At SIYLI, we have set out with the vision of a world in which all people feel connected and act with compassion. We believe that only by acting as part of a global community will we be able to bring this audacious vision into being. To reach this goal, we work with incredible humans and organizations, including Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership (ITL).
With their goal of “supporting the leadership required in today’s world to create a more sustainable and compassionate future,” Georgetown’s ITL has partnered with SIYLI to bring the Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program to the Washington, DC area since 2013.
This partnership supports the missions of both organizations and creates the opportunity for hundreds of people from both the local community and around the world to attend a high-quality, transformational program. ITL hosts SIY on campus as an open-enrollment program and it’s also available for university staff and faculty.
Tara Aldridge, Assistant Director at ITL, shared with SIYLI her insights on why her organization chooses to host Search Inside Yourself every year and how she has seen it impact participants.
How does hosting the Search Inside Yourself program support ITL’s work?
ITL’s mission is to develop and sustain worldwide communities of leaders dedicated to awakening, engaging, and supporting the leadership required in today’s world to create a more sustainable and compassionate future. We emphasize ways to recognize your own biases and shift your mindset from judgment to transformational leadership principles that embrace compassion, curiosity, openness, and connection.
I know so many people who know some things when we talk about mindfulness and emotional intelligence, but through the program they can learn more, fill in gaps, and then share their experience with others.
What’s been the most rewarding part of hosting SIY?
I’ve been at ITL since 2016 and have seen several different groups go through the program. What I find rewarding is seeing how people really are using what is being taught to make a change not just for their teams or where they work, but for themselves. People walk away from the workshop feeling like they have a clear next step and that they learned something new that has helped them connect the dots in a new way in relationship to understanding themselves and their team and how they work together.
We have participants from all walks of life and when we speak to them they share about how they take what they learn at SIY and bring it back to their organization and say let’s try this.
There are many workshops where participants listen and take notes, but there is a difference between getting data and gaining understanding. SIY gives understanding that gives participants the power to move forward in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise. It helps people learn how to pause and absorb.
In addition, working with SIYLI is a natural fit. The partnership gels together so well because there are some of the components of SIY that we teach in our other programs, but SIY goes so much deeper and allows not only participants to learn, but our team to learn too.
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Working in collaboration, SIYLI and its partners are able to create powerful experiences for participants around the globe. In addition to universities, typical SIYLI partners include shared workspaces, nonprofit organizations, training companies and companies across industries. Is your organization potentially interested in partnering with SIYLI to host an open enrollment program? Learn more about how we work with partners.