Interrupt Your Life

Greg Tehven - Co-Founder of STLF

While attending a seminar last week, I met an extraordinary human being that made me think about the importance of interrupting our lives. He didn’t say one thing that was huge or profound, but many collective thoughts that made an insightful impression on me.

This inspirational speaker was Greg Tehven. A 25-year old who leads a national organization of servant leaders. He launched the vision of “changing the world” with three of his friends only 10 days into his college career. These four students founded Students Today Leaders Forever (STLF). They created a community service project on wheels, calling it the Pay It Forward Tour. To date, they have sent out 206 Pay It Forward Tours, with 8,040 participants, logging 100,000 hours of community service throughout the United States. Last September, Time Magazine listed STLF as the #2 way to serve America in its piece on 21 ways to serve America. Greg’s personal mission is simple: To challenge, inspire and encourage young people to live a life of excellence.

Greg and his group exemplify the spirit of service. They inspire and engage middle school, high school and college students in meaningful service and leadership experiences. They promote action through community service, building lasting relationships, and learning about the communities they serve.

Pay It Forward Tour - March 2010

His words resonated with me because I think LEAD is very similar in how we’d like to serve the young professional community and because he is so reflective on his experiences. He thoughtfully shared stories of how so many individuals have inspired him throughout his life. Greg takes the time to reflect on who he is, who he wants to be, and this shows in the way he lives, by living his life with intention.

So many of us are always on the go, we fill our lives with meetings, coffees, happy hours, workouts, TV, dinners, errands. When do we make time to reflect on who we are? Who we want to be? How we want to be remembered? We fill out annual reviews and create development plans for our jobs – when do we do that for our personal lives? I don’t have the perfect plan and don’t have an answer to those questions. After listening to Greg – I will make an effort to interrupt my life and reflect on the experiences I’ve had and think about the individuals that have enriched my life. This will get me a little closer to figuring out who I want to be.

To learn more about Students Today Leaders Forever, go to: www.stlf.net