Kids

An Indian guide who displayed uncanny skills in navigating the rugged regions of the Southwest was asked how he did it. “What is your secret of being an expert tracker and trail-blazer?” a visitor asked him.
The guide answered: “There is no secret. One must only possess the far vision and the near look. The first step is to determine where you want to go. Then you must be sure that each step you take is a step in that direction.”
A dream is what you would like for life to be. A goal is what you intend to make happen. A goal is the near look; what, specifically, you intend to do on a daily basis to get there.
No matter what their current ages, try to determine the sensory learning style of each of your children: visual, auditory or kinesthetic. Visual learners understand and remember best what they see. Auditory learners prefer to hear and verbalize in order to comprehend. Kinesthetic learners need to involve touch and movement into the processing of new concepts, and to learn by doing. All of these styles have some overlap because we all use hearing, seeing and doing. But keep these styles in mind when you stimulate your children’s creative and goal-setting activities.
To build a pattern of positive expectations for your children, they need a way to keep score. Children know they are doing well when the task or project is well defined and the goals are clearly stated. How can a child experience the thrill of hitting the bull’s eye when he or she doesn’t know what the target is? Kids need to see the end before they begin a task or they will lose interest. When you are giving your child a task, such as cleaning her room, be specific in telling her what you want her to do and when you want it done and stick to it. By providing a clear and specific ending, your child can look forward to enjoying time with her friends when the task is completed.
Goals are the target of success! Who you see is who you’ll be. What you set is what you get. Help your kids get the far vision, the dream. Help them get the near look, the steps and action plans that pave the road to their dreams. Participate in your children’s games, problem-solving exercises, field trips and creative projects. Instead of telling them how things work, help them learn to discover the “hows” and “whys.”
Help your children dream about their future. Set the example by jotting down and cutting pictures out to describe family dreams. Assist them in defining their own goals and writing them down on index cards. Post the cards in their bedroom or on a board where they can see and review their goals daily.
Help your kids prioritize their goals. Have them consider their goals in the order of their importance. Place beside each written goal a proposed target date for the attainment of that goal.
Help your child make plans. Unfortunately, many kids view problems as insurmountable mountains. Your role as parents is to help them view problems as opportunities. Teach them to go over, around, under or to bore a hole right through their roadblocks.
Show children how to prepare a daily “to do” list. In the evening, help prepare a list of a few important things to do the following day. At the end of the day, help them review their progress. By using index cards, you can use a file box to store daily activity cards. Monthly, quarterly and yearly, let them go through the cards in the box to see all they have accomplished through step-by-step actions.
Help your kids to visualize, in advance, what the accomplishment of their goals looks and feels like. Bedtime is an ideal setting, where you can see in their imaginations where they want to be, what they want to do, and things they will have to work and save for to get.
Build goals and evaluations around the school year. When you go over your child’s report card, discuss the goals that he set for himself and how he is doing toward achieving those goals. Share with your child any comments teachers might have regarding his grades.
Kids need rewards, and behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated, especially if they understand that the reward is coming when the goal is accomplished. Rewards do not have to be strictly financial, but can be going out for ice cream or whatever your child enjoys doing. By rewarding goal-directed behavior, you are providing additional incentive to achieve almost any goal.

Nature's Wonder Drugs

Every time you complete a task of any kind, your brain releases a small quantity of endorphins. This natural morphine gives you a sense of well-being and elation. It makes you feel happy and peaceful. It stimulates your creativity and improves your personality. It is nature's "wonder drug."
Create the Winning Feeling
Everyone wants to feel like a winner. And feeling like a winner requires that you win. You get a feeling of being a winner by completing a task 100 percent. When you do this repeatedly, eventually you develop the habit of completing the tasks that you begin. When this habit of task completion locks in, your life will begin to improve in ways that you cannot today imagine.
The Pain of Procrastination
If you have ever had a major assignment that you have put off, you know what I am referring to. The longer you wait to get started on an assignment and the closer the deadline approaches, the greater stress you experience. It can start to keep you up at night until you finally launch into the task and push it through to completion; you feel a great sense of relief and well-being. It is almost as if nature rewards you for everything that you do that is positive and life enhancing. At the same time, nature penalizes you with stress and dissatisfaction when you fail to do the tasks that move you toward the goals and results that are important to you.
The Balanced Scoreboard
One of the most popular movements in modern management is toward a "balanced scorecard." Using these scorecards, every person, at every level of the business is encouraged to identify the key measures that indicate success and then give themselves scores every day and every week in each of those key areas. Here is an important point. The very act of identifying a number or score and then paying close attention to it will cause you to improve your performance in that area.
Close the Loop
The third C, after commitment and completion, is "closure." This is the difference between an "open loop" and a "closed loop." Bringing closure to an issue in your personal or business life is absolutely essential for you to feel happy and in control of your situation. Lack of closure—unfinished business, an incomplete action of any kind—is a major source of stress, dissatisfaction, and even failure in business. It consumes enormous amounts of physical and emotional energy.
The Key Ability
Perhaps the most important ability in the world of work is "dependability." Nothing will get you paid more and promoted faster than to develop a reputation for getting your tasks done quickly, done well, and on schedule. Whatever your goals, make a list of all the tasks you will have to accomplish in the achievement of those goals. Put a deadline on every one of those tasks.
Action Exercise
Determine a single measure that you can use to grade your progress and success in each area of your life. Refer to it daily.

Leadership Skills

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.
2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.
6) Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home

Geese

How often do you hear people speak with envy about companies with “real heart”? Companies like Nordstrom, FedEx, Ben and Jerry’s, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and The Container Store to name a few. Outsiders are constantly looking for their “secrets” to success. Fact is, the secret lies in the hearts of their employees. These companies create connected teams and, as a result, build dominant businesses by acting like geese. Like geese? Yes, like GEESE!If you ever happen to see (or hear about) geese heading south for the winter – flying along in “V” formation – you might consider what science has discovered about why they fly that way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew by itself. Any goose that falls out of formation suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone and quickly gets back into position to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back in the set and another goose moves up to fly point. And the geese in the back honk to encourage those in front to keep up their speed. Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen teammate until it is able to fly or it dies. Only then do they launch out on their own – or with another formation – to catch back up with their group.The lesson: Like geese, people who share a common direction and sense of community, who take turns doing demanding jobs, and who watch out for one another, can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of their teammates. Geese are defined by how they stay connected with one another. Successful teams – and excellent leaders – are defined the same way.