Dancing Shoes and Corn Dogs

We were so excited to see everyone Friday morning for Brad Montague’s lecture on “Chance”, our November theme! It was our fastest ticket grab yet, with all 100 being claimed in under 20 minutes! If you didn’t get a chance to make it, don’t worry since Little Josh Productions took a great video which you can check out in our video library- along with every other lecture we’ve had! Libraries are the best!

I don’t know about y’all, but Creative Mornings are the perfect time to indulge in a little sweetness, and the doughnuts were almost (ALMOST) too pretty to eat! They were a great complement to the amazing Crema coffee while it lasted.We Nashvillians are not known for shyness when there’s a cup of good coffee on the line.

We had jugglers- did you see the jugglers?? Did you stop by our Wheel of Chance? What did it tell you? Did you see our tee shirts?? Our volunteers really stepped up this month to help us set up, break down, sell tee-shirts, and keep the morning running smoothly. THANK YOU!

Brad was kind enough to take some time out from his (many active projects- which you can learn about here) to answer a few questions especially for CMNSH after his appearance:

CMNSH: What project are you most excited by right now?

BM: We’ve been working over a year now on a book, “Kid President’s Guide To Being Awesome” and it comes out February 3rd. I’m beyond excited with how it turned out. YouTube videos are fun, but you can’t hold them in your hand. The team at HarperCollins let us create the book we wanted to make and its really fun and beautiful. The book features 100 ideas for how you can make the world more awesome every single day. We get to share some stories of incredible kids we’ve met on our adventures, share some behind-the-scenes fun, plus also include conversations with some incredible people - including Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Ndaba Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III. What I’m excited about most with the book is not just that people read it, but that they take action! With the book we won’t be holding traditional ‘book signings’, instead Robby and I will be having a ‘book doing’ tour where we invite people to join us in doing things that make the world more awesome.  

CMNSH: What is your most recent failure? How are you confronting it/ moving forward?

BM: My failures are pretty frequent. I’m pretty quick to admit that though I’m behind the camera -  I’m not a director. I’m a captain. A director knows what he is doing, but a captain follows the wind. Following the wind is fairly risky, but it’s all I know to do. I’m always looking to make certain that we truly are doing work that sets the wind in our sails. It’s always clear when it isn’t.  This project, “Kid President”, started as a small family thing. It was just for fun and we never imagined it would grow or spread or connect in the way it has. This has led to some wonderful things. It has also led to some challenges. We’ve had to learn as we grow to stay true to why we started in the first place. Anytime we take on something that isn’t true to who we are or why we started doing this it just doesn’t work. It lacks the fun. It lacks the love. It lacks the heart. When this happens, we pivot and we course correct and we find the wind again.

CMNSH: What role do you feel you are filling in education?

BM: It came as a surprise to us when schools started using ‘Kid President’ videos in their classrooms. More and more as stories came in from both educators and students, we began to realize that these weren’t just filling time in the school day, but were being used as key moments in the curriculum. This led me to becoming hyper aware of the messages we send out and the responsibility we have to shape conversations that matter. We’ve since worked hand in hand with educators to help make sure we are crafting messages that could be used to benefit students in new ways. 

CMNSH: Have you always been conscious of the power of vulnerability, or when did that become a theme in your life? What advice do you have for staying open? (because its scary!)

BM: I’m often insecure about my abilities, my experience, my appearance, my background, my slight accent, and on and on and on. Thankfully I’m learning that these are not weaknesses, but simply part of who I am. I think it’s something I’m learning on a daily basis. It’s not exactly fun to be vulnerable, but the more I focus on being honest and true to who I am it allows others to do the same. This leads to some great places.

CMNSH: What do kids have that you want adults to rediscover?

BM: We should all stop and listen to a kid. Take a moment to listen to the children around you and also to the child within you. We were all children once. Somehow we forget that and think that we’ve become something greater or something more. There is something really beautiful about the way children see the world and see people and see problems. We’d do well to stop and look at things that way more often. I think we’d live in a more joyful, peaceful world.

What an amazing introduction to our theme for December- EDUCATION! Keep checking back for spotlights on our speakers (hint: they’re from our CMNSH community!) Hope y’all enjoyed the holiday- here’s bit of wisdom to get you back in the swing of things from MacArthur Genius Grant award winner Denise Shekerjian:

“Cut short the floundering and you’ve cut short the possible creative outcomes. Cheat on the chaotic stumbling about, and you’ve robbed yourself of the raw stuff that feeds the imagination.”

Stumble on, dudes!