ribbon is, it's a little Blue Ribbon that says "Who I Am Makes A Difference®". The Blue Ribbon Ceremony is where you honor someone for something that they've done or for the person that they are. You place the Blue Ribbon above their heart and cheer them on for their dreams. You finish it off by giving them a BING! which is the sound of dreams coming true. Now I can't say that the Blue Ribbon is a magic tool that just magically makes all of your dreams come true, and that if you honor someone with a Blue Ribbon you'll gain immortality, because it's not that kind of magic. It's something that you feel, and it can fix what you feel inside. It's like a father, telling his son that he loves him after a lifetime of silence and seriousness. It's an indescribable feeling that is meant to change lives, and to me when I know and remember that feeling I know that the work I am doing, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem is the most life changing work I've done my whole life.
Thus I know that the Blue Ribbon Ceremony is something beautiful and working, and that my time with Ignite What's Right will ultimately lead to the changing of lives.
The Goal of Ignite What's Right is to have 1 BILLION DREAMS COME TRUE & 1 BILLION PEOPLE HONORED by Year 2020. Ignite What's Right is looking to do this through the Blue Ribbon. As to what the Blue Ribbon is, it's a little Blue Ribbon that says "Who I Am Makes A Difference®". The Blue Ribbon Ceremony is where you honor someone for something that they've done or for the person that they are. You place the Blue Ribbon above their heart and cheer them on for their dreams. You finish it off by giving them a BING! which is the sound of dreams coming true. Now I can't say that the Blue Ribbon is a magic tool that just magically makes all of your dreams come true, and that if you honor someone with a Blue Ribbon you'll gain immortality, because it's not that kind of magic. It's something that you feel, and it can fix what you feel inside. It's like a father, telling his son that he loves him after a lifetime of silence and seriousness. It's an indescribable feeling that is meant to change lives, and to me when I know and remember that feeling I know that the work I am doing, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem is the most life changing work I've done my whole life.
Thus I know that the Blue Ribbon Ceremony is something beautiful and working, and that my time with Ignite What's Right will ultimately lead to the changing of lives.
Internship: The First Week's highlights and My Project
The first week of my internship with Helice Bridges has been wonderful. Highlights of this internship have been the meeting of new people, most notably Kevin and Ben, to very successful heartfelt people with an eye for what's working. These two gentlemen work for the Ken Blanchard institute, the non-profit arm of the Ken Blanchard companies and were a pleasure to meet. I also got the opportunity to introduce myself to three gentlemen from DMAX, Jim, Henry and Jeff. I am beginning to build connections with people that are doing things right.
I've also gotten the chance to honor people with Blue Ribbons, the first I experience I had honoring someone that I didn't know or hadn't even spoken to was at the Home Sweet Home cafe, after our meeting at the Ken Blanchard Companies headquarters. The wonderful hostess Kalani has noticed the Blue Ribbon Sparky had given me after our meeting and was curious to find out about what it was. I had an idea of how to explain the Blue Ribbon and it's purpose, but I felt that the best way to explain it, was to show it. So I honored Kalani for the way she already made us feel comfortable at the cafe. I as well told her that her friendly smile made our time (and surely anyone else lucky enough to be served by her) at the Home Sweet Home cafe that much better. I was extatic to see the smile on her face as I gave her the Blue Ribbon and gave her a Bing! |
Internship: My Project
Along with speaking with people and going outside to make connections I've also had the chance to spend time with my Mentor and learn a lot of very important lessons from her. One of them has been learning how to really live like someone wanting to have change in the world, by not just focusing on what's wrong, but what's right as well. It is the mix of both of these that has helped me to become more positive and look towards improving not only the environment I'm in but also in improving myself.
Through working here for Ignite What's Right I'm going to be keeping this blog, where I will highlight and mention people who are doing things right, as well as telling about my adventures with the magnificent Sparky. This will be my project throughout my time here and will begin to highlight people soon!
Through working here for Ignite What's Right I'm going to be keeping this blog, where I will highlight and mention people who are doing things right, as well as telling about my adventures with the magnificent Sparky. This will be my project throughout my time here and will begin to highlight people soon!
Internship: Self-Advocacy
It's pretty difficult to practice Self-Advocacy when you work side by side with the First Lady of Acknowledgement. This is because there is not a single moment that passes without my mentor asking me if what we're doing or the way something is phrased is alright or if it looks well. Yet there have been times when I try my best to not only share my opinion but as well give feedback.
Because my internship has been so personal and close to someone it hasn't been hard to be able to express myself or share my opinion with others. This is one of the perks of working with someone who's fighting for people to more deeply acknowledge others. My mentor really walks the talk and lives by how she teaches.
Because my internship has been so personal and close to someone it hasn't been hard to be able to express myself or share my opinion with others. This is one of the perks of working with someone who's fighting for people to more deeply acknowledge others. My mentor really walks the talk and lives by how she teaches.
Internship: A Look Into A Day At The Office
The following are some photos that I took of my time so far with Helice Bridges working for Ignite What's Right
Internship: Presentation of Learning preparation
I've got my end of internship Presentation of Learning coming up and I know what I want to talk about. I have decided that I want to make my P.O.L as fun and heartfelt as my internship has been. I also already have my title, to represent my internship adventure as a whole. "Every Day Is A Different Adventure" is the title, and it's meant to show the spontaneity of my mentor, and the ability she had to be able to move from one thing to another and always finish everything on time. She had been spontaneous long enough to not just start and not finish something.
Now the real meat of my POL is going to be what this whole internship was based off of, and that was really the ability to be able to feel and really get a deeper sense for what we were reading, writing and most importantly, teaching. When I arrived to work with her for the first day, I thought a lot, I was always thinking, and still am. Yet that's not all she was looking for. When we wrote, and re-wrote and checked curriculum, we made sure it didn't just sound and read right, we made sure it "felt" right. So that is the whole meat of my POL. That's also something I think made my internship really meaningful, was giving my mentor the ability to share with me what I thought and we could discuss what we were writing. This is important because my mentor doesn't really get a chance to share with someone else the work that she is doing,
Something that I can definitely see clearly now, after going through my internship is that I was able to meet with so many people, who just like me, are living their dream of public speaking and sharing their dreams and making a difference in this planet. Prior to this internship I didn't really know how to do that, and now I know that there are people out there setting the stepping stones down for people like me to follow and become speakers to change the world. Now I know for sure that after high school I have a career I want to pursue, and it's no longer a vision in my head, it is something real and achievable so now I know what I want to do.
Now the real meat of my POL is going to be what this whole internship was based off of, and that was really the ability to be able to feel and really get a deeper sense for what we were reading, writing and most importantly, teaching. When I arrived to work with her for the first day, I thought a lot, I was always thinking, and still am. Yet that's not all she was looking for. When we wrote, and re-wrote and checked curriculum, we made sure it didn't just sound and read right, we made sure it "felt" right. So that is the whole meat of my POL. That's also something I think made my internship really meaningful, was giving my mentor the ability to share with me what I thought and we could discuss what we were writing. This is important because my mentor doesn't really get a chance to share with someone else the work that she is doing,
Something that I can definitely see clearly now, after going through my internship is that I was able to meet with so many people, who just like me, are living their dream of public speaking and sharing their dreams and making a difference in this planet. Prior to this internship I didn't really know how to do that, and now I know that there are people out there setting the stepping stones down for people like me to follow and become speakers to change the world. Now I know for sure that after high school I have a career I want to pursue, and it's no longer a vision in my head, it is something real and achievable so now I know what I want to do.
Internship: Photo Essay & My Project
My internship project actually turned out to be a whole different story. As you might've read, my mentor is very, VERY spontaneous, and it's wonderful. So instead of being able to keep track of a blog, we spent the time going and working on curriculum for a course she gave THIS WEEKEND! (6/11-6/12) Some photos are above, but below are the specific photos of what we worked on. The course was called the "Standing Strong Together" certification training, and is meant to be able to teach those who take the training how specifically to be able to teach what my mentor teaches. So we went over the Blue Ribbon ceremony, and the power of Acknowledgement, above all. Now it's very important to know that every single page in this curriculum was looked over at least 10 times, if not more. We went through these pages to check, double check, triple, quintuple-check that everything was perfect. That the spelling, word choice, grammar and the feel to it was perfect. So it was tedious but important work all the time. The work was based of a Five-Star Foundation, which just labels all of the different sections of the training and what she teaches. So my final product was not only the 47 page curriculum, but also the course, which I was lucky enough to attend, but not finish. Sadly I fell ill the second day, about 1/3 of the way through and had to leave before I not only got sicker, but got anyone else sick as well. So I didn't get to really see the fruits of my labor all the way through, but it was great to be there the first day. I'd love to be able to show the whole curriculum online, but there's a special copyrights page in there for just that. So that's as much as I can show.
Internship: A look into the future
Considering my future. Something that I dream of doing is public speaking, specifically in trying to tell some message or teach a concept. I’ve learned a lot on exactly the type of work that gets put into doing workshops or giving courses, specifically on the behind the scenes work that is done. I’ve learned that it all depends on presenting your idea to someone who can make things happen. A common theme that I’ve noticed is that a lot of where Sparky’s work comes from is from a connection she made in the past or just from someone hearing of her work. So besides trying to find a job in the first place I’ve learned that the writing of curriculum and coming up with sort of a plan is also a huge part. Trying to create this whole image for what you wanna present is incredibly important. So that’s all of the behind the scenes part of what I learned, but I also want to share something deeper.
The reason now that I want to pursue this public speaking career is because everyday, people like you and I look outside and see the terrors that are going on in our world. We see that every day people are being physically and mentally abused. Every person you pass on the street is hurting somewhere, in some way and in their mind they have that pain that they don’t want to share and they don’t want to confront. Children every day are hurt and they are helpless because “who would believe them” “they’re just kids”. Every day people are suffering because throughout the course of their lifetimes they never hear the words “I love you” told to them by anyone.
Kids in school are constantly told that no matter how much they do they never do enough. Tell me, when you were a kid and you told someone your dream what did they say? “You’re crazy” “Be realistic” “I don’t know about that” How did that make you feel? What did that do to your dream? Probably didn't help.
That is what I want to do, I want to pursue my speaking career and being able to encourage and empower people so that I could not only be the difference in their life, but so that they can be the difference in others.
The reason now that I want to pursue this public speaking career is because everyday, people like you and I look outside and see the terrors that are going on in our world. We see that every day people are being physically and mentally abused. Every person you pass on the street is hurting somewhere, in some way and in their mind they have that pain that they don’t want to share and they don’t want to confront. Children every day are hurt and they are helpless because “who would believe them” “they’re just kids”. Every day people are suffering because throughout the course of their lifetimes they never hear the words “I love you” told to them by anyone.
Kids in school are constantly told that no matter how much they do they never do enough. Tell me, when you were a kid and you told someone your dream what did they say? “You’re crazy” “Be realistic” “I don’t know about that” How did that make you feel? What did that do to your dream? Probably didn't help.
That is what I want to do, I want to pursue my speaking career and being able to encourage and empower people so that I could not only be the difference in their life, but so that they can be the difference in others.