Travels and Training

In the last several weeks I have been doing quite a bit of travel. This week I am in Colorado, last week I was in Virginia, the week before that I was in Hawaii, before that-Arizona, before that-California, and... well you get the idea.

In these travels, I have had the opportunity to train hundreds of young people in practical political activism. But one of the things that is becoming very clear to me is that we do not need more politicians. Rather, what I see is that we need more honorable men and women who are willing to be trained to be effective. Morton Blackwell recently told me and a group of my students that it is a lot easier to take someone with a solid foundation and equip them with political skills, than it is to take a skilled operative and give him a solid foundation.

Although my classes center around fostering political skills, I find that the best moments come when I am given the opportunity to be a part of someone's foundational development. Sometimes a student needs a little more than political advice. Sometimes they need to learn about themselves.

What is awesome about these kind of training opportunities is not just the coolness factor of helping someone wrestle with hard things in his life, it is also the fact that I learn about myself in the process. Helping train others forces me to looking back at things I've done, and evaluate them and then proscribe solutions based on that analysis.

I remember an old Adventures in Odyssey radio show where the lead, Whit, says that one of the best ways to learn, is to teach.

I have found that to be true.