The Fire Within

It is very interesting to me as I learn about the college search process with my daughter. She is a junior in high school and we've seen a number of presentations around what she should expect and plan for, even as early as her freshman year. It is crazy the pressure on kids to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their life. They are told that they need to start taking classes as a freshman to put you on a path to not only being ready for college but improving your chances of being accepted. The irony is during the same presentation they are told that college isn't for everyone and there are lots of different learning opportunities to prepare them for a career that best suits them, many of which don't involve a four year degree. They should use high school to take a variety of classes and explore what they may want to do. But, if they wind up figuring out what they want to do requires a four year degree they could be having to catch up if they took to many elec...

Last week we took my daughter on her first college visit to the University of Nebraska Lincoln. We had been in Lincoln and on the campus a handful of times the past few years. As we drove around a bit then toured the campus my wife and I both commented how, though we couldn't explain it, Lincoln felt like home.  Thinking about that feeling and the word home. The feeling for me is a sense of serenity and butterflies in the stomach. There is just a sense of joy and peace being in that place. Each of us have places that feel like home to us. It can vary for each person. It could be the place you live now. Many people when they go to the town they grew up in have that feeling of being home. For some they have a dream of one day living in New York, Paris or London. Others have that vacation spot they visit once a year and when they are there it is just like home. As I think of my daughter going off to college and the adventure of life beginning for her, the idea of home becomes more pre...

We all know that crazy things will happen in life. There are daily risks and opportunities to learn something. For many of us sometimes we have to walk through a challenge to learn our lessons. When we are young our parents told us a thousand times to be careful by the stove, it is hot. It often never really stuck with us until the one time we accidentally touched it and we learned what they meant when they said it was hot. Next time I guarantee you were much more cautious around the stove. We protect our kids, when they are really little we don't let them near the stove. When they get older we might stand next to them and warn them as they get too close. Protection makes sense up to a point. If your kid is about to go off to college and you've never let them in the kitchen for fear they might get burned you are going to have a problem. Sheltering them is not helping to protect them. Any team, any relationship, you want to have a culture where everyone feels others have the...

Who you are as a person is primarily a product of the people you choose to associate with. If you spend most of your time with high character people, they are going to have a positive affect on you. Just like in the reverse when you choose people of questionable character it can lead you down the wrong path. We've all known people who have made bad choices and we say, "They just fell in with the wrong crowd." I'm sure there is some parenting guide somewhere that says we are supposed to let our kids make their own mistakes, and we can't tell them who they should be friends with. I obviously have never read it because I have no problem sharing my opinion with them. I've never had to tell them they have to stop being friends with someone, but we talk and I openly share with them who I think are good friends and who I'm okay with them not spending time with because I don't think they are a very nice person. Can we do that with ourselves or with our fri...

Another dance season has passed us by as we wrapped up the end of the year recitals this past weekend. It is always a mixed emotions time for me as the exhaustion from a long weekend makes you happy that it is over but then I realize we are another year closer to it being done. Watching my daughters dance has been a major part of my life for the past 12 years, and when I think about how fast that time has gone the fact that I only have 3 years left to watch my oldest leaves me searching for a way to slow time down. I only have one more father daughter dance left with her too. She might tell you that she is excited that there is only one more chance for me to embarrass her though. I hope that she, and my other daughters always knows how much I love being on stage with them. Any chance to have a little fun and spend time with my girls is worth it. I've been asked before if I wished that any of my girls played sports or did something other than dance. I've never minded that th...

My daughter is 15 and we are going through that right of passage in learning to drive a car. It has been a challenging learning experience, a few rough spots but I think I'm getting better at it, because I'm starting to learn more about her along the way. You see the biggest challenge hasn't been in teaching her to drive, the biggest challenge has been figuring out how to be a better teacher for her. My only experience as a driving instructor is my own driving experience. It is so much different than hers. I grew up on a farm driving lawn mowers, tractors and even my dad's truck from when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. When I was old enough to drive a car on the road it was a formality. Contrast that with her experience of a go cart track a couple times in her life. When I navigate roads I know names, numbers, north, south, east and west. When I tell her that Madison runs parallel and south of 14, I am pretty sure I sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. We all...

As a manager, as a parent or as a leader, it is easy to feel like we have to repeat ourselves. Having that feeling that we've talked about this before and being a little disappointed that you are telling them the same thing again. It really shouldn't surprise us though, how many times do we ourselves have to hear something before it sinks in? If you are working on changing a culture or building a skill in your team expect to repeat yourself. Different people learn differently so some might get it during the team meeting you share with the group, some might get it during a one-on-one conversation and some might need to read the handout for themselves. Individuals have other things going on in their life too, struggles with a sick child, an ailing parent or some other dynamic that takes focus off of their work. Maybe everything doesn't click for them until the outside distractions subside and they hear it from you again two months from now. It is interesting how we talk a...

We are busy. Life can get hectic and there always seems to be more to do than there are hours in the day. When you feel like you are overwhelmed and there is nothing that you can do to get out of the hole you are in, know that you have complete control over the situation. Whenever it feels like we don't have enough time to do something, to do the things we know are necessary to get the job done, we are wrong. There is always more time in the day than we think, we just need to decide what we are spending our time on. Before I had kids I thought I was busy, 15 years and 3 girls later I laugh at my younger self. Kids schedules, running them here and there takes time, yet I still can find time for the things I want to do, just maybe not as often. Work is no different. There are things that have to be done but if we continue to look at them the same way nothing ever changes. There are a limited number of hours at work to get things done. How much time do you spend talking about thin...

Have you ever been frustrated by people asking you questions? When you feel like you've answered that same question a hundred times before? Have you ever gotten annoyed by your kids asking you the same questions over and over again? It gets to the point you just want to yell, "Because I said so!" Questions are something that get a bad wrap. We think we aren't supposed to ask a question because we may look foolish. We believe that we shouldn't question authority. We get annoyed by the classmate or co-worker that asks too many questions, trying not to roll our eyes from our unbelief that they still don't get it. Questions are powerful. If you are looking for answers it starts with the question. If you want a simple answer, ask a simple question. If you want really great answers you have to be able to ask really great questions. I've been thinking about questions quite a bit lately. Partly because I've been bombarded with different nuggets ...

Source | www-peoplematters-in.cdn.ampproject.org I just went through a leadership training course from my work and it talked about developing team members, helping them grow and achieve higher levels of success. I believe it is important for all people to continue learning throughout their life. The act of learning something new, whether related to work or not, exercises a part of our brain that keeps us moving forward. It also helps us be ready for those times in our life when we are forced to learn something new, be it a job change, learning to parent a teenager or how to deal with a difficult boss. Things change but we also should never settle for where we are at as good enough. If you are a leader or a parent, you should help create an environment where learning is expected and regularly discussed. We need to be supportive of people that we interact with. Even if it is learning something you don't necessarily see value in, the fact they are learning something new is impor...

In my last post I talked about our responsibility in making sure our message is understood. To change our presentation to make sure everyone gets the message. But that is only when your message isn't understood. If the message is clear then it changes to make sure everyone has taken it into their hearts and minds. That they live it out every day. Think of a company that tries to drive home their core values or a parent that tries to reinforce family rules. The best way to do that is to keep the words the same. To be a broken record. Get it to the point that they sing your message like the song you can't get out of your head.

All parents at some point tell their kids that they are proud of them. I've done it before, but it is something that I've consciously tried to remove from my conversations with them after reading a number of articles like this one in the Huffington Post . Saying "I'm proud of you." really becomes more about me rather than my kid, just look who is first mentioned in that sentence. If my kids accomplish anything it is really about them, yes I play a part in raising them but it should be about them. It is a similar stance I try really hard to take at work as a manager. Yes, my job is to lead a team of people, but what they accomplish isn't about what I've done. I try not to say "my team", instead it is "the team". Whenever I want to give praise or recognition to anyone, I think about the words that I use because there is power in them. The focus needs to be on them and what they accomplish.  Pride is something we all should avoid, a...

As my kids get older and they are doing homework at the kitchen table or with their friends I hear the question, "When am I ever going to use this?" I love it when this topic comes up because I love opportunities to teach my kids what the real world is like. My first response is, "You are probably never actually going to use it in real life." That really gets them going as they wonder what the point is. Inevitably I end up sharing these points in some format. You need to learn how to learn. I guarantee that in life you will have to learn new things. Starting a new job. Moving to a new place. Interacting with people from different cultures. There are countless opportunities in your life where what you already know doesn't help you. Do you know how to acquire new knowledge? You need to learn how to study in a subject that you aren't good at. If you hate math or English you can probably find a job that isn't reliant on those skills. However I guarante...

I vaguely remember the story of Mo Isom when she was trying out to kick for the LSU Tigers in 2012. At the time I didn't know her name, only that she was a soccer player and was attempting to kick for a Division 1 football powerhouse. Five years later I heard her whole story through the Sports Spectrum Podcast  (episode #4 if interested). Jason Romano interviewed her where she told an amazing story of tragedy and triumph. Her life includes battling eating disorders in high school, a father's suicide, a horrific automobile accident that she miraculously survived and a life full of bad choices in her words as she tried to make sense of more than most people deal with in a whole lifetime. Listening to her tell her story in that interview and when I later read her book, it was amazing the grit and perseverance this young woman possesses to face everything and through it all develop a deep faith that she shares with anyone that is willing to take the time to listen. As I hear her ...

I'm not sure why I'm on a fear kick lately. I've noticed that I've written a number of times recently about fear and how it consumes us ( here , here and here ). It is natural for humans to be afraid of things. I always thought it was okay to have a certain level of fear, like the kind of fear that makes me want to do a good job at work so I can stay employed and provide for my family. But it isn't fear that compels me, it is the love for my family that wants to provide for them. I think Jon Gordon said it best in his book  The Carpenter : "If you build your life and company with fear, it won't be worth building. In the end you'll look back and realize you didn't enjoy any of it. It will never be what it could have been and you'll likely burn out before you finish. And even if you do finish, anything built with fear will eventually crumble. ... Remember, fear is draining. Love is sustaining. Fear is short term. Love is long term. Fear appears...

Jon Gordon shared in a recent tweet  the following statement: Your social media platform is a blessing. Use it to add value instead of devalue. This got me thinking about my own use of social media, is the stuff I'm putting out there adding value? I hope so, but then I started thinking about what I see on my timelines and honestly how much has no value. During the last presidential election I think we can all safely say we waded through a lot of junk to find anything of value. Still today though I see a number of posts that if I took the time to look at the replies or comments you would see two sides vehemently trying to prove their point, with really no chance of swaying the other sides opinion because less face it, being open minded is a rare quality these days. The level of hurt that comes from social media doesn't stop there. If you think about the posts that are out there, especially for the younger generations, they share everything. They post who they are out with, ...

I am watching as my children grow up and finding that one of the hardest things I've had to teach them is how to worry about the things that you can control. They are like most of us in that things others do or say can drive them nuts, including their parents and their sisters. It is a good opportunity to teach them about grace, forgiving someone even though it feels like they don't deserve it, but also to remind them of what they can and can't control. The things that we can control are the things we should be focusing on because the rest will just waste our time and energy, ultimately leaving us feeling more frustrated and angry. It is a good reminder for myself, because if I'm being honest, there are times that I do the same thing. We probably all do because we are only human. This graphic from Jon Gordon is a good reminder of where our focus should be. So much of our lives we can't control, but the parts that we do can make a huge impact. The choices we m...

We've all heard that we need to be ourselves. God only made one you so be the best one you can be. Part of needing to understand who we are is being comfortable in who we are, but also consistent. Don't be the person who doesn't know who they are so they either copy others trying to do what they think is right, or they are they are Jekyll and Hyde. Being inconsistent is one of the cruelest things we can do to another person. If you let someone get away with something one day and bring the hammer down as hard as possible the next all you are doing is teaching people to be afraid of you. The fear and apprehension is very real because they are not sure who you are going to be. If you want to be a good manager, parent or leader, be consistent.

It is always hard when someone doesn't meet your expectations. You feel disappointed, annoyed, and angry, along with some other emotions I'm sure. It is always easy to blame the person that is falling short but I am finding as good a job as I think I'm doing communicating what my expectations are I probably wasn't as clear as I thought. When someone isn't meeting your expectations, here is a quick process to go through to have a better result the next time. Don't make them guess. If there is something you want but you never tell them, you can't expect them to just know. Did you actually say what your expectations are? Before you talk to them, make sure you know what it is you want for sure. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Ask the person why they aren't doing what you expect. Maybe there are some valid reasons that you haven't considered that is making it more difficult. Giving them a chance to express their view is important also, e...