Editor's Note: This was Alison Frye's speech to her own Rotary District Conference the weekend following the Rotary District 5580 Conference. Reprinted with permission.
My moment of inspiration tonight is about the Flamingo challenge.
Back in December, the Rotarian magazine cover featured a picture of our President Barry and his wife Esther with a flock of flamingos walking past.
The cover received a lot of love on social media, and people began to attend rotary events wearing flamingo swag and tagging Barry in the pictures. A few weeks ago, a couple of Rotarians, Blaine Johnson and Evan Burrell were in a party store and filled their arms with tacky flamingo items and tagged Barry in the picture.
Barry then replied with this Facebook post issuing the flamingo challenge.
What about if we set out for a #FlamingoChallenge whereby we each have to challenge ourselves to a change. My #FlamingoChallenge is to take up bicycle riding so I can ride in the End Polio Now race. I start July 1
Because what Barry was trying to capture in the challenge is best reflected by that one Flamingo in the picture who is heading the complete opposite direction from the rest of the members in his flock.
Sometimes we need to go in a completely different direction to make life even better. That’s what the flamingo challenge is about.
Rotarians all around the world commented on his post with their own personal goals. Things like exercising more and eating healthy. Some wanted to travel to a new country and others wanted to explore more about their own country.
It’s also no surprise though because Rotarians are People of Action, some of the Flamingo Challenges were Rotary related. Things like finding new projects to participate in, attending an international convention, or stepping up to serve in club or district leadership.
All of these things...great examples of the Flamingo challenge.
So, even though I might not always be the most serious in the room (okay, I rarely am), I want to offer a more serious perspective of this challenge tonight.
Sometimes the change in our lives we really need to make is not in what we are doing but in what we are thinking. The biggest Flamingo Challenge we could take on is really getting rid of the emotions that are useless, unproductive and painful. Things like pride and selfishness and insecurity or jealousy (or maybe I just aired my own laundry list).
Imagine how impactful our organization, our Rotary clubs, would be if there was no more comparison of the leaders before and after us?
If there was no jealousy for other’s success in Rotary, but instead unwavering support?