6th International JA-YE Alumni Europe Leadership Conference 2009

Bringing all this back to the moments of my life that have been etched on my memory forever, I am certain that the JA-YE programmes and JA-YE Alumni Europe have been the single most impacting experience there has been. (Imagine here a Clarke Kent (Superman) type figure, ‘by day a tennis coach, but underneath the roots are with JA-YE Alumni’ - lycra suit thankfully not included). The experience of JA-YE Alumni actually showed me to shift my values away from what many others perceive as ‘success’, and define it by my own means – ‘The JA-YE Way’ I shall call it. I met people who are doing amazing things in their own way, and it is through the process of JA-YE Alumni that I figured out what a ‘great’ job actually is. Hearing others stories, seeing there are other people like me, even though from a different culture, addicted to doing something great and good. Those people, this whole network; it inspired me and has shaped me to learn that actually you can follow your own path, you can define your own success, and have the toughness to see it through. That satisfaction should be placed higher than profit, that doing something that is meaningful to you is better than something with a big pay check. That distortion of inflated value which purely a formal education can bring, is far outclassed by the realities and learning of following Enterprise Education like JA-YE.

I like the shift that is happening. Sailing through with ‘A’ grades at school was all matched by the bravado of a promised ‘A’ grade salary afterwards. Finally more and more of us talented people are turning our backs on the pursuit of profit, and putting those A grades to better use, where we can make a difference in our own small (or big) way. Expect this to continue with the new breed of entrepreneurs coming out of JA-YE Alumni

Having been one of the original protagonists who set up JA-YE Alumni Europe in Vilnius, Lithuania, 6 years ago, I am proud to see it growing and that the international network is still creating great friendships and valuable advice. It was always going to be a network that outlasted its founders direct involvement, because of the pure passion that still runs through the veins of anyone coming into the Alumni setup. Being on the outside of the organisation now it still serves me well, and I still get that buzz from being able to call upon an array of talented people who are now living all over the world, being great at whatever they do. And most of them are not the high rollers, but are a new breed of smaller, sustainable entrepreneurs and employees, who are fulfilling their passions with that same driven, ambitious attitude as they did when they were 17 and printing T Shirts for their JA-YE trade fair!

So share and listen to all the stories at the 2009 conference in Denmark, because those inspiring tales will give you that extra motivation, that bite to go the extra mile, that belief you can do what you are passionate about. Those memories still serve me everyday from being a member of the JA-YE Alumni, and I certainly wouldn’t be doing what I was doing now without that great group of people, who in an extraordinary way are so different to my best friends from home, but who I so dearly love and admire, share ideas, party, do business with and have an overall amazing time. That special bond spans far beyond the years of when you are deeply embedded in JA-YE Alumni, and will be drawn upon at times when you never thought it would in the future.

I have a wry smile on my face writing this final paragraph. Life is good. I am living my dream, teaching my passion, building my own business, still learning everyday. I have a network of amazing friends, colleagues, motivators and leaders through this incredible JA-YE Europe Alumni, who forever I will be indebted to. I’m looking forward, but never forgetting the roots of where I have come from.

By Ian Bishop, JA-YE Alumni Europe and JA-YE Alumni UK.