Provoking Your Greatness - Misti Burmeister

Neatly stacked piles of paper with research from Harvard, Wharton, and Stanford sat on the table as we began our discussion about the event we were planning.   “What’s that?” I asked my soul sister and colleague, Mali Phonpadith, excited to talk about how we can pull our resources together and co-produce a retreat for executives seeking breakthroughs in leadership.   With an excited look on her face, she grabbed the first stack and said, “I went through all the top business schools and leadership training programs I could find. I pulled together the best language from each website and printed it to help us with messaging.”   My stomach cringed at the thought of regurgitating the same old language everyone else was using. I wanted to think about what we have to offer as unique and create our own language based on that.   Considering Mali’s level of excitement, I couldn’t just say, “Scrap that. Let’s create our own,” so instead I asked more questions and listened. Her thought process made perfect sense… from th