Bill Durkin, Founder of One Positive Place, is an inspirational speaker, author, and coach. For over 30 years, Bill has been teaching leaders how to help their teams thrive and families flourish. His unique and positive approach has produced results for over 40,000 leaders throughout the United States, Canada, England, South America, Spain and Africa. Bill has been president of two non-profit boards and Chairman of the Corporate Network for the Association of Corporate Growth in Chicago. He also served 4 years as an alderman in Darien, Illinois. Bill attended Loyola University on a basketball scholarship and graduated with a degree in marketing. He lives with his wife and two boys in Darien, Illinois. His Rotary talk will focus on Resolving Conflict The Positive Way. It’s based on his new book coming out in 2017. Regardless of whether you’re involved with business battles or family feuds, your life as a leader is filled with conflict. It’s not a question of if but rather when you’ll have to deal with your next disagreement. The only uncertainty regarding conflicts is whether your relationships and results tend to get stronger or weaker after you collide with a co-worker, client, family member, or friend. The quality of our relationships and results will not get better by eliminating conflict from our lives…improving how we handle them will.
There were 30 members present. Penny Fields was a guest Rotarian from Highland Park and Jessica Rutstein was the representative from the WYO. Patti reminded members of the ABC’s of Rotary scheduled for January 23, and that she was pleased that so many from our Club will be attending. She also reminded everyone of the Kids Against Hunger event on March 11.
The speaker, Jon Grand from the Book Stall, was introduced by David Birkenstein. He summarized the book “Strangers In Their Own Land: A Journey To The Heart of Our Political Divide” written by Arlie Russell Hochschild before the recent election cycle. The book is available at the Book Stall and the January 18th meeting notice contained a nice synopsis of it. Basically, the author spent 5 years in the St. Charles area of Louisiana trying to discover why the poor, white people there tend to be “right wing”, when they could benefit greatly from the various government programs available to them. Their life expectancy is as much as 5 years shorter than Northern states, they have serious environmental problems and their poverty level is far lower than the U.S. average. Hochschild found that many of these deprived people don’t like big government, they think government is corrupt, and they appreciate the jobs provided by the local companies, although they may be the cause of some of their problems. The author concluded that the political divide is far greater among these people and their counterparts on the “left” than ever before. In 1960, only 5% of them would be critical of their children marrying someone from the other political party—now that percentage is 30-40%. She found that some of these “right wing” views are caused by the higher level of their religious beliefs; that as poor, white folks, they have been left behind and that minorities have “stepped in line in front of them”; and that government money doesn’t reach the people who need it. The speaker’s final comment was that there should be more dialogue between the “right” and the “left” and that they should “walk that mile” in the other person’s shoes.
Please find a substitute if you are unable to fulfill your assignment; Just call or e-mail a fellow member and ask him/her to sub. Tom Evans - tom.evans527@gmail.com- who chairs the service committee, will confirm assignments. Sgt. at arms helps set up and store our stuff, please come 15 minutes early and be prepared to stay a few minutes after the meeting; Greeter greets and announces names of visiting Rotarians and guests; Thought of the Day can be spontaneous or read from a script; Dig 'n Grin can make us laugh or think seriously.
My name is Adi Barad. I am a licensed acupuncturist. I have been practicing for the past 16 years. I studied abroad in Tel Aviv, Israel. After graduating, I was in charge of coordinating the Integrative Medicine Unit in Tel Aviv's leading hospital. During this time, I was teaching "The Fundamentals of Acupuncture and Holistic Medicine" in Tel Aviv's largest holistic medicine college. Nine years ago, I moved back to the Chicago area and opened my clinic" All Nature's Way" in Winnetka. Since then, I have been servicing the local community promoting health and well-being.
Chief Kreis will discuss a number of topics in the context of the national scrutiny of police work. He will also touch on the matter of illegal use of guns from a police perspective.
Tim Padgett has delivered dynamic, engaging presentations on marketing to organizations including the Society for Marketing Professional Services and the Culture Leadership Summit. He is the Founder and CEO of Pepper Group, a Chicago B2B marketing agency that is an Inc. 5000 company, one of the 2015 Best Places to Work in Illinois, a four-time Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies To Work For® winner and a BtoB magazine Top Agency. Tim also co-founded Teer1, a mobile-first platform for employee volunteering, is a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, and is the host of PepTalk on AdvisorTV.
Dr. Doug Stuart is a consultant, coach, and speaker on the rising human spirit amidst the challenges of the 21st century. With a PhD from IIT in linguistics and post-graduate studies in transpersonal psychology, Doug has 20+ years teaching at the post-secondary level in 6 countries on 6 continents, 20 years developing corporate intercultural competence, and 30 years’ personal study of human vertical development – the evolution of consciousness from secular and spiritual perspectives. A practitioner of meditation and hatha yoga, Doug is also a writer and performer of songs of the rising human spirit.