Christopher Avery here. With pleasure I welcome Jessica Soroky as a guest blogger. Jessica impresses with commitment and wisdom beyond her years. Enjoy.

It was late 2012 when the executive group I work with took a day to attend a workshop, “Leading and Coaching People to Take Responsibility and Demonstrate Ownership” with Christopher Avery.

I didn’t think much of it at the time; it just meant a quiet day in the office. Their return on Monday proved to be something I never expected: their attitudes and language had changed literally over night, and they were using different words like “intention” and “justify.”

Almost instantly they decided that the rest of the staff needed to hear about The Responsibility Process™.

Our business agility coach and The Leadership Gift™ Program Recognized Coach Scotty Bevill, began conducting one- to two-hour sessions teaching the process to our entire IT staff.

It took off like wildfire through our office, mini The Responsibility Process posters were printed and made into badges to wear side by side with our employee ID.

Massive, wall-sized posters were also printed and hung all over the office. Agreements began to form between individuals and teams to hold each other to account and to point out what mental state they were in.

This new way of approaching work became a part of everyday conversation, and it was through these presentations and interactions I had my first epiphany:

This gift lived in me as well; I could unleash it.

Months went by before I had the opportunity myself to attend Christopher’s workshop, and I began noticing a pattern in myself: when The Responsibility Process poster was evident on the walls and used in everyday conversation, it was much easier to stay aware of where I was in the ladder. But as soon as it wasn’t in my face all the time, I had a tendency to go back to my old ways.

I contemplated this problem of staying emerged when I finally sat in Christopher’s workshop and listened to him speak about intention. Yes, it was my full intention to stay fully immersed in The Leadership Gift and The Responsibility Process even when there was no one there to keep it in my face, but how could I do that?

I began to surf Christopher’s website and ran across his extensive blog — this blog, something I had seen and read in the past, but this time was different.

I realized I could access this blog at any time, from anywhere. So what if I read one of his blogs every Monday and applied the concepts and ideas in it for the next week to my professional and personal life?

However, my intention was to apply Christopher’s teachings for longer than a week — I wanted to make a life change.

So I decided on a one-year project with one-week sprints.

Today’s post is my first in a series of blog posts that will run every Wednesday to document my journey of applying The Leadership Gift for the next 365 days. Join me by following along (subscribe in the blog’s sidebar or by using the RSS feed below) and commenting on the posts.

Jessica Soroky, CSM
Only 21 years old, Jessica is already a Certified Scrum Master with two years of practice in agile delivery and team leadership. She is also the youngest participant in the The Leadership Gift™  and its growing worldwide community of leaders and coaches.  After five years of non-profit development through Nellie’s Catwalk for Kids, Jessica continues her leadership journey in state government, not-for-profit, and private sector leadership studies.