Inspire! What great teachers do.(Dear Reader)

Recently, I was invited to attend a Forum on Leadership and Management hosted by the American Society of the Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership. The two-day workshop featured four sessions led by renowned speaker on "thought leaders" as they were called. The ideas of the first speaker, Lance Secretan, were particularly meaningful to me, especially as ideas were fermenting inside me for this first "Dear Reader" of the new teaching and MTNA membership year.

Secretan, one of the world's foremost thinkers and teachers of effective leadership, spoke on "inspiration." We all yearn, he said, to be inspired. But more than that, the human spirit yearns to inspire. This duality--to inspire and to be inspired--is the cote of leadership and of life itself. Inspiration, according to Secretan, is the "oxygen of the soul." Without inspiration, our lives are passionless and, ultimately, are unfulfilled.

Certainly Secretan's ideas are relevant to MTNA. People join associations because the organization "inspires" them. Conversely, they stop being members because the association no longer provides inspiration. As we begin this new membership year in MTNA, I promise you that MTNA will not just maintain its commitment to providing inspiration for you and your needs ...