Ready for Influence

Written by Ranen Chan
Edited by Charis Chen
Photos by Coach Daniel

Greetings! Welcome to Ready for Influence, a training for ICC chapter members in Southeast Asia conducted by Dr. Teresa Moon, founder and CEO of ICC.

Eunice Au, the director of ICC's online academy, began by getting some feedback from the audience for the Influence EXPO, held the night before. 

Dr. Teresa Moon then shared some of her experiences as the founder and CEO of ICC. Some were light-hearted and funny; others touched your heart. One story in particular was especially moving.
Wendell, Dr. Moon's son, once did an interpretation of a story at a youth party. A person in the audience was inspired by his speech and decided that he would like to tell stories like that. His name was Raudy, and he soon became good friends with Wendell. Raudy began calling up businesses, schools, kindergartens, and many other places to see if he could present stories there. He soon became well-known in his community for this, and many people enjoyed listening to him. Tragically, he drowned not long after he had started doing this. 
Raudy's family held a memorial service for him after his death. As more and more people turned up to pay their respects, they realized just how much of an impact Raudy had had on the people around him.

Sometimes we do not realize that we have an influence on others, so it is always important to be ready for influence. We want to have a positive impact on the people we come in contact with, not a bad one.

After that, Dr. Moon talked about how millennials are the best positioned generation to influence the world. She went on to say that global organizations seek 5 things in employees - good communication skills, critical thinking skills, ability to collaborate with others, creativity, and a cultural mindset. She then split the room into 8 groups. Each of the groups was assigned one of the five aforementioned things, and had to come up with a mime to illustrate it in 3 different applications. After the prep time was over, each group had to present their mime to everyone. The audience subsequently had to guess that group's skill. We learned to think on our feet, be creative and work together, all while having lots of fun!

Dr. Moon then had a speech coaching session with Expo Influencers John Hoy and Abigail Shepherd, while Eunice Au conducted a portfolio session on the floor above. 

Next up was lunch!

The coaches and those who weren't student leaders went out to get lunch, while the student leaders had their SL reception over lunch. During the SL reception, several of the student leaders from different chapters shared their experiences being an SL in their chapter. It was really encouraging to hear all the stories from the various student leaders.

After lunch, we adjourned back to the meeting hall, where Dr. Moon elaborated on ICC's mentoring model of wise guides (those older than us), side guides (our peers), and surprise guides (those younger than us). Then we went around and thanked three people who had been a mentor to us.

And that brings Influence Expo 2016 to a close! Hope you enjoyed reading this blog post!