I’m offering a new service on a growing basis. I call it the “Leadership Now Walkshop.” I take 3-5 people on a walk–an actual walk–to a specific set of places tied to a historical person or event and a defined aspect of leadership. We walk, I tell real stories about the person and event in that historical moment, and my participants listen, look, smell, see, and more. After the walk, we end up at a pre-arranged location for coffee, debriefing, and interactive reflection. There is one additional piece to this that I’d like to describe.

In the days or weeks leading up to the physical walk, I send out a specific number of emails to each participant. Each email is a summary of one month’s time in the historical period leading up to the person or event featured in the Walkshop. For example, in using 28-year old Benjamin Harrison and his path to deciding to fight in the Civil War, I send 15 emails, each representing a summary of one month’s time in Harrison’s life and the same time span in the Civil War. Thus, a participant receives an email about August 1861 and what’s going on in Harrison’s life, in the war itself, and my thoughts as to the larger meaning.

My reason for elaborating on this to you is that I’ve marveled at how perfectly the one-month time block works in learning from the flow of history. When you think of it, a month is just right for balancing the knowledge of key details in your life while having at least some sense of bigger public or personal trends surrounding these details. A day or week is too short. A quarter or half-year is too long. A month is just right.

In learning, the content, setting, pace, and methodology are all imporant. But so too are things that may not occur to you at first, such as my discovery of the best time-block for building bridges between past and present.