Truth Counts!

This week we are discussing the truth. Honesty is a concept that students of all ages can connect with. We learn from a young age that it is bad to tell a lie. Whether or not we practice being completely honest all of the time, we all know that being truthful is important. We don’t like when others are dishonest with us, we call others liars and feel as though they betray us, but we are much more forgiving when it comes to our own lies. 

When we discussed the importance of truth with the students we did not only look at it through the lens of truth versus lies. We also talked about the concept of their truth. It’s important that we are truthful, but it is also important that we understand our own truth. To be a good leader, you must be steadfast in your core values. Standing up for what you believe in can show that you are discerning and passionate and can win the respect of those around you. Maintaining your truth can demonstrate many admirable qualities of a leader like loyalty and virtue among other things. 

You might be reading this thinking that you don’t have a truth that stands out in your head. One thing that is true is that your truth will change as you grow. Much like your interests, your truth will grow with you. For some, their truth might be very apparent, while for others, their truth might take a more secondary position in their mind. Whether your truth is something that screams in your mind constantly, or it is more of an undertone, it does shape the way we approach the world around us. 

If you are still in search of your truth, that is fine, know that it is developing in the back of your mind. Your truth is being refined by the way you were raised, your values and ethics, and your life experiences. One day you will discover your truth and it can be something that shapes you. Beyond understanding and living your truth, you can practice being truthful with those around you. These facets together can make you a truly great leader.                               

-        Bria

When you think about loyalty, a lot of times its importance is discussed in relation to a family, friendship, or romantic relationship. While loyalty is a main theme of relationships of this nature, it is also important to be a loyal leader. While loyalty isn’t also recognized in a leader as a standout trait, a lack of loyalty in a leader is noticeable and undesirable. 

A lot of time the discussion about loyalty and careers centers around the idea of being loyal to a company for many years. While in the past, this was a great way to climb the corporate ladder, that is not necessarily something that is heavily rewarded in a modern context. Rather than focusing on staying with the same company for fifty years, think about being loyal to a certain career path or goal. A mistake that many people make is making too many career changes early on. While I don’t believe you should stay with a job you aren’t passionate about, sometimes people jump from job to job, chasing an unrealistic idealized perfect job that doesn’t exist. 

When you make too many career changes you can end up with a job history that is off-putting to future employers. So, while I don’t think you need to commit to working for the same place from graduation to retirement, showing some loyalty or commitment can prove that you are not flighty or untrustworthy as an employee. I also think there is something significant about having loyalty to the ideas you have set forth for yourself. When you decide you want to have a certain job you should not just give up easily on that dream. 

As a leader, you can be loyal to those who work for you by taking their interests and issues into concern. Furthermore, you can look out for things that would make their lives harder, and intentionally block obstacles to their success. While they might not notice that you are doing these things, there will be positive effects of these actions that will make the people you work with feel good about working with you. 

Being loyal to the people who work with you will pay off in turn. If you prove that you are going to support those people and be loyal to them as a boss, you can expect them to be more loyal to you as well. This is important because in a modern career force, it is very hard to retain talented employees. Every time you lose a good employee you are not guaranteed that you will be able to replace them with someone of similar caliber. You also lose effectiveness and productivity during the time it takes to train new people. 

Loyalty can improve all of the relationships in your life: platonic, romantic, business, or otherwise. People like to know that they can count on you, and that you aren’t going to leave them. When you prove loyalty to the people in your life, they will respect you and trust you more. They will also be more willing to support your ideas and initiatives. All in all, loyalty is very important. 

-        Bria

This week we discussed the importance of personal development in becoming a good leader. I think there are many topics we have discussed previously that contribute to personal development, but this is a broad category that deserves to be addressed separately. I believe that there is no way to be a good leader without continuously working on personal development. Without work on personal development, you can become a stagnant leader, which leads to complacency, boredom, frustration, or burnout. 

Personal development is not just for leaders. Everyone should be looking for ways to grow and change. In our own school philosophy, we discuss continuous progress. This is something that works well because we are living in a time where everything is changing in education and how people learn. We have to continuously change and improve to keep up with all of these changes. The same thing should be true for us as individuals. No one is perfect, and very few are close to it. Most of us have many obvious flaws accompanied with even more flaws that are less obvious. This is normal as it is human to have things that we need to work on. The important thing is actually putting in the effort to work on it. 

When discussing a plan for personal development, I always go back to my goals. This is something that I talk a lot about with my students. I collect their goals regularly throughout the years that I teach them and then I show them previous goals they set for themselves. Oftentimes they find that they have lost sight of these goals entirely, but sometimes they are able to see that they actually completed a goal. When that occurs, the students are typically very proud of themselves. Goals help us track personal development and make sure we are working towards improvements. Without concrete goals it is easy to drag out personal development or delay working on your issues. 

So how do we start actually working on personal development? Well, those of you who are students are already taking an important step towards personal development. Education is a great way to grow, learn, and change. Aside from education, you can identify specific things about yourself that you would like to improve and make a plan to address that. If you are unhappy with your health, you can commit to a diet and exercise plan. If you would like to be a better writer, you can commit to journaling a little bit every morning. If you want to get a good job, look up all of the requirements for a job you might want and start working on checking off the list. Personal development can take time, but it is an important step towards reaching your full potential. What area are you working on improving right now? If you don’t have an answer to that, take some time today and come up with a plan to begin your personal development journey.

• Bria

Reputation Counts!

This week we are talking about a really important topic: Reputation counts. When I discussed this topic with the elementary students, the main thing that we kept coming back to is the idea that a reputation, whether good or bad, will follow you. This is the really significant thing about reputations: it takes time to build a reputation, and it takes time to change a reputation once it is established. Some of the kids thought of this idea of reputation following you as ominous or scary. While I don’t want them to be anxious, I’m glad in a way that they understand that a bad reputation can follow you. 

I want all of our kids to establish a good reputation because ultimately I believe that does a lot to help them access great opportunities in their futures. To illustrate the point of reputations, I asked the kids to circle up by grades. Then I said things like, “Point to someone in your grade who is a great artist,” or, “Point to someone who is a hard worker.” Inevitably what I knew would happen, and what did happen, is that certain people would immediately disagree with their classmates’ judgements and try to convince them that they themselves are actually the fastest in the class. 

This brought us to an important lesson about reputation. Your reputation is not based on what you tell people to think about you. It is what other people observe or hear from other individuals about you. This was a hard concept for some of the kids to wrap their heads around - especially our little ones. They believed that since it was true in their heads that they were the funniest person in their class, everyone else obviously believed that, too. In practice, that was simply not the case. There were some hurt feelings, but ultimately we were able to discuss that opinion is a significant contributing factor to what other people believe about you. We talked about how even if someone doesn’t believe that you are the best artist in the class, you can still be a good artist. Someone’s opinion of you doesn’t ultimately mean that that is the truth about you. Furthermore, if it is important to you that they believe that you are a good artist, you still have opportunities to convince them of such. 

The biggest thing that I wanted the students to take away from this discussion is that a bad reputation is not a death sentence to your friendships and opportunities. Rather, it is a hurdle to overcome. If a child is in a position in which he currently has a bad reputation, there is still time to change that reputation. He just has to work at it. For other children who enjoy a good reputation, we talked about how important it is to maintain it. Fortunately, once a good reputation is established, people are usually granted a few mistakes because their reputation says that that behavior was out of character for them. 

That is the sweet spot in which you want to find yourself. As students go throughout school, if they have a good reputation, people will generally be more forgiving when mistakes occur. Similarly, in an internship or a job, a good reputation can give someone the benefit of the doubt when their decisions or actions come into question. But even better than this, having a good reputation allows teachers, bosses, or people in a position of power over you to envision future success and allow you opportunities that someone else who lacks your reputation might not be granted. If you have a reputation of being punctual, hardworking, and reliable, people will be more willing to trust you with increased responsibility. At some point, those with good reputations will start to steadily rise above those without that reputation. 

If you are looking at your current situation and you cannot confidently say that you have a good reputation, it is time to start working on that. Think of ways to prove to the people in your life that you are responsible, kind, and hardworking. As a student, the easiest way to do this with your teachers is to always put in your full effort to assignments and turn them in on time. If you are someone who struggles with grammar, go the extra mile and have a trusted individual proofread your work for you before you turn it in. If you are someone who is frequently late to class, start waking up ten minutes earlier and really make an effort to get to school on time. These efforts will not go unnoticed. Slowly, you will start to prove to people that you are deserving of a good reputation, and as we mentioned earlier, that reputation will stick with you. 

-        Bria

A lot of times we only think about gratitude around the holidays. Outside of Thanksgiving and other days throughout the year that push us to be thankful for something/someone specific, we don’t often focus on gratitude. Similarly times of tragedy can give us a forced perspective that makes us thankful that we aren’t experiencing hardships, disease, poverty, war, etc. For most people, gratitude is not something that comes naturally, there has to be something that instigates the feeling of gratitude for us. Gratitude is not instinctual, but there are benefits to developing an attitude of gratitude that can affect other areas of your life and your leadership practices. 

A study conducted at UC Davis followed thirty participants. Initially, the researchers worked from a larger population asking people to journal a week of their daily activities. In the end, they selected ten participants that wrote about their week with an emphasis on the inconveniences, ten who wrote overall neutral/factual accounts of their week, and ten who wrote about their week with an emphasis on gratitude. They followed these thirty participants for ten weeks observing their daily routines. The researchers reported that the ten who wrote with gratitude exercised more, visited doctors/physicians less, and generally presented as more positive on average than the other two test groups. 

A study this small cannot certainly attribute a cause and effect of acting with gratitude, but I don’t believe that the results were completely random. There is a lot to be said about the way we talk to ourselves. I have said it before, our brains are easy to trick into feeling the way we want them to feel, it just takes a little practice. This is the same reason that when we force ourselves to smile for extended periods of time, we actually begin to feel happier. Similarly, if we practice talking about the things around us through the lens of gratitude or at least not through a lens of defeat, we can start to reshape how we view the world around us. 

Relating this to leadership, this is one of those lessons that reinforces the idea that people like to work for happy, confident, and positive people. As a leader, you have a ton of influence on how those around you handle adversity. If a problem arises and you start in with a negative defeated attitude, those around you will follow your lead and take on the same demeanor. If you approach the situation with positivity and a “can do” attitude (even if you aren’t sure you can fix it) it will give those around you more hope for fixing the situation and moving on. Going into April there are not a lot of planned gratitude events on the horizon. It is now your responsibility to make sure you are practicing gratitude. Like many other things we discuss, it is an active practice. Make a plan, change your attitude, and incorporate gratitude into the way you think about the day ahead of you.

-        Bria

As a leader, one of the best things you can do is take care of your health. Too often in our society stress and unhealthy behaviors are glorified as a sign that someone is working hard. We look at someone who gets little sleep and skips lunch because they are too busy as a go-getter and a hard worker. Unfortunately, this behavior is rewarded and glamorized and it can be very dangerous in the long term.

I have always worked jobs that go beyond the traditional “9:00-5:00.” Most recently I worked at a place that completely glamorized and idolized working overtime. I remember one time listening to a coworker practically brag that she worked so hard that she actually gave herself an ulcer. The worst part was that everyone else treated that like a badge of honor. Our society rewards “hustling” and calls people who work 15 hours a day “girl bosses.” While it’s great to encourage a hard work ethic, ultimately this promotes dangerous and unhealthy behavior.

The best thing you can do to be as successful as possible is to stay healthy. Your physical health is vital to your performance at work. If you don’t take care of yourself in the short term, you may have serious long term effects. Getting a good night’s sleep is one of the best ways to take care of yourself. Insufficient amounts of sleep can make you groggy and can decrease brain functioning and reaction time. In the long term, lack of sleep can have more serious effects on memory and cognitive functioning and can even lead to an earlier death. Similarly, stress can have serious negative side effects like weight gain, hair loss, and migraines. 

Physical health is not the only type of health that you need to worry about. Mental health is equally if not more important than physical health. Depression and anxiety can creep up on you when steps are not taken to avoid these issues. Once depression sets in it can be all consuming and it can greatly impact your ability to carry out even small, everyday tasks. Unchecked mental health issues can completely derail your life and destroy your productivity. It’s amazing what you can do when you aren’t struggling with these issues.

To be a great leader, you need to be the best version of yourself. You cannot do that if you are struggling with health problems or dealing with mental health issues. Part of doing your job well is taking care of yourself. If you fail to do this, the ramifications can be significant. Start making healthy choices now. Drink water, exercise, sleep, cook healthy meals, and take the time to process your emotions rather than bottling them up inside. These steps are a great start to really take control of your own health. You don’t have to start doing all of these things at once-it won’t stick if you try to do too much too fast. But start small and slowly integrate little healthy habits into your everyday routine. This is the best way to be a great leader and healthy, happy person.

-        Bria

Optimism is a hard topic to discuss when we are going on year three of a global pandemic. The world is kind of a scary place right now, and our kids are definitely aware of that. It is easy for a student to look at the world around him and think that the future is bleak. When they get discouraged, it can be a domino effect that leads to apathy and a lack of motivation. But it is in times like these that optimism matters the most. 

When you get into a routine of being pessimistic, you are inviting more negativity into your life. Attitude is something that I believe to be contagious. So, when you are generally negative to the people around you, they will likely start to be negative back to you. Negativity building on negativity can cause a spiral that is very hard to get out of. The good news is that the same thing can be said for positivity. If you are genuinely positive to the people around you, even if they are mostly negative, they won’t be able to help but give some of that positivity back to you. People like to be around positive people. While commiserating about things with friends or colleagues might bring you together, relationships built on a foundation of negativity or mutual hatred of another thing or person are bound to fizzle out eventually. 

The hardest part about being optimistic if you are generally a pessimistic person is just starting to think positively. If your brain is in the routine of producing negative thoughts, it is difficult to start thinking positively. There is a popular life coach online who addresses this challenge through the idea of negative self-talk. If I lost you at life coach, this person is a Harvard law school graduate and very acclaimed in her career, so it’s not your run-of-the-mill life coach working out of a strip mall. She recognizes that when you are used to having negative thoughts about yourself, it is pretty near impossible to jump straight to positive thoughts about yourself. While you could start by saying that you are dumb, and then convince yourself to say that you are smart, that doesn’t make you automatically believe that you are smart. 

In her coaching, she has coined the idea of neutral thoughts as a stepping-stone to positive thoughts. For example, if her client starts by saying, “I have a disgusting body,” she cannot expect this person to jump immediately to, “I have a beautiful body.” Instead, she uses an intermediate neutral phrase like, “I have a human body.” This might sound silly, but it can help your brain start to transition from thinking your body is disgusting to acknowledging that it is human and normal. Then when you go to start the next step of believing your body is beautiful, you aren’t starting from believing it is disgusting, but just from believing it is normal. That is a much easier jump to make. It all still takes time and dedication, but there is a way to train a negative brain to be more positive. 

I believe that this same principle can be applied to becoming more optimistic. If you throw yourself into it and just start declaring positive statements and completely turn your personality around overnight, it will not come off as genuine and ultimately your brain is likely still negating everything you are saying out loud inside your head. However, if you start simple by doing something like recognizing when you are having a negative thought and then turning it into a neutral or even positive thought, eventually you will start having less and less negative thoughts. Any easy way to do this is when you have a thought like, “this is a bad day.” Instead stop and think about it and reframe it to say, “I have had worse days, and I overcame them. This could still be a good day.” Your brain is easy to manipulate - when you tell it stuff, especially when it is repetitive, it starts to believe it. It’s the same reason why smiling when you are upset can actually trick your brain into releasing dopamine and actually making you happier. To your brain, you are using all the muscles to smile, so you must be happy - there’s no way you are just holding your mouth like that. There are a lot of little tricks like this that can help you overcome negativity. 

I didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking about why you need optimism for your career. But I believe it is fairly obvious. People like happy people. They want to be led by people who inspire them and encourage them. Having a good personality and being optimistic can carry you far in your career. It could be the extra bonus that edges out your competition and earns you a promotion or opportunity. Additionally, once you become the leader, you will more likely retain your employees for a long time if you are positive and optimistic. You spend a lot of time with your coworkers and colleagues. One negative person can really ruin the whole experience for everyone involved. Be the reason that someone else keeps his job for a long time rather than the reason he is looking for other opportunities. 

-        Bria

This week we addressed a topic that isn’t often talked about but is typically expected of one to possess. There are certain levels of etiquette expected in everything that we do. Whether it is what we say, how we act, how we dress, or how we address others, these skills and mannerisms are important. 

Etiquette isn’t something that people typically come by naturally. It is one of those skills that you have to learn. If you don’t learn it from being taught, you might learn it when you make a mistake. Learning from correction is a valid way to develop a skill, but it is not a fun way to gain understanding. To save your child the pain and embarrassment of learning from failing, teach him the importance of etiquette at a young age.

There are small easy ways for children to demonstrate good etiquette. One is simply saying thank you when someone does something for them. So many children no longer say thank you when you hold a door for them or make them lunch or give them something. This used to be second nature behavior. This is a great place to start with teaching your children etiquette. 

Another etiquette skill that parents should practice with their kids is table manners. While it might seem like people don’t care as much about table manners as they once did, your child might take on a job that includes business lunches or dinners. In these instances, table manners can be the difference between closing a deal or not or getting a promotion or not. Good table manners can make someone stand out in situations like these and appear competent and poised. These attributes instill confidence in others about working with you. 

Etiquette is extremely important in corporate settings. There are so many unspoken rules of how/when to email, who you can and cannot address, when to be actionable and when to hold back, etc. It is crucial that you begin etiquette training now so that when your children are faced with these instances, they already have an idea of how to face them. If you do not teach your children to be conscientious of others, they will have a much harder time learning how to do it later in life. Or even worse, they may never learn to do it. 

Start small but start now with etiquette training. Teach your kids to be polite and gracious and people will be drawn to them. In this day and age, so many people are doing the bare minimum to get by. Training your children in etiquette will help them stand out and rise above their peers. If you want to give your child the upper hand, teach him etiquette. 

                                                                                                                        Bria

Self-Discipline Counts!

Parents, I don’t know if you have noticed this, but there seems to be an intense energy amongst the students this month. It’s like they are holding this giant ball of energy just beneath their skin that is ready to burst out and cause chaos. This happens every year around this time. They are just coming off a long break, and they are inside more than semester one due to bad weather. This is also a time of year where there are lots of competitions, but not as many events and parties as the beginning or end of the year. For us, it feels worse this year. But the truth is there are just more students, and chaos thrives with big numbers. 

So how do we proceed safely without taking all of the fun out of everything? Well, step one starts here: we give the students the tools they need to learn some self-control. A lot of these issues are rooted in a lack of impulse control. Kids do not typically come by self-control naturally. It is something that must be learned. It’s not a ton of fun for kids to learn self-control, so how do you get them to sit down and actually listen? You don’t. If you thought the answer to teaching self-control was to lecture them, you are wasting your time. You might think that you have their attention, but really they are in their heads trying to think of anything else and count down the minutes until they can get out of this conversation. 

We started with games. We played games that included people in the middle of a circle being able to touch things like balloons or marbles while the people comprising the circle weren’t allowed to touch them for any reason. Kids want to hit a balloon that is coming at them. That is a natural inclination. But giving them a tangible reason to break that habit is a great demonstration in self-control. It makes them experience the impulsive behavior of wanting to hit that balloon or scoop up that marble, realize that they are having that desire, and then have to manually tell themselves not to do it. For those who couldn’t handle the impulse, they didn’t get yelled at; they were simply out of the game. It wasn’t completely a cakewalk for those in the middle either. At some point, restrictions were added, like don’t touch the blue balloons. 

Games of this nature work well because it puts the child in control of whether or not he will manage his impulses and stay in the game. Those who got out weren’t in trouble, but they also didn’t get to play the game anymore. This is a very effective strategy for children who are competitive by nature. Games are a great way to engage children in learning lessons, but life cannot be all about games. To teach self-control, you need to focus on the part of the game that worked well. There were very clear expectations of what should/shouldn’t be done, and the child was in control as to whether or not he would succeed in the situation. 

Gifted kids like to feel like they are a part of decision making. If you can reframe some things at home so that they can make a choice with their behavior as to whether they get to do something or not, you are empowering your child to manage himself better. For example, I know a lot of parents who have some kind of condition that must be met before screen time can occur in the evenings. This might be chores or homework. Some even require physical activity before gaming. In that instance, it puts the power in the child’s hands to become disciplined and do what is expected of him to get what he wants. Similarly at school, we have reading trophies in the elementary for children who read 100 books in a school year. The children who do not meet that goal are not admonished, and there is no impact on their grades. They just don’t get a trophy at the awards ceremony. For those who don’t get the trophy, oftentimes one year of seeing many of their classmates get called upon to receive an award is enough for them to get disciplined and read more the following year. 

These “cause and effect” type lessons have a great impact on developing self-control strategies. It teaches kids that there are consequences and rewards in life based on your actions. The earlier they can learn this lesson, the better. We are doing our best to teach them these strategies at school, but they need them at home as well. It’s not fun to have self-control, so children are not naturally interested in learning self-control. However, without self-control, they will struggle in their future higher education and professional lives. The world does not reward adults without self-control. Start giving your child these tools now to have a better future.  

                                                                                                                        -Bria

This week we talked about the importance of passion in everything one does. As a leader, it is really important to be passionate about your work. People who you manage can tell when your heart isn’t in it. That feeling will instill negative emotions that will impact the entire work environment. As a leader you have a responsibility to set the tone for everyone around you. It is very hard to set a positive tone when you are not passionate about what you are doing. 

I work a lot with the upperclassmen in our school. What I have witnessed is that students nowadays are no longer disillusioned by the idea that if you get into a good school and work hard, you will get a good job and have a good life. The generations above them had the guiding light of the white picket fence and the American Dream to path their futures for them. However, Gen Z has seen too many instances of this not working out for people to blindly walk towards that future. A lot of kids get depressed because they have seen a lot of failure in the world, and it is hard to get hope when you haven’t seen a lot of success and happiness. 

It makes sense that kids would process this information and lose hope, but what I believe is that these kids don’t understand the freedom this perspective has given them. If teens and young adults can get past the idea that failure is inevitable, they can see that this worldview is really a gift. They don’t have to take on a career that they won’t be happy with in pursuit of success. They are more able to pursue something about which they are passionate. This is something that I try to remind the students of when they are looking at potential career paths. Money is not everything; you need to do something that will bring you happiness. I believe the best thing you can do to pursue happiness is to do something about which you are passionate. 

So, how do you find your passions? If you don’t already know what you are passionate about, it can feel intimidating to try to discover your passions. For students, I think two great ways to discover passions is to volunteer and try out new hobbies/extracurriculars. Both of these things open you up to new experiences and let you explore sides of yourself that you might not know exist. One of the best things I think students can do while they are in school is just try a bunch of different things. This will give them a better idea of what they do and do not like. All of this information will help them better figure out what they want to do with their lives. If your child feels confused about his future, talk to him about signing up for some clubs and activities. These experiences will help him narrow down the ideas.

-        Bria

Every Choice Counts!

This week we are talking about choices. Sometimes we have topics that are hard to explain to our younger students. This is not one of them. Kids learn even before they start school that the choices they make have consequences or rewards. When they make a mess and don’t clean it up, their parents get angry at them, but when they finish all of their vegetables at dinner, they get dessert. It’s not always that simple, but a lot of times it is easy to prove how the choices we make have direct positive or negative outcomes.

As we get older, the choices we make might not have immediate consequences or rewards, but rather a combination of choices lead to eventual rewards or punishments. For instance, if you are someone who got in trouble a lot as a teenager, maybe you don’t see immediate consequences beyond your parents being disappointed in you. As a young adult you might take jobs that don’t care that you have a charge for underage drinking or trespassing on your record. But as you grow in your career, you might want to take the next step and pursue a better job. At some point, if you don’t take the necessary steps to expunge that record, it will catch up with you. 

Similarly, a lot of people find themselves fresh out of college without a job. Gone are the days of just getting your degree and everything will fall into place. Even if you end up in a job that doesn’t require the degree you are still paying off, eventually that choice might pay off. Maybe you didn’t need the degree to get the job, but you do need a degree to advance in the company. In a couple years’ time, your coworkers without a degree might be overlooked for a promotion that you receive. 

It’s hard to tell whether or not your choices will have a big reward or punishment, or if the outcome will be neutral. Rather than playing your life like a slot machine, waiting for that big payout, make strategic choices that will have benefits even if you don’t receive the windfall reward you were hoping for. If you live your life making choices that put good into the world and make you a better person, you are going to have a good life. If you make selfish choices that only benefit your own interests, you might have rewards like money, but I don’t believe you will be truly happy. 

I encourage you to start viewing your day as a series of choices. Empower yourself to create a good day. Starting in the morning, you have a choice to wake up with your alarm and have enough time to get ready in the morning, or snooze multiple times and feel rushed. You have a choice as to what food you eat each day. Should you get fast food which makes you temporarily happy but can have other negative effects, or should you choose a meal that properly fuels your body to face the day. You have the power to give yourself a good day; it just depends on the choices you make. Start today making choices that lead to a good day.

-        Bria

On Friday I asked the elementary students to define excellence. I received many vague and complicated answers… some that fit the bill and others that were quite confusing. Then I heard a simple yet remarkable answer from one of our 2nd graders. They said, “Excellent is better than great.” It’s a simple definition, but it really wraps it up nicely. Excellence is better than great.

So how do we achieve excellence? This is difficult because even with our simplified definition, excellence is subjective. To be able to follow that definition, we would have to all agree on a universal standard of greatness. That is not going to happen. But we can look at a specific scenario and determine what those involved would consider excellent. For instance, many of my students set goals to get straight A’s this quarter. In that instance it is not hard to determine what excellence looks like. It would be excellent for them to meet their goals. Furthermore, in a classroom setting, you can get to know a specific teacher’s expectations and learn what they consider excellent. 

In many situations, you can generally achieve excellence by exceeding other’s expectations. If your boss asks you to try to bring in a few additional customers this month and you double your sales from last month, that would be perceived as excellent. If your teacher asks you to write a two-page essay, and you give them a two-page essay written at a college level, they will consider that to be excellent. If your parents ask you to clean your room while they are out, and you decide to clean your room, the living room, and the kitchen, they might ask whose child you are, but they will also consider that to be excellent. We live in a world that is competitive. To be the best and get the best opportunities in life, you cannot settle for good or sometimes even great. To get noticed, you need to exceed expectations. 

It is not sustainable to try to exceed what is expected of you in all areas of your life. You will burn out. Rather you should pick a few key areas and do your best to excel there. Some things are okay to be done at a good/great level or even just a satisfactory level. You cannot be excellent at everything; you do not have enough time or energy. If you are a planner, you really compartmentalize your life into buckets of what is acceptable to survive. Maybe you decide that you really want to excel in your career. This means that other things like hobbies and interests might have to be done at a good or satisfactory level. That’s okay. Once you master excelling in one area, it will become easier to maintain, and you can focus on other areas. For instance, education is a big part of excelling in a career. While you are pursuing a degree, it might feel all-consuming, and you might have to let other areas of your life fall back to acceptable or passable to accommodate the additional effort needed to excel at school. But school is temporary, there will come a day when that is not a part of what allows you to excel at work, and then that time and effort can be redistributed. 

At the end of the day, the biggest thing that will allow us to excel is motivation. If you are having trouble motivating yourself to excel, you might need to take another look at your goals. If you find that this activity is not contributing to your overall goals, then you might better understand why you lack motivation. From there you can determine what defines success for you in that instance. If the activity in question is a mandatory activity that you deem a waste of time and a non-contributor to your goals, then you can decide that your measure of success for that activity is simply completing it. Don’t waste your energy excelling on things that do not contribute to your dreams. Check the box, complete the task, and put your energy into excelling where you need to. 

-        Bria

Excellence Counts! Part I

Excellence is something that is hard to measure in yourself but easy to recognize in others. As teachers, we are looking for excellence in the students with whom we work. It is easy to spot excellence because it differentiates people from those around them. When I look at the students at our school, I see excellence in performing arts and also academics, among other areas. We have talented artists, skilled performers, and very smart individuals that we work with every day.

The thing that is hard for me is to see how many of our students cannot see the excellence inside of them. We have so many students who suffer from negative self-talk and low self-esteem. This keeps them from understanding their own value. We have junior high students with a PSAT score that high school students would envy who truly believe that they are stupid. We have students who think no one will ever want to date them because of specific physical attributes they possess. There are many talented kids in our school who are afraid to put their work out there for fear or ridicule or persecution. When a child has the potential for excellence but a negative self-view gets in the way, he may never achieve his full excellence. 

This is not a problem that is unique to our school. All around the world, children are suffering from these same things. So, what can we do about it? One of the most important things that you can do is teach your child media competency. This means that you are arming your child with the necessary information and abilities to interact with the media that exists all around him. Our kids experience constant advertisements and promotional materials that are disguised as content. They are constantly faced with people who exhibit society’s beauty ideals and are forced to realize how they don’t stack up. Then they are subsequently advertised products and regimens that can make them meet that impossible standard. 

Similarly, our kids are being overexposed to “influencer culture.” They see online creators who made it big by pranking people or making funny videos. They see these people seemingly become rich by doing things that anyone can do. It gives them a skewed view of what it takes to be excellent in our society. Because they are so inundated with this kind of content, it’s hard for them to see what’s really going on. They don’t see the millions of people who try to become online content creators and never gain the traction of these few famous influencers. Because they don’t see that side of it, it gives them an idea that it is easy to make it big on Youtube or other streaming platforms. 

These are only two examples of how content can suppress your child’s view of his own excellence or skew his idea of how to achieve excellence. There are countless other ways this is occurring. The answer is not to block your child from all media usage. Parents have tried this and failed constantly. Your children are very good at finding ways around parental blocks, and if you haven’t heard of a “finsta,” or fake Instagram (a secondary account under a different name where your child posts the things that they don’t want you to see), you are falling behind and your child probably has one. You cannot keep up with them; if they want to find a way onto social media, they are going to do it. 

Instead, talk to your children openly about things they cannot understand online. It is proven by science that young children’s brains are not developed enough to recognize when they are being advertised to. Help them become media literate. Talk about society’s beauty standards and how there cannot be only one definition of beauty. Ask your child what he wants to be when he grows up. If his answer is a Youtuber or Tiktoker, unpack what that actually looks like with him. Your child is not going to be able to escape the media around him. Even without a phone, he can come to school and see it on other people’s phones. In a modern context, you as a parent have a new added responsibility to train your child in media literacy. If this scares you, start doing your research. Help your child become excellent by training him in this skill. 

-        Bria

Common sense is a difficult topic because it is so subjective. Who decides what is common sense? There are so many different experiences and backgrounds and ways to grow up that it is impossible to truly have “common” sense. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to teach common sense because it does mean something else to each individual person. However, I do believe that we can teach what most people actually mean when they reference common sense.

Traditionally, common sense refers to things everyone should know. This would be things like America’s first President, or the value of coin money. It is supposed to be the things that those around you should know already. This is not the way in which most people refer to common sense. When they say that someone has no common sense, they don’t mean that that person isn’t aware of WWII. They generally mean that that person has done something dumb, and they should have known better and avoided that action.  

When many people talk about a lack of common sense, what they are really missing is social awareness. Think about the last time you thought that someone else lacked common sense. Likely the situation revolves around them saying something they shouldn’t have said or doing something they shouldn’t have done. It could also be that they didn’t say or do something that you think they should have. For those of us who were raised to help out, it is typical that when we are at someone else’s house for dinner, we offer to help in preparation or at the least with the cleanup. In a situation in which there are several guests present and the host is visibility overwhelmed, those people failing to pitch in or offer help could be perceived as having a lack of common sense. What is really going on is that those people lack social awareness. They are too busy worrying about themselves that they don’t even see that the host might need help.

Social awareness is really important because when someone acts without it, he can leave a bad taste in someone else’s mouth without even knowing it. In the workplace, young employees can struggle with this the most. Because they have never worked in an office setting, they can end up doing things that older employees would consider social faux pas. Typically, these actions are dealt with in one of three ways: a kind co-worker pulls you aside and talks to you, a rude coworker or superior scolds the behavior, or no one addresses it but it contributes poorly to your reputation. Unfortunately for most, the “kind co-worker” scenario is kind of rare and the other two solutions happen much more frequently. 

Too many of these social faux pas can get in the way of promotions and opportunities. So how do we help prevent these situations? The answer is gentle correction in adolescence. No one is born knowing exactly how to navigate the world around him. There will be lots of mistakes that are made. As parents and teachers, there is a careful balance in correcting and overcorrecting. The biggest mistake that adults make when correcting children is that they make the child feel small or unintelligent for making the mistake. If you establish a relationship with your child in which you can give him helpful feedback in a way that is encouraging and meant to be helpful, you can continue to correct things without harming their self-esteem. This is a great balance. Finding this balance with your child will help him be more successful in his future. 

                                                                                          Bria

We are coming up on a time of the year in which we reflect on what we are thankful for in our lives. It’s a time to look around us and see the blessings we experience every day. One thing we are not necessarily supposed to focus on is recognition for ourselves, but we can all agree it feels nice to be recognized. Whether you are hosting Thanksgiving or just bringing the Sam’s club pecan pie, it feels good when people acknowledge your efforts.

Recognition and rewards are especially important for children, but adults appreciate them, too. As a child grows up, he will be asked to do many things that he does not want to do. Going to the doctor’s office, attending school and working hard, or even just getting up and getting dressed in the morning, can feel like such a chore. It’s hard for kids to understand why it’s important to do these things. To them, it just seems like parents and teachers are trying to torture them. Before kids find their own motivation to be successful, they need something else to push them towards success.

As adults, there are really two main options for motivating children. Rewards or punishments. While punishments can be necessary in certain situations, using rewards can be a much more positive experience and can help train motivation with positive reinforcement. While we don’t encourage bribing or spoiling your child, rewards are a big part of our behavioral system at LAAS. Even in the upper end, groups work extra hard to have the most points at the end of the quarter so they get to have a free lunch together. In the lower end, kids compete to go to Braum’s. On an individual basis we have scholar dollars and credit score points that give students access to certain privileges. These are easy ways to get kids motivated to take on leadership positions, get involved in activities, and behave well. 

At home, things like a chore chart with associated benefits or rewards can work very well. We have seen success with parents who trade chores for screen time. You can do a lot of different things to reward good behavior. While it’s great to reward as training/motivating, it’s also important to recognize successful and positive traits. When your child does something great, give him the recognition he deserves. We don’t need to raise another generation that gets participation trophies, but when your child achieves something that took effort, recognize him.

There is a delicate balance between praising and rewarding your child and spoiling him. Many parents have crossed the line and have given their children too much power in the relationship. This is not healthy. But the other end of the spectrum where children do not get enough rewards or recognition is just as bad. You need to find a healthy amount of rewards and recognition to encourage growth and development of personal motivation.

-        Bria

Innovation is a concept that is extremely important, but also very hard to teach. It is a word that kids hear but do not really understand what it means. When you talk to a child about innovation, an easier way for them to digest that concept is to talk about big, creative, important ideas. At its core, innovation is an out-of-the-box idea that has the potential to bring about a big change. Innovation is the type of word that can easily go over the head of a child, but ideas are something with which children are very familiar. 

A big part of innovating is brainstorming. Kids are way better at brainstorming than adults because adults have different things holding them back. While an adult might have a game- changing, crazy idea that could really shake things up at his work, he might be fearful of voicing it because of how others might react. The fear of rejection or not being good enough can keep adults from pitching the kind of zany idea that might be just what that company needs. Kids on the other hand will say the crazy idea. They might even shout it. I’m not necessarily talking about teenagers; they have already felt rejection and embarrassment, unfortunately. But most little kids have not yet experienced this and are unafraid to say whatever wild thing pops into their heads. This is a superpower. 

If you ask kids about the major problems we face in society, they will give you some dumb answers. But if you keep listening, sometimes they can surprise you with how insightful they actually are. There is something to be said about not knowing the things that limit us.  If you approach a problem with the full history of what has been attempted to solve it, you will immediately write off those things as failures. In reality, some of those things could have worked with the right people or with some minor changes. When kids approach a problem, they don’t know all of the attempted solutions or other constraints like budget or bureaucracy. They can just speak on what they think would actually work. This is a good place to start brainstorming.  If you start by acknowledging all of the past failures, you are putting yourself in a headspace to assume that the problem cannot be fixed. 

I’m not saying that we should put elementary-aged children in charge of solving our world’s biggest problems, but I am saying that we can learn from them. We brainstorm to solve problems or come up with new ideas. If we went into a brainstorming session with a positive outlook and no fear of saying what we really think, it would be way more efficient. There would be a potential to actually get things done. Right now we are too afraid of being shot down, stepping on other people’s toes, or being told our ideas aren’t realistic. We need to learn from kids that sometimes the crazy idea is the one that might just work. Elon Musk famously said, “Good ideas are crazy, until they’re not.” Think what you will about him personally, but that is a man who has pitched some crazy ideas that have paid off in a major way for him. Today is your day to tell someone your crazy idea.

-        Bria

Goals Count!

I talk about goals a lot in my pieces, so when I found out that the topic was goal related, I thought, “What could I possibly have left to say about goals?” To be honest, all week I had nothing. It wasn’t until the morning assembly with the elementary students on Friday morning that something came to me. That something came in the form of a very sweet pre-k boy. 

We were discussing goals, and at the end of the discussion, I called on about ten people to tell us a goal that they had set for themselves. I heard everything from, “I want to be the fastest person in the whole elementary school,” to, “I want to go to MIT.” There were some really great goals in the room. The one that struck me was not one of the goals mentioned in the assembly. It was a goal that a child brought to me as I was packing up to leave. He said, “Excuse me, I have a goal, too. My goal is that everyone will be kind to each other.” That kind of statement, when delivered with the purest of intentions from a pre-k student, just hits you in the deepest parts of your heart. All the other kids talked about goals that would bring personal success or fame, and all he wanted was for people to be nice. 

This goal really made me think. While other goals in the room had a ton of merit and ambition, they lacked the sincerity that this goal embodied. The other goals reflected what our society tells our children. You have to be the best, you have to want the best, and you have to be better than those around you. Because that is the type of messaging these children hear constantly, they all felt the need to produce goals that would make adults in the room say, “Wow!” I produced those responses for the child who wanted to get into Harvard, and the child that wanted to cure cancer, but the child that just wanted people to be kind stopped me in my tracks. Who is telling that child to want that? It’s certainly not society. We live in a system that does not reward kindness. It rewards aggression and competitiveness and stepping on others to get ahead. So where did he come up with this? I believe that came from teachings from his parents. 

Parents, think about the kind of messaging you are sending to your children. Is your child the type who wants to be the fastest/smartest/coolest/most powerful, or is your child the one who wants to be kind? It makes a difference. I think it is incredibly important to have goals for success. Without them, you can find yourself directionless. But when did we determine that goals had to either come at the expense of someone else or be so difficult that we will likely never meet them? 

The way our children look at goals is not realistic. It’s fine to have long-term goals, but it’s the short attainable goals that give us the strength to keep pushing on. For instance, if your elementary-aged child’s goal is to go to an Ivy League school, his more immediate goal should be to get straight A’s this year. Then he can have a goal to be inducted into the Honor Society in middle school. In high school, his goal might be to become a National Merit Scholar. Finally, senior year, his goal should be to graduate as Valedictorian. These incremental goals keep your child on track and help him to know that he is moving in the right direction. Without these steps along the way, he might lose sight of the overall goal. 

As parents, it’s your responsibility to help your child reach the “Go to Harvard,” goals, but also remember that it’s important for him to have “be kind” type goals as well. You can achieve great things in our world while still being a great person. The teachers in your child’s life will do all that they can to help your child be successful, but you are the one that is there from the beginning and with them as they grow. If you have read this whole thing and you don’t immediately know of a goal your child has set for himself, today is the day to ask. His answer might surprise you.

                                                                        -Bria

Ethics Count!

Something that I stress heavily in my senior capstone class is the importance of ethics. We look at this through the lens of business ethics. That’s a little different than personal ethics. But there are elements that ring true for both. When looking at a business ethics scenario, there are three main questions that need to be answered to determine if a situation is ethical or unethical. The first is, “Is the action illegal?” That feels pretty obvious, but it is a good place to start. Then we ask, “Is the action against company or professional standards?” That helps narrow it down a bit. Lastly, we ask, “Who is affected by the action and how?” This is where it gets interesting. 

We can look at the first two questions and pretty obviously know whether or not something is illegal or against company standards. If we don’t know off the top of our heads, a quick Google search or a skim through the employee handbook can provide you with a definitive answer. The tricky part is always question three. This part is harder because it causes you to think seriously about who could be affected by your actions. When I teach this concept in class, we go through several scenarios and look at these three questions to determine if the situation is unethical. It’s always interesting to see how the students answer question three. 

When you put your own ethical dilemmas through this formal, question three is the one that will make you see the situation for what it really is. Take, for instance, your ethical dilemma is that you are hungry, and you see that someone else has a hot pocket in the freezer. If you are considering eating it, you have a clear answer as to what you should do by going through these questions. If you even make it to question three without convincing yourself it is wrong, at that point you will be forced to think of that hungry student or coworker who will miss out on lunch because of your selfishness. 

In our society people do a lot of unethical things, and sometimes they are even rewarded for it. You can easily put yourself in a place in which you are complacent with making bad decisions and having poor ethics by ignoring these three questions. In the case of the hot pocket, many people would not think twice about taking it. They would respond to their hunger by eating that hot pocket. Some might look over their shoulder to make sure no one is watching, but many never even get to the point where they think about who is affected by their actions. 

Personal ethics are so important because they shape how other people feel about you and your reputation. You might get away with some unethical decisions here and there, but a person with poor ethics will be found out. People don’t trust people with poor ethics. They might reward those people with attention, but in the back of their heads, they know that that person would turn on them in a heartbeat if it benefitted their interests. That is not a good relationship. When you are an ethical leader, you can inspire your employees to do great things. Ethical leaders grow more sustainable companies because people actually want to work for them. There are so many benefits to maintaining good ethics. Next time you find yourself in an ethical dilemma, start using those three questions to guide you. Before you know it, it will become second nature.

-        Bria

We often talk about important skills for students to develop on an individual basis, but one of the most valuable skills is being able to work well with others. There are very few jobs available that do not require some level of teamwork. Gifted people do not naturally like working in teams. We want to make sure the job is done right, and we believe that that can only happen if we do the job completely. It’s not comfortable to give up complete control, and it is difficult to trust other people to get the job done. This is a hard skill to learn ,and many students will fight us on the necessity of learning it.

We have groups for all ages in our school. We call these groups “packs.” In a pack, students compete in academic, athletic, and skill-based challenges. They work together on a quarterly basis to receive a prize for earning the most points. This is a really important part of our students’ education. It gives them a low stakes environment in which they can learn how to work with others. These packs range in ages, so students are working with older and younger kids, and they are learning how to interact in a group. 

Some kids do very well in the packs, and some are resistant to relying on others. Many students display leadership traits while working in these groups as well. However a student behaves in the group tells us as the teachers a lot about them. We notice the ones who are encouraging and who participate. We also see the ones who don’t put any effort in. We see the ones who only put in effort in the final hour before a deadline. All of these behaviors tell us something about the student. 

While the stakes are lower for working well in a team in elementary school, the stakes get higher as children enter middle and high school. During these years they might play team sports, act in a play, or participate in a group project. All of these activities require teamwork, and for the first time, there are stakes attached. Not working well with your volleyball team can cost you a win or a chance at advancing to regionals. Not working well with your cast can make a play a flop. Being a bad team player on a group project can result in a low grade. These are all consequences that could have been avoided if one had taken the time to learn to work with a team.

As teens move towards adulthood, being a bad team player could cost a job, promotion, or opportunity. It might keep one from even being hired in the first place, unless he is good at hiding it. People don’t like to hire those who don’t work well in a team. It’s not productive or efficient for the company, and if someone is blocking profit, he is replaceable. Don’t let this happen to you. It’s so easy to learn how to work together. If you are typically a loner, join a club or team. Failing to develop this skill means that you are falling behind. You don’t have to love working with a team; you just have to be able to do it. Once you start working well with a team, it gets easier, and the longer you work with a specific team, the more you can trust them to help you get the job done. More hands make less work. Embrace working with others and start developing this skill now.

                                                                        Bria

Vision Counts!

I talk a lot about goal setting in these leadership lessons. I think it is very important to keep sight of the big picture. It’s easy to get hyper focused on what you are doing and lose sight of what you want out of life. Goal setting is a good way to keep your eye on the prize, but if you don’t have a vision of what you want, how can you set productive goals? 

In business, companies generally have a mission statement that is publicly posted on their website. A smaller portion of companies also have a vision statement. The mission statement defines what companies do. It is intended to educate the public on the company's objectives and core values. It should be motivational and easy to relate to. It can also help employees remember why they are doing what they do. 

A vision statement on the other hand looks at where we want to be. The statement is primarily for employees and internal stakeholders. It showcases where the company would like to be in the future and highlights specific goals. It’s important for growing companies to have vision statements because it gives everyone in the company a collective, overarching goal to work towards. While a mission statement might say, “Lawton Academy provides differentiated education for gifted and talented students,” a vision statement might say, “Lawton Academy is changing the way in which we educate children. It strives to make a difference in the world and provide the best education to children across the country.” 

The above is not our official vision statement. But it could be. We are focused on providing the children we have in our school with the best possible education. Furthermore, we all have goals to change the way in which children are educated. So, our day-to-day consists of meeting and achieving our mission, but we see this practice as also working towards something bigger. While we are not actively pursuing franchising or other growth options, it’s always in the back of our heads that we are working towards something bigger, and we make decisions that are correct for the moment but could also positively impact that vision. Without that vision, we would still meet our vision, but we wouldn’t have any long-term goals to work on. 

Another thing vision can do is give you a reason to go on when things get tough. This is an incredibly hard time to be in education. With the ongoing pandemic, it feels like the rules are constantly changing, everyone is in danger, and we are always in trouble with someone. Teaching is a hard job aside from the fact that we now have the pressure and responsibility to keep kids safe while not making the parents so upset that they leave. It is very hard to navigate this school year (and the previous year and half before it). 

Many educators across the nation are giving up and making a career change. New research states that 1 in 4 educators are seriously considering not returning to their job next year. That is significant and very scary. But I also can’t blame them. Without the vision we have to hold on to, I might have considered the same thing. This is a big reason that students should have vision as well. From their vantage point, they have been working hard all throughout their schooling, and they are being rewarded with losing all of their fun activities (sports, trips, dances) to COVID. Additionally, they have been told their life that they need good test scores to make it into college, and now colleges don’t even look at test scores for admission. If adults are struggling so much with this concept, think about how hard it is for a child to stay motivated.

We are in desperate times, it seemingly gets better, and then we are right back in the trenches with this virus. If you are a parent reading this, think about the range of emotions you have felt over the past two (almost three) years. Now imagine that you are a child and the parts of your brain that are intended to process that information are not yet fully developed. Even if your child is not showing outward signs of struggling with the pandemic, there are things that they are processing consciously and subconsciously. Help give them some hope in this trying time and work out a vision that they can cling to when times are hard. For little ones, vision boards with pictures are easy ways to help visualize the future. For older students, discuss with them what they would like in their future. Once you have that conversation, you are better equipped to help them keep their eye on the prize. We have a week-long break coming up; use that time to get refocused and to understand your vision.

-        Bria