What's YOUR Story

Before starting this week’s blog, I want to send out prayers to all the first responders; the medical profession, those families who have lost loved ones in this horrific human tragedy, and those who are recovering. I also send prayers to the people who survived having lived through a horrible, life changing experience, and prayers for the city of Vegas as they push forward to recover together.

Some of the comments and/or tweets being made by the media, a teacher, and even a high ranking CBS executive are beyond reprehensible. What? 59 AMERICANS were murdered with 512+ AMERICANS injured. 

I am more and more fearful of the divisiveness this country has moved toward. The pure HATE for this President, the justification for violence when someone's opinion is different, the lack of balanced coverage with the media, students needing safe spaces, and the drive to separate us the exact situation Martin L. King fought against.

Through my blogs, I have tried to focus on each of us being in control of our lives and to have a grateful spirit. I continue to advocate for EACH of us, personally, to learn and grow to better ourselves in all areas of our lives. I do not pretend to have all the answers, I want people to question, to research using a variety of sources, and to not blindly accept what they hear and read as fact. 

Last week, I wished you a week of reflecting on who you are associating with, and therefore who is also influencing you? Did you take the time to reflect on whether your words and actions are truly coming from your heart OR are they because you are wanting control, acceptance, or both? What did you learn?

There are many issues facing our country today that should be up for debate and discussions. Unfortunately, our free speech; which I will address in a couple weeks, is under attack as well. There seem to be more "tweet wars" and "attacks" on Facebook any time a different perspective is given. 

I fear there is a deeper and even more devastating cause for where we are today. We have a younger generation, who live each day without hope or purpose. They have not been brought up with the American Dream mentality. They have not been brought up learning what this great country has done for so many generations and why this country is like no other country in the world, and they have no sense of purpose. 

Two books; The iY Generation, and Start with Why, along with a session from the Defending America series have all contributed to the next two week’s topics of my blog. Because I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on this; and I am sharing my personal thoughts, I will be breaking this blog segment into two parts.

Most of you are aware I enjoy reading and growing on a personal level. That has not always been the case. When I was younger, I was not exposed to the personal development books primarily because they were not as plentiful as they are now. I only had my own opinions based on my experiences and the family and friends around me. I didn’t understand why I often felt different about topics or situations, as I had little to compare things to, and I was not comfortable with who I was as a person. Therefore, yes, I did succumb to wanting to be accepted and usually kept my mouth shut.

Early in my teaching career, my reading material was either fictional books we used in the classroom or materials to enhance my teaching techniques. There was little, if any, personal development focus. When looking back on my career and when I began reading personal development books, I became more aware of why some of the teaching teams I was on were more effective than others. The successful team teaching situations were with people where we shared the same goals and objectives, we could disagree on how we were going to reach our goals but NEVER on WHY we were doing what we were doing. We honored each other for our individual skills and talents, and we were never competing for who was “the best” – it wasn’t about us it was ALL about the students.  I woke up each morning with a purpose and an excitement. The challenges and road blocks were there, yet my driving focus of WHY I was teaching was always there.

That sense of purpose each day was and is critical for ALL people. I will touch more on that later.

It was later in my career when Jon and I were exposed to network marketing which had a strong component of personal development. We started reading books and listening to tapes (yes, cassette tapes) as we drove into work. We both found we were learning how to deal with situations with all communities in our sphere of work in a very different way. In addition, we were also learning how to be a better individual, a better marriage partner, a better parent. We were learning that our physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual health were all important.

According to Simon Sinek in his book Start with Why, “there are two ways to influence human behavior; you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.” Most often, we don’t know what we don’t know, and it isn’t until we search out information that we can begin to develop who we are, what we stand for, and what we believe is God’s path for us. That doesn’t happen unless we understand WHY we do what we do. WHY is a belief system. HOW will guide our actions to realize the belief, and WHAT is the results of our actions. “If the focus is more on WHAT at the expense of WHY, our ability to thrive and inspire is dubious.”

I spent the first half of this blog, outlining my own journey of learning and growing as a human being. My point is that we don’t learn and grow in isolation, we don’t learn and grow without being challenged on WHY we think the way we do, we don’t learn and grow if we don’t have a purpose in our life, and we definitely are not willing to learn and grow if we blame, complain, and defend our actions pointing the finger at everyone else rather than how we contributed to the situation. That’s called owning up to our words, actions, and choices – ACCOUNTABILITY.

Before I go on, I want to be clear that I look with respect and admiration at my young grandchildren; my nieces and nephews, their teenage children, the young people on our team who are building a business to better themselves. They are THE best when it comes to respect, they have strong work ethics, they have different opinions on topics yet can have a conversation with those who are different, and they are welcoming to people from different backgrounds. I go to personal development seminars and there’s only a common bond of wanting personal financial freedom and learning to be their best as a human being – there is no color, religious, or sexual orientation labeling!

On the other hand, I am disappointed to observe a segment of our young people with an entitlement attitude whose personal beliefs seem absent and are just regurgitating what they hear from the group think of their friends. The book iY Generation explains the effect of video games, being given everything without a clear sense of purpose, and with no true guidelines for success when they grew up with the participation medal mentality versus an actual first, second, third etc. placement. We taught this generation that everyone needs to feel special all the time which ultimately made no one feel special. Failure has been looked upon as a negative versus a learning tool. Our young people have been disabled by not being exposed to differing viewpoints and have seldom been allowed the opportunity to learn how to debate and question. It’s difficult to have a discussion by texting.

Now our liberal colleges are deciding which speakers the students should hear and even setting up “safe spaces” with coloring books etc. if the students’ feelings are hurt by differing viewpoints. The “safe spaces” and therapy sessions were set up for those unable to handle the outcome of the Presidential election.  Even worse, violence is the only action with groups such as Antifa. They believe that because they disagree with a differing viewpoint it’s their right to commit violence. Lectures on campus, town hall meetings, peaceful demonstrations have all been hijacked by those whose tactic is to shout down someone else’s right to speak and commit violence against someone that would have the audacity to voice something which they disagree. 

In the minds of Antifa, it’s justified to physically attack a person, physically damage buildings, businesses, set fires or exclude a certain group. Unfortunately, these are also the young people who have little understanding of a work ethic, are still living at home because they haven’t found the perfect job they think they deserve, drugs are often involved, these young people have no idea of "self" and what they stand for. 

I keep hearing from teachers, coaches, business people about an entitlement attitude and lack of any type of work ethic. Think about how you grew up. Did you have a job? How young were you with your first job? Were you responsible for paying for some of your activities such as going to the movies, bowling, or putting gas in the car? My guess is the natural consequence was that if you didn’t have the money you weren't able to do something or buy something. Did you work through college and/or did you pursue getting scholarships and grants to reduce the cost? In your job were you expected to arrive on time and were you expected to complete some menial tasks such as cleaning up? Were you expected to come dressed in a clean, kept manner etc? Did you ever have to interview for a job and were there others also interviewing for that same position? Did you ever play a sport and someone else was competing for that same position?

My point is that having work experience teaches you about the world and life which includes; doing whatever it takes to get a job done despite your “title,” it means following certain expectations of your boss, it means showing up on time, it means you need to learn to work with a team of people that may be different than you. It leads to a sense of focus that everything you are learning is all about becoming a positive contributor to your own life, the life of your family and those around you. YOU can be in control of your future. When people are working they gain a sense of self, a sense of purpose, and a sense of pride and value to what it is they’re doing.

I wish you a week to revisit the last few weeks of blogs and examine your personal development habits etc. I also wish you this next week to look back and examine your personal work history story. What were your jobs and what life lessons did you learn from each situation?

The Golden Circle

Last week, I wished you a week of deciding if investing in yourself is THE best investment you can make in yourself and what action you are willing to commit to on a consistent basis until it becomes a habit. What did you learn about yourself? Are there specific actions you can say you’ve taken or are there still only wishes of what you want to do? There’s a big difference between wishing and taking action.

I just finished a book titled Start with Why by Simon Sinek. If you go to Youtube and look for the name Simon Sinek, you will find he has a 15+ minute talk about the iY Generation which is another book I’ve blogged about recently. I find him refreshingly honest in his appraisal of situations and in this book, he relates a unique approach to WHY people, companies, teams, organizations etc. are successful or not.

For a common understanding of Sinek’s approach that he calls the Golden Circle, picture a target. In the center, is the WHY, the next circle out is HOW, and the outer circle is the WHAT. The concept is based on science of the brain. The WHY, or inner circle, is the limbic brain which is the part of our brain that controls feelings and has no capacity for language.

In order to understand the power of WHY, let’s look quickly at the other two circles. HOW’S are your values or principles that guide HOW to bring your cause to life. “In order for your values and guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. Articulating values as verbs gives a clear idea. For example, it’s not ‘integrity,’ it’s ‘do the right thing’ or it’s not ‘innovation’ it’s ‘look at the problem from a different angle.’”

“A WHY is just a belief. That’s all it is. HOW’s are the actions you take to realize the belief. And WHAT’s are the results of those actions – everything you say and do.” Though the book talks a lot about what makes a business, a company, or a product successful; I find there’s a direct application to our personal lives.

Henry Ford was the one who said, “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” When we’re young and starting out in our careers our WHY shows up in the form of excitement, we’re ready to change the world, we have a vision of what we want to do in life. We didn’t’ know HOW or WHAT that was going to look like just yet, we were motivated by a WHY.

When I started my teaching career, I was totally focused on changing the lives of my fifth graders. I wanted them to feel successful even when they made mistakes. I wanted them to feel that even mistakes were to be celebrated because that meant they were learning and growing. I was dedicated to creating a safe environment where differences were the norm, where learning to talk through conflicts was taught, and where the classroom was a fun place to come to each day. I woke up each day thinking about WHY I was doing what I was doing and it always involved supporting my fifth graders to be the very best that they could be not only as a student but as a person.

My first year teaching was definitely a year of learning the WHAT which was the curriculum and also figuring out the HOW to get the learning across to a wide variety of abilities, learning styles, and personalities. The one thing that never changed was my WHY which was making sure my students knew I cared about them as a person and as a student.

Fast forward 10 years or so. I loved learning new strategies, new ways to teach a math concept, a new book to add to my historical fiction book list etc. That was fun, but I realized I wasn’t having as much fun actually teaching. I was getting bogged down with the minutia of record keeping, the parental demands, the demands coming down from the district and state. It took me awhile to figure out what was missing. (I wish I had read this book back then.) I ended up taking a summer off of taking any classes but just enjoyed my own children, doing the things that we loved doing together without spending the summer preparing for the next school year.

What I gained from that time was realizing I had lost my focus on WHY I was teaching in the first place. I didn’t have the vocabulary that this book has clarified for me, but I did understand that I had lost the passion of WHY I was a teacher in the first place. That next year, with my WHY back to the center of everything I did, I was back in a balance of first of all knowing WHY and then the HOW and WHAT. I was back to having fun and enjoying myself and my students.

Think about your career. Have you ever gone through phases of feeling passionate about what you were doing and then having those times of feeling bogged down with all the garbage? What did you do about it or are you still there? Are you staying in a job that you don’t like but are not willing to make a change? OR is it that what is really needed is a time to reflect on WHY you’re doing what you’re doing. Maybe that job doesn’t fulfill your passion for what you want to do in life and you need to move on. OR maybe you’re like I was and just need to get back to your WHY you do what you do?

I don’t think this concept is only true in our careers. What about in your relationships? Your marriage? The excitement of a new relationship or that first year of marriage is filled with excitement, expectations, living a life with your life partner. But then life sets in with the balancing act of all the demands and expectations both from yourself and from those around you. 

Why is it we have so many people getting a divorce after only a couple years? Research shares the comments from couples in therapy that they’re bored, the marriage wasn’t what they expected, they didn’t feel valued by the other person etc. etc. I’m coming to believe WHY we got married or are in a particular relationship has gotten lost or maybe we never truly knew our WHY.

Do you know people who only got married because they just wanted to be married? Do you know people who got married for reasons like status, money, or even fame? These are definitely NOT what Sinek talks about as to a true WHY.

All relationships, all marriages go through ups and downs – that’s life. It’s what you do about it. The people who never learn their true WHY are the ones who get divorced, marry someone almost exactly the same as the first person and it goes on and on. They never take a close look at themselves – it’s always about someone else. That also seems to be the case with people who jump from career to career trying to figure out what they want to do or they’re looking for the “prefect” job.

I found myself, even a year ago, questioning my purpose. I knew my WHY when I was teaching. I know my WHY in my marriage, I know my WHY with my children and grandchildren, but I had lost a WHY as to who I was as a person. (Once again, I wish I had read this book last summer.) During this time that I was spending reflecting on my purpose, I went through the phase of feeling sorry for myself, looking at everyone else and how they were doing what they loved, and having a personal “pity party.”

The good news is I was looking and open. I continued to read books, share reflections with my blogs, say my gratitude’s each day with the belief that something would “turn up.” AND that’s exactly what happened toward the end of the summer when a new opportunity came across our path. 

Because of reading this book, I’m understanding the power of my WHY’s in ALL areas of my life and plan to support others in understanding this powerful concept as well.

If you find yourself stuck, if you find yourself going through the motions without a purpose, if you find yourself not feeling you’re fulfilling the life God has designed for you, I would recommend investing in yourself by reading this book, Start with Why by Simon Sinek. You will learn more about the Golden Circle and living a life from the inside out.

I wish you a week of reflecting on your WHY’s especially in your career and in your relationships or marriage. I look forward to hearing from you. This is powerful!