My HOBY Story

This week the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership organization (HOBY) is partaking in a social media blitz to raise awareness for the organization in an effort to recruit more sophomores to attend one of their annual summits.  They asked everyone involved with HOBY to change their profile photos to something HOBY related for the next few days and yesterday they asked people to change there status to indicate the impact HOBY has had in your life and encourage people to ask you about HOBY.  Today they asked us to tell our personal HOBY Story and I thought this would be an appropriate blog for the week.

First let me set the stage.  The year was 1994.  My sophomore year had just ended and summer had just begun.  August and Everything After, Candlebox and Siamese Dream were enjoying a healthy rotation in my tape deck (It would be another year and a half before I graduated to the latest craze – the compact disc).  And I still naively believed that my first high school crush may reciprocate the same feelings.

I lived in rural Arizona so the idea of summer wasn’t really exciting.  We had to drive about 30 miles to do anything remotely entertaining; without a license summers only meant that there was more time to work and do chores.  But I was excited for this summer.  I had been chosen to attend a youth leadership conference in the big city of Phoenix (I made no distinction between Tempe, Mesa, etc. – it was all Phoenix to this country boy).  I would be staying on my own in the dorms of a University like a regular college student.  It was a big deal.

But I was also very nervous too.  See I wasn’t really selected to attend the seminar; I was the alternate (back then only one student could go from each school).  However, the person who was selected from my school had a rodeo thing she had to attend – so I got the nod.  I have struggled with self-esteem issues all of my life and remember being surprised that I was even selected as an alternate.  I was about to go to a leadership conference and be surrounded by students that actually belonged there – I was incredibly intimidated.

The thing is . . . no one knew that.  It took me awhile to figure this out, but the thing I like the most about HOBY is no one knows you from Adam.  If by chance you do have more than one person from your school, you are purposefully placed in different groups and your interaction with each other is limited.  At a time when you are desperately looking for your identity, searching for the person you truly are, HOBY creates an environment free of the preconceptions that are all around you back at home and school. You can explore the person you are truly supposed to be without worrying that it might not be what people think that you should be.

I don't remember many details about that weekend, but I do remember it was a huge eye-opener.  The biggest thing that I remember was the general feeling that I wasn't alone.  On the contrary, I was surrounded by young adults, just like me, who wanted to succeed in life. They wanted to learn how everything works and they weren't happy with a lot of the things that were happening around them.  Not only that, but most of them were so much more active than I was.  They were doing things I never would have dreamed I could have been doing at the time.  All of these positive stories were out there, but I was only hearing about the bad things that were happening in the world.  

The concept of the ripple effect really stuck with me.  One person really can make a difference.  I saw proof of that all around me that weekend.  Everyone has a ripple.  The choice was mine.  What kind of ripple was I going to have? 

But more than that, it was fun!  I wanted to go back.  I wanted to recapture the experience of that weekend.  So I did.  I went back in '95 and '96 as a Staff Assistant.  We worked behind the scenes mainly.  We served the meals, met with the panels, made supply runs; basically a lot of gopher work.  But it was fun work.  And I was reminded how that weekend influenced me as I watched it influence the current ambassadors (this is what HOBY calls the students). 

Then I got busy with ‘life’ and lost touch with HOBY.  I went to college and graduated with excellent grades.  I found a good job making a decent living doing something that I truly enjoyed.  But I had lost touch with a part of me. I truly did change that weekend . . . it was no longer good enough for me to be successful.

To go along with the concept of the ripple effect, one of the things HOBY tries to empress upon you is the idea that a lot of people have paved the way for you to be the success that you are.  Your parents, teachers, friends and other members of your community have invested a lot of time in you to guide you toward becoming the leader you are today.  Therefore, you owe it to the people who have paved the way for you to use that success to make a positive difference you your community (locally and/or globally).

Up to that point in my life, I had failed all of those people.  Yes, I was successful, but I was neglecting a part of me that I had almost forgotten was there.  I had to start giving back again.  I had to start making a positive difference in my community.

When I started thinking about organizations I could join to work toward that goal, I thought, ‘what better organization to volunteer for than the one that solidified my desire to change the world for the better?!’ I looked up HOBY Arizona in 2005 and was fortunate enough to be a facilitator in 2006 . . . and just like that, the passion that had all but faded was rekindled and I was ready to take on the world again!

Since then I have taken on several different roles with HOBY Arizona from recruitment, to programs, to co-chair of one of the summits.  I’ve even branched out to summits in other states and HOBY’s World Leadership Congress.  I think it would be truly Outstanding to be able to say that I have volunteered at a summit in every state. Currently I am on the board; serving the function of alumni relations . . . and it fits me like a glove!  Because I truly believe that tomorrow’s young leaders can, and will, make a difference in the world today and I want to help them every step of the way.

Please feel free to ask me how you can help with HOBY’s mission inspire and develop our global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership, service and innovation.

Until next we meet.