Answer the questions and respond on three classmates posts
Watch National Geographic’s Dewitt Jones’s TED Talk “Celebrate What’s Right with the Word” on vision and imagining the possibilities. And respond to the following questions below. Use information from Chapters 3 and 4 in your responses.
1) What is this leader’s vision for the future?
2) How did Jones image the possibilities and express his passion?
3) Give some examples of how Jones found common purpose and appealed to common ideals.
4) What is one idea you can take from this example to be a better leader?
Classmate 1
Jones’ vision for the future is curated from The National Geographic’s mission statement and how Jones sees his own vision. Celebrate what’s right with the world instead of wallowing in the wrong of it. He is choosing to embrace the universe and the possibility within it over scarcity and fear of the world. Jones describes that it did not matter if he was looking at something dry or desilit or devoid of possibilities, but if he could celebrate the best in it that he could find a perspective to transform the ordinary to extraordinary. Jones also learned that nature taught him that there is more than one right answer. He gave an example on how he photographed the lilies in California and got three right answers from three different angles from the same lily field. Jones discussed how he went to British Columbia to take pictures of a dandelion field and mountain scenery. Jones did not feel like engaging that day, and made a decision to come back the next day to take pictures. Jones said we all know what happens when you do not engage in each day, it will turn into the next day and then the next week. When Jones came back to the same scenery for pictures all the dandelions were gone and he was regretful; however, Jones asked himself what was there to celebrate, what was right in the situation, and to do the pictures. He ended up creating the most beautiful shots of ‘puffballs’ and appreciating what he found in the day and in the moment. Everyday we get to choose what lens we get to see the world in and it is our choice. Change your lens and change your life. Jones describes how everyday the media bombards us with all that is wrong with the world, but we should look at what is right in the world and what gives light. I want to take this example to be a better leader, because as a leader it is easy to tell your team about how marks were not met or standards have dropped or competition is high, but I want to be the leader that recognizes a team’s success and the positives, and we all figure out ways to meet our goals and appreciate the work we put into something.
Classmate 2
1) What is this leader’s vision for the future?
His vision for the future is to celebrate what is right with the world rather than what is wrong with the world. He mentions your vision controls your perceptions, which becomes our reality.
2) How did Jones image the possibilities and express his passion?
He looks for the good in everything, and he embraces possibilities. He chooses to look at things through a positive lens. He mentions that he looks for ways to transform ordinary things to extraordinary.
3) Give some examples of how Jones found common purpose and appealed to common ideals.
He figured out that there is more than one answer for things. He puts on a lens of celebration, and he mentions he feels like a cup that is going to overflow. He always finds something to celebrate. He looks at situations of what is right rather than dwelling on what is wrong.
4) What is one idea you can take from this example to be a better leader?
We become passionate about things when we look at the positive side. When we realize what is right with a situation, it can increase our passion. We can focus on the light rather than the dark, focus on what is right rather than what is wrong, focus on the positive rather than the negative. When we do this, we can set a better example and become a better leader.
Classmate 3
1) Dewitt Jones has a unique vision for the future. It seems to me that he would like us to see the beauty in everything and have a child-like perspective and “express our passion”. He says we must, “Let that beauty fill us up.” When we “change our lens”, it allows us to get a new perspective on things and see things we may have missed before.
2) He expressed his passion through photography and imagined the possibilities of the different photos he could take by changing the perspective in which he looked at the world around him. He is very passionate about his photos and he mostly took pictures of natural features and scenery. He would take them at different times and different angles so that he could get what he deemed as his best shot. He photographed for National Geographic for a long time and perfected his art all over the world. In the speech specifically, he expressed his passion through story telling. He had a lot of different stories to tell and they added to keeping the audience engaged because he was very passionate about these stories. Most of them would get the audience thinking because he was also passionate at his work.
3) He would find common purpose by explaining something that the audience would understand and relate to. For example, he explained how he found his passion and said something along the lines of, “wouldn’t everyone want to be passionate every day?” By telling a story and making people laugh they were able to relate to his stories. He also says everyone “hungers for the lens of celebration.” And that the media always focuses on the negative and we need to focus on the positive. People would relate to this because people love to be celebrated and they understand that looking at the good instead of the bad, is way more exciting and gives people more purpose and passion.
4) The biggest example I took from Dewitt Jones was that it is important to see the world from a celebratory lens and it is good to always be willing to look from another perspective. We can always learn from others and our friends, family, and strangers can provide a different perspective on a lot of things. If we only look at the world through our own lens then we will crumble. There are so many beautiful things in this world and we have a tendency to look at the negative, but as a leader, it will benefit everyone to look towards the positive and always have a positive mindset. Even when things are terrible, there is always a way to look at it in a positive light or “lens.”
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