User:Jonathancarroll/Leaders of the Day



Leaders of the Day is an educational organization that owns and operates the Institute for Transformative Experience. It is through the Institute that Leaders of the Day facilitate their many experiential, expeditionary and professional development programs. Program focuses centralize around the ideas of Leadership, the development of technical and facilitative skills and the deepening of personal excellence.

Leaders of the Day and the Institute for Transformative Experience were founded by Directors Jonathan Carroll and Tony Cox. Both bring a wealth of experience and 35 years combined professional experience in the Outdoor Industry. They have led, designed and developed programs on 3 continents and both are former Program Innovation & Development Directors of Outward Bound Canada. Program focuses include: the training of Wilderness Instructors and Outdoor Educators; the creation of Leadership Programs for Aboriginal communities; play-therapy programs for refugee communities in the former Yugoslavia; Asset Building programs for at-risk and adjudicated youth.

Program Focuses:
The programs being offered through the Institute have 5 distinct participant audiences: These programs range in length from engaging one day “ignition” sessions to forty day intensive wilderness programs.
 * 1) 	Those wishing to become trained as Outdoor Educators, Wilderness Instructors or Experiential Facilitators.
 * 2) 	Teachers, Principals, Counselors and other Educators seeking impactful Team Building or Professional Development experiences.
 * 3) 	Established Outdoor Professionals who feel like they have reached a plateau in their development and are looking for a powerful facilitated experience to take their skills to the next level.
 * 4) 	Young Adults 19-29 experiencing a transition in their lives and seeking to establish new life directions.
 * 5) 	Youth seeking a powerful Leadership Development program through and expeditionary medium.

The Transformative Experience:
Every root culture of the world somewhere in its origins recognized the tremendous importance of transformative experience and consciously made it an integral part of their traditions. They did this because they understood the incredible power of transformative experience to support the important passages that mark challenging transitions in a person’s life. Many of these traditions still thrive within many cultures of the world today.

Now as then, transformative experience involves creating opportunities for people to engage in activities that are outside the scope of their everyday experiences and strategically presenting challenging but manageable obstacles that need to be overcome. In rising to greet these challenges, in a safe and supportive environment, people often find themselves standing quite outside the previous boundaries of who they perceived themselves to be and glimpse aspects of their own skills and inner resources that they may not previously have acknowledged.

The circle is completed by important opportunities for quiet, self-reflection and mentorship as people seek both to make sense of what has taken place, to integrate their understandings and to transfer the learning to life beyond the experience.

If there is one constant in this world, it is that Life is always changing. Many people in the world today hurry from one transition in their lives to another without truly taking the time to honour “what just was”; to properly grieve, to learn from choices or mistakes; to re-calibrate their dreams, or to really prepare for the next road they intend to  walk before placing their feet upon it. As people begin to explore their own edges and have the courage to push past them, they come face to face with their own capacity for greatness and begin to develop a deeper understanding of the ingredients in their life that uniquely make them feel happy and alive.

"Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift of consciousness that dramatically and irreversibly alters our way of being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding of relations of power as they relate to class, race and gender; our body awarenesses, our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of possibilities for peace and personal joy.” -O’Sullivan

From Learner to Leader:
This central theme is an important focus of all Leaders of the Day programs and signifies the important progression from dependence to collaboration to eventual self-reliance. Leaders of the Day’s expeditionary programs include a number of Peak Transformative Experiences that assist participants in confidently moving through the journey from Learner to Leader.
 * 1) 	Experience being the Leader of the Day – This is a valuable opportunity for learning that invites two students to partner and take the lead. Together they will help to plan, oversee and support an entire day of the expedition, with the background safety net and available guidance of their experienced Instructors.
 * 2) 	Wilderness Solo on expedition– This very transformative experience unfolds towards the end of the program and marks the crossing of a very important threshold from Learner to Leader. It is an opportunity that few people in the world today ever experience. It is a time to experience the beauty and quiet of the natural landscape, to integrate learning and to engage in "personal reflection".
 * 3) 	Leadership Practicum – In the final stages of the expedition, the Instructors will fade more and more into the background as the members of the group develop the capacity to assume greater responsibility and leadership. For up to three days the group will collaboratively plan, manage and negotiate all aspects of the expedition up to its destination.  The Instructors will remain as invisible risk managers and safety nets only.  This is the group’s moment to shine and to take responsibility for much of the day to day decision making.