<span style="font-weight: 400;">The Lead Change Group was founded to bring together those voices who believe in personal growth and leadership. While most of us know each other virtually, we rarely get the opportunity to connect, either virtually or in person. I have been very fortunate in the past twelve months to connect face-to-face with three other Lead Change Group instigators. </span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">S. Chris Edmonds</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A year ago, I made the decision to go to Denver, CO to meet </span><a href="http://leadchangegroup.com/instigators/chris-edmonds/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">S. Chris Edmonds</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. I had read Chris’s book, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Engine-Framework-Inspiring-Transforming-ebook/dp/B00MG2KN3O/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Culture Engine</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and we had spoken about it via email and on the phone, yet I wanted more. We met for lunch with the “Denver Tweeps," a group of active social media leaders who meet once a month in the Denver area. That was a chance to strengthen my relationship with Chris, while forging new relationships with other thought leaders.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">David Dye</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">On that same trip to Denver, I was lucky to squeeze in a lunch with </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="http://leadchangegroup.com/instigators/david-dye/">David Dye</a>,</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> who returned to Denver the day before I had to leave. While in person connections require more logistics, the richness of the conversation more than compensates for the extra planning. David and I dove deep and shared about our life experiences. There is only so much you can do with a 500-750 word blog post. A 90-minute lunch let David and I know each other at much more personal level. Such concentrated time together in person allowed us to connect more intensively, allowing our relationship to move forward from a place of deep grounding.</span>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Karin Hurt</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">After knowing </span><a href="http://leadchangegroup.com/instigators/karin-hurt/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Karin Hurt</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> online for a few years, we got to meet for the first time when David Dye and she were presenting at the National Speakers Association Influence 2016 conference in Phoenix. I attended their talk on the ups and downs of co-writing a book together, showcasing the result, their new book </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="http://winningwellbook.com/" target="_blank">Winning Well</a>.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">We got to spend time together, but where I connected most was with Karin’s son Seb. He was attending NSA where they had a magician stream for the youth attendees. Seb tried several of his newly learned magic tricks on me. Even when they didn’t work, he never lost his cool and kept going—a lesson every speaker needs to learn and keep learning. What connected me to Karin was our deep commitment to our children.</span>

[caption id="attachment_31988" align="aligncenter" width="300"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-31988" src="http://leadchangegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/David-Greer-David-Dye-Karin-Hurt-300x225.jpg" alt="Meeting Karin Hurt and David Dye." width="300" height="225" /> Meeting Karin Hurt and David Dye.[/caption]
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Connecting Your Dots</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Face-to-face conversations help us realize where we have amazing alignment of our values. While our message, audience, and styles of creating change in the world may be different, when our values are aligned we know that we are all pulling together in the same direction.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Our writing for the Lead Change Group is meant to inspire and connect those of us who believe our future is one of change led by personal leadership in every walk of life and organization. You can connect via the writing in our blog posts or by reaching out to any one of us to have a conversation about leadership. Best of all is when we find ways to spend time together face-to-face so that we can have the critical conversations that let each of us create the change we are bringing to the world.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Who can you connect with today to magnify the dots of your journey?</span>

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