Convocation and The Master Class with Yann Martel

     As a volunteer for Freshman Convocation, I was able to attend the Master Class with Yann Martel immediately preceding the event. Decked out in my volunteer t-shirt, I felt a bit underdressed; I knew from last year that a lot of attendees dressed up for this event and I was worried I might not belong. However, I soon found more volunteers in their shirts, made quick friends, and was a bit more comfortable. Then, as soon as Yann showed up and started answering questions I was so wrapped up in his answers that all of my self-consciousness and slight worriedness dissipated. I hadn’t taken my notebook out of my backpack and knew that if I tried to at that moment the zipper and the shuffling would be too much; I settled for typing notes into my phone (which created a new self-consciousness problem, but more on that later). Thinking back, and reading the notes in my phone, they seem all to create a theme despite all of them stemming from different questions. “Man’s inhumanity to man does not surprise anyone;” “Make a leap of faith and be the better for it;” “Being able to create presence and then to live with it;” “It’s great to have a car, but you need to know why you’re going from A to B.” All of these together seem to speak to the idea of finding a purpose; one needs to first realize and understand the world around oneself, consciously make an effort to achieve something, and ultimately to understand why it matters—why you’re doing it in the first place. This entire theme is one that is found inside of a good leader; and as I realized that, I realized that an exceptional leader must first and foremost be an exceptional person. Being a leader is not something you can do separately from yourself; you cannot perform leadership. You have to be leadership.

     In Mr. Martel’s Convocation address he furthered this idea with a few more choice phrases, “Your future would come no matter what you did, but you made a choice.” However, in essence, in my interpretation, he grew a bit more personal. He spoke more often about art, painting, reading, writing—all of it. He said, “If you’re excessively reasonable, art suffers;” “Art was what gave us an understanding of who we were, why we were here;” “It doesn’t matter where you get your stories….In a sense you know less if you’ve read; it shows you how uncertain life is.” This seemingly separate tangent struck me on a personal level; I am both a writer and a painter so I understood these statements deeply. They resonated. But then again, as I look back I see that even these elements speak to leadership; they speak to an understanding of the world and especially of an understanding of oneself—of myself. And I further realize that every single element of every single day affects and is structured by the elements of leadership. Your understanding and your reaction either advances or undermines your own leadership development. It will happen in any case, but is all determined by your choice.