Back in my junior & senior years of high school, I attended a summer leadership program, we referred to as just “Camp.” While at Camp, I learned many things.

Here are my top 6 things I learned at Camp:

6. How to Network

If you’re like me, I have trouble meeting like-minded people. I went to a very small high school where everyone, knew everyone. However, going to my first year of Camp, I was the first student from my school to ever attend. So I was going in blind sighted. I had no clue what camp was about and what the purpose was. I just knew that I liked the Winter Annual Conference, and wanted to experience more. I met many different people, by being thrown into the sharks, and I will never regret camp ever.

5. You may be more advantaged, or more disadvantaged than your friends.

My second year of camp, we had an activity called “Flavors.” There were three different flavors the second and third year campers choose from. One was the extremely disadvantaged, the one I was part of, another extremely advantaged, and one in-between. By the end, the extremely advantaged flavor tried to help the other two groups, which the counselors would not allow. Around that time, the counselors realized it was time to end the exercise. We learned that the person standing next to you may not be as advantaged, which is a sad fact of life.

4. Ice Breakers are the best.

If you spent as much time as I have at leadership events, you know that when we do ice breakers better than anyone else. At just about any other event, everyone hated the ice breakers, because they were just standard, old, generic ice breakers. At leadership events, everyone got involved, we totally had fun (no one could deny it). I don’t want to give any secrets away, but my favorite 2 ice breakers were “Little Red Wagon” and I think it was called, “Gone Fishin’.” (It’s been too long since my last leadership event.)

3. Leadership isn’t for everyone.

“Leaders are made through work, not through ordering other people around.”

Leadership is only right for you if (and not limited to):

1: You don’t care if you don’t get rewarded for the work you put in.

2: You can get work done with a team, even if you put the most work in.

3: You can take charge in a situation if needed.

4: You don’t get involved just to miss class, you care about how the school works.

2. You can get the task done, even if you don’t have the right materials.

Many different groups have the funding they need to do what they want to do. Still, many others aren’t as fortunate. If you have parts that can work together, and are willing to put the work in, you can get the job done. I’ve even given a workshop about this called “Pipeline.”

1. Have Fun

The number one rule of leadership is to have fun, if you don’t, you aren’t practicing it correctly. You need a remedial course in leadership if you don’t have this basic skill.