By Yosef Nemanpour
I have always thought of myself as ambitious—I have big goals and great aspirations. With these goals almost always comes the same internal struggle, the “Of course I can do it” and the “How in the world could I do it”. When I experience the former, I am efficient and productive: emails are sent, progress is made, and I feel extremely accomplished. When I experience the latter part of the dialogue, I am discouraged and demotivated by inner thoughts such as, “Even if I finish, my work won’t actually benefit anyone." In reality, these conversations are happening in my head all the time.
Out first week in Israel, during the orientation the Nachshon Project staff had us write some goals that we have for the semester. My goal was simply to have more confidence in myself as a leader and to believe in the weight of my ideas. I was pretty patient with this goal. I don’t know what I was expecting to learn about myself that would change this thought pattern of mine, but I figured it out on March 18th in the session with Rabbi Jonathan Shulman, just over two months after arriving in Israel.
It was a long day, we started with some basic insights into the essence of leadership, how we are all leaders in our daily lives. By the end of the night, we had camp and campus projects that we were passionate about, that were educational, and that were meaningful for our individual communities. It was incredible progress towards our futures as leaders. The whole process was simplified into what in hindsight can only be described as intuitive. Maybe we already knew these intuitive things in those “Of course I can” moments but forget in the “How could I do it” moments?
This session gave me just what I was looking for. Rabbi Shulman said something along the lines of, "Leaders lead with the help of others." A task shouldn’t be done alone, and it needs and will change many times before it is completed. One of the tasks of leadership is to make as many partners as you can, and really flesh out your ideas through constructive criticism. In retrospect, I think that was part of my issue all along. I have ideas; I believe in my idea;, I have that “Of course I can” mentality; and I just jump straight into action without first fully fleshing out the idea or gathering valuable partners. I am in it alone rather than with a goal driven team. March 18th marks a day when my whole perspective of leadership changed. My internal dialogue now includes, “Of course I can...if I take the proper steps and I make the right team."
