Team Building

6 Leadership Lessons from Building a Camper

“Belief in what someone can do is more powerful than knowledge of what they can do.”

This is a quote from my friend and colleague Dr. Lee Meadows. I read it and chuckled as I thought about a significant accomplishment on the part of my niece, Carolyn DesJardin.

As a millennial, military spouse, mother of two preschoolers and federal security project manager, she embarked on an ambitious project last summer while in the throes of the pandemic. She decided to build a camper. Never mind that she had zero experience in anything associated with doing this. She needed a COVID-19 safe project to work on and wanted to start camping again, something she and her husband had put on hold after the kids came along. It was also a decision to regain a measure of control over her family’s ability to move about. So, she researched the idea and purchased a 30-year-old pop-up camper, tore it down to the frame and rebuilt it using wood and fiberglass, with a pop top, and outfitted with a queen and bunk beds. She calls it a super tent on wheels. (more…)