Stephen M. Hannemann

Membership

Author: Stephen

Recently, I attended a Toastmasters Leadership Institute, TLI. Twice yearly, Toastmasters International hosts training sessions for incoming and existing club officers. I joined Toastmasters two and a half years ago to hone my speaking skills. While the organization has helped me accomplish my goal, the purpose of this essay is not to extol the virtues of Toastmasters but the virtues of “membership” – investing in relationships.

Most of us join a group or an organization to derive some benefit such as networking, learning, fellowship etc. and that is normal. However, I find it interesting the term “membership” is of biblical origin, the apostle Paul describes being a “member” as a vital organ of a living body. Now, I understand he described membership in the context of the Church, but the objective I would like to follow are the words “vital organ.” When we join an organization or group, we expect to derive a benefit, but we also bring our personality, abilities and gifts into the body. When we share those attributes, not only does the group flourish, but we flourish as well.

Several things happen when we become involved in membership. I prefer to call it a dynamic. I believe, the first and most important is relationships are formed. The second is we expend positive energy, thereby strengthening others and ourselves in the process. Third, a synergy develops, causing the vitality of the membership to flourish exponentially. The three comprise the dynamic. I realize this is an over simplification, nevertheless it does work. We all receive from others, we all give of ourselves, and we all become stronger.

– Relationship
– Positive energy
– Synergy
= Dynamic

I used Toastmasters as an example. Another example would be a band. One of my favorite groups is Acoustic Alchemy. The “members” of Acoustic Alchemy all contribute to the performance. In their practices, they challenge one another by bringing fresh ideas to the group and then honing them. Each practice they become a little better as individual musicians and as a group by feeding off of one another. It is what gives them their longevity.

The same principle applies to any organization be it a club, church, a team at work or a relationship. When you receive mentoring or invest yourself as a member, everyone wins. Especially you, because there is no greater satisfaction in life than knowing that you either learned or improved in some way, or facilitated improvement in someone else or a membership body. And that is the purpose of this essay. It’s about being better – a little better when you go to bed tonight than you were when you woke this morning.

Live well.

Stephen

© Stephen M. Hannemann – all rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.