"Leadercast: Powered by Purpose" was hosted by the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership on May 5 for area business professionals. The 2017 leadership conference was broadcast live from Atlanta to host sites nationwide, including this one at the Tamaqua Community Art Center.

Maureen Donovan, assistant director of the Center for Leadership and Workforce Development at Lehigh Carbon Community College, said the conference gave those in business an opportunity to hear world-renowned authors speaks on leadership and purpose.Micah Gursky, director of development at St. Luke's Miners Campus, said he hoped the conference would help business professionals to see their role not only at work, but also as leaders volunteering in the community."In small communities, leadership is so critical," he said.Finding meaningJess Ekstrom, 25, the CEO of Headbands of Hope, spoke from Atlanta about people who have found purpose in their work and life.She said as a photography intern at Disney World, she knew two young women who were also interns. They were doing custodial work.One would come home and complain about the nasty things she had to clean up each day. The other would come home thankful for being able to work outside and meet people from all over the world. They had the exact same job, but one found meaning in it."All work can be meaningful. It's just about finding what's meaningful to you," she said.Ekstrom also talked about her sister, who challenged her to run a 1-mile race with her, then a 5-mile race, then 10, a half-marathon, a marathon and then 50 miles. She said she stopped at the marathon, but her sister went on to run a 100-mile race."The most important race of her life was that first mile," she said. "She never would have run the 100 if she hadn't discovered she could run the 1. There's more in us than we know. If only we can be made to see it."A contributionDaniel Pink, behavioral science expert, best-selling author and host of Crowd Control, spoke after Ekstrom in Atlanta. He said the profit motive isn't the only thing that is important in business. Purpose makes the difference. He calls it the Purpose Motive and gave examples from scientific studies, examples of purpose, and ways people find purpose.One of the scientific studies was from the University of Michigan. Pink said college students who were volunteering at a call center for the school were broken into three groups. Five minutes before they were to begin, one group was given newspapers to read, another group was given letters from former center workers talking about how the work was rewarding, and the third group was given letters from people who had benefited from the money raised through the call center. That group brought in more than twice the amount of donations as the first group. They found purpose in what they were doing. Purpose was the core of their work, he said.In another example, Pink said a group of people who changed jobs were asked why they left their old job. The majority of the people said, "I felt I wasn't making a contribution."There is Purpose with a capital P, he said. And purpose with a lowercase p. The capital P applies to work that transcends the ordinary, such as working to solve world hunger. The lowercase p refers to working in order to do something good for the people you encounter during the day."Leaders, you want your people to feel like they are making a contribution. It's important to their psychological well-being," Pink said.When talking to people, don't just tell them how to do something, tell them why, he said. Knowing why something is important helps them understand the reason for it and do what is asked.Pink quoted U.S. Ambassador and author Claire Booth Luce who said, "A great man is a sentence." Great people don't try to do everything well. They focus on one or two things, he said. For instance, Abraham Lincoln's sentence could be, "He preserved the union and freed the slaves." That's pretty tough to beat, but everyone has a purpose. Pink challenged everyone to find out what is their sentence.Jim Boyle, senior director of supply chain at Silberline, said about the talks, "It forces you to get out of the everyday mentality to find your purpose in life and also in your job. How am I contributing to my family and my community?"The conference consisted of three sessions of speakers from Atlanta, and local speakers in between. Thomas Meyer, vice president of LCCC, opened the conference. Eileen Kuperavage, the executive director of the Schuylkill Area Community Foundation; Brock Stein, vice president of strategic development for Koch's Turkey Farms; and Rebecca Kanaskie, a senior at Tamaqua Area High School and member of various honor societies, swim team captain and Media Club president, all served as local speakers.Stein said that finding one's purpose is "an extraordinarily personal thing."He quoted Pablo Picasso, who said, "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."Kanaskie said she thinks true leaders don't care about the position. "They care about making someone's life different. Leadership is an invitation."In addition to Ekstrom and Pink, the speakers in Atlanta included: Andy Stanley, leadership author and communicator; Molly Fletcher, former top sports agent and author; and Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square and founder of LaunchCode; Donald Miller, CEO of StoryBrand; Suzy Welch, business journalist, TV commentator and author; Henry Cloud, clinical psychologist, leadership expert and author; and Tyler Perry, director, writer, actor and entrepreneur.Sponsors for the local site included: St. Luke's University Health Network, Silberline, Mrs. T's Pierogies, Koch's Turkey, Center for Leadership and Workforce Development, Mauch Chunk Trust Co., Cloud Service Center, Times News, Heisler's Cloverleaf Dairy, Nationwide, ETA Benefits Group and Tamaqua Community Art Center.