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Parents & Leadership: Focus on what you can do.

When I think about excellence in leadership one of the persons that come to my  mind who was able to achieve excellence in his field and from his team members was John Wooden.  What he was known for was stressing excellence to his players, working hard and doing so to reach their highest potential.   This is an important lesson for leaders in the work world and in parenting.

Our children, if we have more than one, will all be different.  One may be the easiest child to be around.  They listen, accept correction, work on making changes that we would like to see in them.  Then we have our second or third child and they are oh so different, and we are at a loss.  What did we do different, why are things so much harder with this child? Continue reading “Parents & Leadership: Focus on what you can do.”

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Parents are Leaders: Value Your Team

When individuals feel like they are making a difference at their workplace, or when they have an impact on a life when they are volunteering for a non-profit, it makes them feel valuable and gives meaning to the time they are spending on a project or for a company.  In this series of posts on leadership and parenting we are making comparisons between the two.

As parents it is important to realize that our children need to feel like they too are making a contribution to the vision and goals of the family.   As you are building this important team, our family, Continue reading “Parents are Leaders: Value Your Team”

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Excellence in Leadership: Vision without procrastination

In the world that we live, our day to day lives are busy beyond belief.  The question that we want to ask ourselves is, “Are we achieving, are we being productive and reaching our goals and vision?”   Recently in teaching the class, Excellence in Leadership, we talked about habits that we have that we would like to change.  One that came up for everyone of the students was –  procrastination.  How do we achieve a productive life without becoming overwhelmed to a point of paralysis?

First we must recognize that activity is not accomplishment.  For many of us we have to do list that is a mile long, and for some of us we get to the end of the day and feel like we did not get anything done on our list.  Here is the suggestion that came out of our discussion that I felt is worth sharing with our community. Continue reading “Excellence in Leadership: Vision without procrastination”

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Project Leadership: Influencing others to follow

There are so many promises made by individuals and groups saying that they will make your son or daughter a leader.  In fact one school in Pennsylvania claims to be the best school in the country for creating leaders out of any female student that comes to their school.   While leadership skills can be learned about from a classroom – true leadership comes from doing and can only be measured by the amount of influence you may have earned.

Your circle of influence will grow over time, but only if you are able to demonstrate certain things in your own life.  First you must have good character that is recognized by others.  Second you must build relationships with others.  Third you must know your subject that you are trying to have an effect on.  Fourth, having good intuition for the next right thing to do.  Fifth a certain amount of experience.  Sixth, what have you done in the past.  Seventh, what are your abilities?

Now anyone can start their role as leaders, but should start with small projects and then use the knowledge, experience, intuition and success they have to go on to larger projects.  That is the reason we encourage our young students to do small projects like doing acts of kindness and then getting others to join with them in doing acts of kindness.  Some of our students have on their own and then with others played musical instruments at senior homes, or set up hot chocolate stands and used the money for the Lighthouse Shelter.

These are the beginning steps to larger projects in the future where they will be able to use their good character, relationships and experience to influence others to join them in accomplishing good for their community.

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Vision: See, Believe, Achieve

What is your goal for this year, this month or week?  A goal is something that you want to achieve and one of the best ways of making that happen is to first be able to visualize it.  We must be able to see ourselves reaching our goal, know what it is going to feel, smell, taste whatever the senses can bring to the visualization – if we are going to achieve.

As a child I may want to be able to take a test at school and not get overly anxious about it.  To do so I would need to be able to see myself taking the test and getting the answers to the questions.  I may even visualize not knowing the answer and just taking some deep breaths and moving on to the next problem, coming back to it when other parts are complete.  Then I may see the paper coming back to me graded by the teacher with an A on it and a note that say “Great Job” .  I would be smiling and very proud of my efforts and cannot wait to get home to show mom and dad.

Visualization works for everyone, from athletes to business persons and school children.  It allows us to live the moment in a safe environment and to see the outcome.  “When we can see it, we can believe it.  When we can believe it, we can achieve it!”

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Martial arts helps us be the change you want to see!

As we get into the New Year we wonder what will it be like?  What awaits us in the year ahead?  Will there be problems or will it be full of blessings?  Ghandi in a very famous quote said, ” Be the change that you want to see in the world.”  Many times we are what we see.

There is a story that goes something like this.  One traveler getting close to a city stopped and asked an old man by the road what the people were like in the city ahead.  He was asked what were they like in the city you just came from?, and he was told they were untrustworthy.  The old man said, “You will find them to be the same in the city ahead.”

A second traveler came by the same old man and asked the same question.  Yet he found the people in the previous city to be warm and generous, and the old man said, “You will find them to be the same in the city ahead.”

The way we see others, the way we live our lives is what we will see in others.  If I am a critical person, I will most likely see others as being critical.  If I am a trusting person, I am more likely to view others as trustworthy.  If you change yourself and become the person you desire to be, you will begin to view others in a whole new light and that will change how you interact in all of your relationships.

Practicing the martial arts opened me to better ways of looking at myself and others, being kinder and accepting of where we are at this very moment and growing from there.  It does this by leading us in  incremental improvements that lead to quite impressive results.  But you must experience it to understand it.