The purpose of the event is for the empowerment of all women and the celebration of their accomplishments in ways that inspire others to live their dreams. The event is geared for entrepreneurial businesswomen, corporate executives, educators, trainers, homemakers, trainers, students and community-minded women.

Dr. Joel Martin, president of Triad West, Inc. will be the keynote presenter and workshop facilitator. She has worked with hundreds of thousands of individuals in Fortune 500 companies, non-profit and entrepreneurial organizations across many industries in the U.S. She has also worked internationally in South Africa, France, the UK, Latvia, Finland, Malaysia, Russia and China.

A powerful speaker, she uses behavioral science business applications and experiential education to inspire those who attend her workshops. She is the author of the book How to Be a Positively Powerful Person. She has been featured on the Today Show and in the NY Times, Essence, U.S. News and World Report, Black Enterprise, Working Women and Fortune magazine. She appears in the transformational film The Answer. She has earned a Masters degree in Psychology, a PhD. In Communications and is a Wharton Business School Fellow.

The May 16 program begins at 5:30 with a dinner sponsored by eWomen Network and presentation of the Positively Powerful Awards. At 9 am a continental breakfast with networking opportunities will kickoff the May 17 schedule which concludes at 6 pm. The program is highly interactive, fun and participatory.

Event sponsors include eWomen Network, Southwest Gas Corporation, Anheuser Busch Budweiser, APS, and Dial Corporation – A Henkel Company. When asked why he was sponsoring the inaugural event, Garry Walters, Administrator/Community & Consumer Affairs, Southwest Gas Corporation said,

Joel is an award winning diversity supplier, who is a member of the Southwest Gas Supplier Diversity network. Sponsoring this “Positively Powerful Women Celebrate! Retreat” is the right thing to do. We are recognizing our relationship with Triad West Inc. and the return on investment this provides Southwest Gas. We have a jewel in Joel Martin. Her expertise and resources need to be utilized for this and the greater good.”

Cybel Martin, award winning cinematographer and lecturer, will be filming the 2-day event for educational purposes.

For information, registration and scholarships contact www.triadwest.com or call 480-563-5585. The cost for the 2-day event is $250 before May 1 and $290 after. The cost includes the Friday evening dinner, and Saturday breakfast, lunch and reception featuring the sampling of new Budweiser Light With Lime.

Celebrating his 89th Birthday with 89 Paintings.

Dr. Grigsby has organized exhibitions of African art for the Heard Museum, authored a text, Art and Ethics: Background for Teaching in a Pluralistic Society, and founded the Consortium of Black Organizations and Others for the Arts (COBA).

He holds degrees, including a Ph.D., in art, art history and art education from Morehouse College, Ohio State University and New York University. He came to Phoenix following World War II to teach art at Carver High School, and in 1954 he moved to Phoenix Union High School. He joined the faculty at Arizona State University in 1966 where he retired in 1988. Grigsby also served as a Trustee of Phoenix Art Museum.

You’ve got to establish a context for behaving well.

1. Be mindful of your language. Misbehaving is different from being rude.
2. Honor everyone as responsible and committed to learning.
3. Ask yourself what they “really” are saying by being rude. What’s the message they are sending. Ask yourself, “Am I listening to them, encouraging their point of view, or is this some residual effect of a previous unsatisfactory learning experience.”
4. Make upfront “behavior requests” a “code of honor” or “ground rules” whichever term you prefer. Here are some examples: Be responsible for your own learning. Be on time. Respect everyone. Confidentiality. Adopt a learning attitude.
5. Get agreement and buy in before starting! “Raise your hand if you will honor my requests.”
6. Don’t assume you have it without some outward sign from all of your participants that they have given it to you. Make eye contact as you see their response. If they don’t respond, ask why. Without this, in the future, the disrupter could say, “Well I didn’t give you my word…I didn’t say I would.”
7. Coach/facilitate/lecture from a place of giving and demanding respect. The rest of the people who are paying attention and contributing will resent your not taking charge of the “space”. Why should they suffer?
8. Use positive reinforcement for what you do want…“Thank you, great question.” that kind of thing.
9. Don’t get triggered. Manage your emotions.
10. What is also useful is to have someone they report to lead off the event and if they can, stay in the room to participate or observe.
11. Then if worst comes to worst, invite this person to attend another event…ask them to leave.
12. If appropriate, evaluations with space for comments also are good. When people know that you mean what you say and there are consequences for rudeness they will make different kinds of choices.Getting feedback is always a gift.

That vision has stayed with me throughout my career and education. I went back to school to get a Masters and PhD so that I could learn how to make this possible, to learn how the brain works, what makes experiential education so effective, and how people manifest their dreams. I have a chapter in my book, HOW TO BE A POSITIVELY POWERFUL PERSON, on how to make dreams come true.

I can’t say that I all of the answers but I am having a heck of a good time discovering more strategies… That’s my mission, to make more dreams come true.

I’m working with a trainer intern and here are some of the competencies I looked for in him as he prepared to lead his first solo training. Maybe they’ll be useful to you too where ever you are in your career:

• Dedicated and committed – “You’ve gotta wanna!”
• Transparency and vulnerability (Google Carl Rodgers) vs. hidden agenda
• Coachability vs. I know it all already, arrogant, unwilling to accept coaching from others
• Competent
• Platform skills
• A-Vs, chart-writing skills
• A contribution: Able to give and to receive. A giver vs.taker
• Personally responsible for it all vs. blaming, victimy, whiny, etc.
• Low vs. high maintenance
• Determined to have the people around him/her win; participants, client organization, community
• Living a full life that is working now vs. being a trainer to fix oneself
• Loves people.
• A promoter and marketer
• A constant learner
• Able to ‘think on her/his feet and improvise
• Flexible
• Think the best of others

Feel free to add your thoughts…

Peace, abundance, and joy

In my speech, I asked them, “How would your life be if you hadn’t gone to college?” I praised today’s poets. I included quotes that inspire me. I shared how many $ millions people of color are donating to education (contrary to what is seen on the 5 O’Clock News). I gave props to generational differences.

But what I believe touched them the most was passionately asking them to …

“IMAGINE a standing in front of you is a future Nobel laureate, they are saying to you: “Please find me! And assist me in going to college, even if I don’t know that I need to be there. I have a dream worth living and I can’t see how I can get there without you. Please find me.” Or there is a young artist, “Please find me. Be my mentor, show me how, I’m willing to learn. I’m smart. You should see what I can do with a video game. Please find me.” Or another, “I don’t know if I will live to see 20. Please find me and show me how I can be the next genius Rapper, Inc. without losing my soul or my life. Please find me…before it is too late.”

It is not a burden it is a gift and a get to. We give to get…a better world. To give someone a fresh start. To leave a legacy. Giving to get and getting to give is one of the attributes of leadership. The word education is based on the Latin word educo = I lead out.