Even though it’s only been seven days since the first day of the Monticle Trans-Canada Expedition, we could already tell that intelligence is a vital part of leadership. As an intelligent leader you need to co-operate with your fellow followers, know you followers, remain in power by showing you are the most intelligent
On the first day we stayed at Monticle Head Quarter, the thirty of us were organized into three groups Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Each team consists of people with different mindset, abilities, back grounds, and experiences. Every member of the team, including the team leaders, know their jobs inside out and know they are fully aware of what are expected from each and every single one of them. Such well organized teams could not have been created without a great deal of intelligence. Our intelligent leaders know our weakness, abilities to assign us the most suitable job. Later that day, after the job allocation, everyone was working on their assigned jobs in prepare for our journey. Deciding how much resources to bring with us is the most challenging task of all. Excess resources will always be a waste, so we don’t want to bring too much; but we need enough resources so that we would have enough for the entire expedition. We must calculate exactly what we need. The supply must meet the demand exactly. Fortunately, with our intelligence, we were able to estimate how much resources we need and use them wisely. Making sure not even a grain will be wasted.
On the second day, we did not depart as scheduled,. Our leaders showed us how to set up a tent. After all, intelligence has to be demonstrated. Intelligence was shown in the setup of the tent. Every thing, from the pole to the strings, are the key components to the setup of the tents. If a tent is not set up, they are just a bunch of useless stuff inside a bag. The same applies to our intelligence. If intelligence and knowledge are hidden deep within the mind. Even the intelligence if no one knows its exist? Without others acknowledgement, intelligence is the same as stupidity. The sole purpose of intelligence is to bring benefit and help the others, it is to do the deed of good. If intelligence cannot provide help, bring benefit or is used in the wrong way, then intelligence is not so intelligent.
The real intelligence is to possess it as well as the power and the ability to wield it. Intelligence is like a blade, it can be used to slay the evil or to slaughter the innocent. Having great intelligence is not always good, whether it is good or bad depends on the way people use it and present it.
On day three, our journey finally begins. On the way to our first destination, we had to search for accommodations. It is no easy job, we had to find a place that is well-maintained and have good facilities as well as a reasonable price. To start, we have to search for information about accommodations near our destination. Searching for information itself was not difficult at all. It is to select the right and useful information that is difficult. People that are less intelligent will take all information they have access to with a single thought. On the other hand, people that are more intelligent will consider carefully and think thoroughly on what information to select. As intelligent people know, too much information will bury the truly useful information, they will be a distraction to the most important information, the most valuable information may be ignored. Therefore, we must have a clear aim and vision, we must know clearly what we are after.
A leader should always be intelligent, so that he/ she could stay in power or get in power. Intelligence is not only knowing the answer to 12345 x 54321, it is also knowing to plan ahead… On day four we did the exact opposite. The night before we planned our the route and destination, but we did not call the camp site to make sure they have available camp sites. You could say: we were being careless and lazy! We decided to call them only a few hours before we get there, but as we pulled the phone…. there were no service! There is nothing we could do about it. We could only test our luck and ask for vacant camp sites when we get to Rainbow Fall Provincial Park. Turned out they did have around a dozen camp sites available. We are lucky, if they did not have any camp sites for us then we would have to drive around a around a hundred kilometers to the next Provincial Park.
We experienced a similar situation the next day. At around 6:30 in the afternoon Alpha Sprinter was running low on fuel. We only had one bar of gas left, and with the trailer the gas should only last us maximum one hour. After twenty minutes we began to worry, what if we ran out of gas before we find a gas station that has diesel? We started to think of what to do what if we actually ran out of gas… most of all we regret not learning our lesson from yesterday. Just as we were about to run our of gas, we found a Shell gas station. Even though we found a gas station and fueled up, we are just plain lucky, again it was luck that saved us all. Today reminded me of the story of the monkey and his house. All of his friends have a house somewhere safe, in case of floods. Monkey always thought he did not need a house because he slept in the trees. But under peer pressure he decided to build one any way. Even though his fiends kept telling him: Hurry up! There is going to be a huge a huge hurricane and flood. But he had ignored all their friendly warnings. When the hurricane came he stayed on his tree, but he got blown off and washed away with the flood. We are like the little monkey who think he has everything under control. Our headers are like his friends, telling us to do what is right. We should have listened to them in the first place and plan out our gas stops. Because in the end the only once getting hurt are us.
It is not easy to be intelligent, you may think al you need to do is go to school, read books, and watch documentaries. Here is an example from day six, we were supposed to push to Edmonton and stay outside Edmonton Mall, but we were not being intelligent with time control and stopped to long at every pit stop/ gas station and we did not do any thing about it. So we had to stop at a Wal-Mart is and sleep on the parking lot in the cold and windy night. Lesson learned. Intelligence is not only thinking of good ideas, it is when you think out side the box. Like the example above , we never thought we will not make it to West Edmonton Mall. Hopefully such things will never happen again. After all there is no point of repeating mistakes.
We finally arrived at West Edmonton Mall on day seven. Once the largest shopping mall in North America. There are numerous amusement parks, ad hundreds of stores and restaurants. Shopping in this gigantic complex is not easy. With all these stores and limited time, we have to plan out what we need and where we will get them in advance so by the end of the day we would have spare time and money. Now, we have to decide what is on our shopping list and what item we want the most. With so many entertainments in the shopping complex, Water Park, Amusement Park, we have to decide the right place to go so that our time would be spent wisely. Moreover, the prices there are not as cheap or attractive as expected. Sometimes we need to utilize intelligence to figure out which shop has the best price for the same products (i.e. we need to do calculations and comparisons between shops about bug nets or jackets). Moreover, the Water Park is not really that attractive because you are technically paying 36 dollars to get wet in a big giant pool together with a hundred people or more at the same time, feeling some regular waves. Therefore, even though it is more of a recreational purpose, we still need to utilize intelligence upon shopping in that gigantic mall.
This is basically hat we did in one week. We made so much mistakes that are not really intelligence in the first week, we sure are going to do better in the future weeks. By the end of the expedition, we would all be really intelligence. Thanks for your time.
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