World Cup Champions!!!

We won!!! I still can't believe it. I am sitting in my hotel room staring at the World Cup trophy! We went up on that stage and gave the best presentation of our lives to a room full of CEO judges, students from around the world, and the rest of our amazing team. I was getting goosebumps the entire time. I didn't get a chance to watch the video of our final presentation but I couldn't stop smiling every time one of the other presenters said something. Everyone had so much passion it was like a wave passing over the entire room.

Everyone was on fire! Carrie had been up all night sick but delivered her presentation with so much passion that the rest of us had to kick things into a higher gear to match her. Warren captured everyone's attention with the first sentence of the entire presentation. Deisy nearly had judges standing to cheer her on as she spoke. And Adam totally stepped up and blew people away during the 5-min Q&A period where the judges could ask us any questions they wanted to. Watching all of that unfold around me during the presentation, I was so excited that I had to work to keep my hands steady and my microphone from going all over the place by the end of the presentation. It was just so incredible! We just kept feeding off of each other's passion. The entire audience stood and cheered after Carrie delivered the final line.

Several of us had spent two years of our lives moving towards this moment. We wanted the opportunity to share with the world that we don't have to wait until we are 20-30 years into a career. We can change the world right now as students. College is where you find what you are truly made of, what your limits are, what your true potential could be. Well this team of students gets it, and we are spreading that message all over the world. It is the responsibility of our generation to work together to make a real, sustainable change in the world. One of my favorite new writers, Alex Steffen, said in a recent article "Don't just be the change, mass-produce it." This is what we shared with the world today. We are no longer satisfied only working in our own isolated areas. We must do more and we can do more right now.

We had the chance to meet students from all around the world who feel this same way. We just had a global gathering of individuals not afraid to ask the question "why not?" There is no reason why we shouldn't work together to deal with real world problems. And so we do.

At La Sierra University we are at a real advantage. Our diversity is an incredible strength upon which we must build. When we put students together from entirely different backgrounds, the potential for development of new ideas increases exponentially. This is what makes our SIFE team successful. We have individuals who can be entirely different from one another but still share a common goal, for their education to actually have meaning and purpose. And what better purpose for education than for it to be utilized in service to others.

I couldn't be more proud of our La Sierra University SIFE Team. They are serving as an inspiration to students around the world and now leading the way in the movement for this generation to make a difference in this world.

Please give your support to the new LSU SIFE President Ryan Blackerby and the new team. We are already watching them go far beyond the success and impact of the team I have had the opportunity to lead the last two years. Their passion and hard work makes our results mean something. We can know that our efforts are sustainable and will not just fade away into nothingness. And knowing that is an incredible feeling.

This World Cup has been an incredible experience for all of us. It is now time for our old leadership team and presentation team to complete the transition and make way for the new leaders and presenters. And from what I've seen, this new team is going to teach the rest of us a thing or two about impact.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for some blog posts from the other members of the presentation team over the next few days. Due to limited availability of internet access and time factors, it has been difficult for them to have the opportunity to put anything on here. We'll be sure to get all kinds of fun photos, video, and messages from the presenters on very soon. There are so many people to thank regarding SIFE this week, but I would like to give a special thanks to Larry Becker and Ron "Webmaster!" Forbes for getting such a great news page put together for us. Many of you might be reading this because of the link from that page.

Thank you all for your support. We are looking forward to returning home to celebrate with our friends and family at La Sierra University. Jeremy Ramos and I also happen to have a test on Monday (Hi Dr. Kugler!)...

(More to come)

(And don't forget to leave a comment or two)