Liz Allen - Cub to King

 

All right. Well, before I used to have to dress like this, I led trips in the backcountry and the outdoors. And my summer in between my junior and senior year of college, like rewind ten years ago, I was a lot younger looking, a lot stronger looking [chuckles]. [audience chuckles] I led two-week backpacking trips in Jackson Hole and this is for middle school students, which was great. I got paid $0, essentially, to take middle school 12-year-olds out into the woods and teach them leadership skills. And so, the first part of the week we would spend teaching them how to lead a group, kind of different styles like dictator or delegator or consensus, [whispers] which never works [audience chuckles] with the 12-year-olds.

 

And so one particular trip we got a whole bunch of kids in, and one of the kids' names was Seth. And on every trip you have a Seth. And this kid is a kid [laughs] who got sent by his parents, who has no idea what he's doing. He tries to get his Game Boy into his backpack and take it with him, [audience chuckles] who thinks maybe there's going to be an outlet somewhere. And he spends the entire time where I'm like, "Seth, you can't bring your jeans," just flirting with the girl next to him. Seth, true to form, brought his jeans, his towel, and his stuffed animal on this two-week trip with him. So, the first day we're headed out into the backcountry and Seth is in the very back of the line of kids headed up this mountain into the Tetons and he's bawling because he doesn't know what he's doing and he is in pain.

 

And there's some sort of weird gender dynamic where the girls feel like they must be strong and they cannot cry even if their heels are bleeding and their shoulders are rubbed raw. And then there's kids like Seth who just cry the entire eight-hour day. [audience laughter] And so he did, and at one point [laughs] took off his backpack and got out his stuffed animal. And I was like, "How did you get this on course?" And he was like, "Simba doesn't want to hike anymore." [audience laughter] Okay, I was like, "I hate Simba." And Simba stayed with us for the next five days. Well, the entire time. The entire 14 days. And Simba spoke for Seth for the five days. And it was like, "Simba doesn't want to do dishes." I was like, "Everybody does dishes, including Simba." Simba and Seth did very little in the entire course. He would not set up his tent. Seth would not participate in creating breakfast and he was just a drain on everybody's society. [audience chuckles] And so when the time came at the end, we had taught them all the leadership skills. And it's time to turn the course over to the kids and they all get to be leader of the day for a day.

 

And for Seth's day, he decided his only leadership style would be delegation. [audience laughter] He's 12, he’s 12. So, he delegates everything. He delegates wake up, he delegates breakfast, he delegates dishes, he delegates break, he delegates everything. But by the end of the day, that's really grating on the kids who have spent seven days with him where he's done nothing. And so, they're really frustrated. Honestly, very frustrated. And when he delegates his dinner dishes to some other student, the kid's like, "Seth, you and Simba never do anything." And I'm like, [whispers] “It's the come to Jesus’ moment.”

 

So we sit in a circle and we have a fire and the kids really kind of take it out on Seth and they're like don’t want to get, but they’re giving him a lot of constructive feedback [audience laughter] on what he's not doing and how hard it is on the group to pick up after him. How, if he gets out a snack, he doesn't put it away and how he doesn't do any dishes and how he doesn't help with the tent and all this stuff. By the end of three hours, he finally is taking it seriously and he starts to cry and he's like, "I'm sorry," [audience laughter] in that voice. And I'm like, "Wow, I think we kind of made some progress." So, we go to bed and we're camped in this little ravine. And I'm like, "Yes, that's what course is for. That's how leaders are made. This is why parents send their kids on these courses. So, they get this truth tells."

 

And in the morning at 6:00 AM, I awake to screaming. And I'm the instructor. So, I rip open my tent and I look out. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I'm in a lot of adrenaline. And I look out and I see our bear bags, which we had hung in a tree, had already been taken down and all. There's food everywhere and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I realize breakfast is out, but usually as the instructor, I wake up first and make myself coffee before 12-year-olds. But my coffee is made and breakfast is out, but I'm still hearing this kind of screaming. And so, I'm looking around and I realize all the other tents, kids are starting to pop their heads out. Everyone's trying to figure out what's going on.

 

And [laughs] so for real, we're down here. And 150 feet above my tent, there is a cliff. On the top of the cliff, the sun is coming down the cliff, but right where we are, it's still shady. And there is Seth on the top of this cliff and the sun is starting to crest over his face. [audience reaction] And he has got Simba and he's holding it out. [audience laughter] It's no joke. He's going, " Nants' ingonyama, bakithi" [laughs] Over and over and over again. [audience laughter] I'm crying, I'm laughing so hard. And I realized he had actually literally gotten up an hour early. He had taken down the food, he had made breakfast, he had made me my coffee. And then he had decided to wake up everyone [audience laughter] with a song for the new day. Thank you.