The story of Sarah

Story Circle

Story Circle, developed by Leadership Village founder Sangeeth Varghese, is the way we share leadership inspirational stories which we gather from the books of our leadership library. Here we not only share stories, but assimilate leadership lessons which can be replicated in personal life. We also discuss the challenges faced by the writer of the book, or by the people mentioned in the book. Then we relate the challenges to our personal lives, and look back to see whether we have also faced and surmounted such challenges.

Champions!! Welcome to the first Story Circle episode from Leadership Village J Summer Season 2012.

Tina Schwager and Michele Schuerger teamed up to produce a wonderful, inspirational book, which they aptly titled “Cool Women, Hot Jobs”. We strongly recommend this book, as it tells a lot of real life stories of adventurous women who chose to live a life less trodden by women. We found this ideal for our Story circle session to begin with, as each segment of the book comes with certain individuals’ crucial real life defining moments which made them the best in their respective fields. The book is filled with challenges, the thrill of adrenalin rushes and proves us the fallacy of running away from our fear.

As Robyn Reed, one of Champions featured in the book says, “Never give up on what you know is possible.” As an Outward Bound (an organization dedicated to wilderness education) instructor Robyn works outdoors and guide people (adults and teens) on adventure expeditions. Robyn proudly states, how instantly gratifying it was to see people change as they face their fears and do things they never though were possible. Robyn faced many personal ordeals, both physical and emotional, during her college and sorority (house where girls stay together) days. We shall come back to Robyn`s story another day.

As an Outward Bound instructor Robyn has the responsibility to care for the physical and emotional well-being of participants as they hang from the side of a rock cliff or navigate their way through an expedition. In our Story Circle session at Leadership Village, we shared a real life story from Robyn`s account of her exciting life as an instructor.

Robyn narrates the story of a girl she met during a training session, Sarah. A quiet, timid 14-year-old girl, Sarah didn’t say anything for the first 13 days of her Outward Bound experience. On day 20 of their 23^-journey, Robyn pointed her finger to the South Sister (part of the mountain range Three Sisters of Central Oregon), as their target for the next day. 

The group woke up at 4 A.M to start their long hike to the peak. As the sunrise came up Robyn realized that something was wrong with Sarah. She was limping and using a wooden stick to help her walk. To the anxious query, Sarah replied she had blisters on her feet and requested to continue the hike. Seven hours later the team reached top of the South Sister with screams of jubilation. Except Sarah, she quietly cried and whispered,” This is the greatest moment of my life.”

Arriving camp at 18 hours later Sarah said, “ I think I may have broken my foot.” Last night Sarah went to get water and had fallen down. She heard something crack. Robyn asked Sarah why she didn’t tell earlier and this was Sarah`s reply: “My entire life , every person has told me all the things I can`t do. My brothers and father bet that I wouldn`t finish this course because I am a girl, I had to do this for myself….I had to climb that mountain.” Sarah was immediately evacuated to a nearby hospital. She had broken her foot in two places, but she came back to the final celebration with crutches and an enormous smile.

I am sure the first Story Circle of this season would come up with a lot of insightful shades of wisdom from the children. Each Story Circle will be supplemented later with the observations made by the champions and reader of the book made plus a final evaluation.