Freedom

                                               

  I am an economics teacher so I thought I might discuss some real-world implications tied to salary.  When I was working with a corporation, one of my rules was to live two levels below my salary.  What I mean by that is when I was a supervisor of multiple stores I lived off the salary of being a manager of one store. 

Why would I do that?  My thought was that if I was fired I could always go work for another company and get a job two levels below the position I had.  That it allowed me to walk away from the job if I was asked to do something that I did not think was ethical.  It also was a way to make sure that I was doing the job because I loved it not because I was making so much money.

I remember when our owner came back to run the day to day business.  He came back with a strong theory that he was going to cultivate a family atmosphere inside the company and wanted to also make our 15” pizza into a 16” family pizza.  He thought the bigger pizza would feed the family better and work well with his family theme.

My first thought was that no customer was going to be able to tell the difference between the two different pizza sizes.  So that the customer was not going to think they were going to get more pizza and it was only going to cost us more money as we would put more sauce, cheese and items on the pizza.  Each week our owner would call me to ask how the rollout of the family pizza was doing in my region of the country.  This went on for about three weeks with me making up reasons why we did not roll it out, yet. 

Finally, one week the owner lost his patience with me and asked why I had not rolled out the bigger sized pizza.  When I explained my reasoning that I did not think the customer would notice and it would just cost us money, the owner hung up on me.  Never a good sign.  I had to make a business decision and the fact that I was not tied to my salary gave me the freedom to do that.

When the profit statements came in however, my region earned more money than the rest of the company.  My risk paid off.  When I reflect on that decision would of it been different if I needed this high paying job to pay off my bills?  Was it easier to be bold when you knew you could get a job at a lower salary?

To get outlier results you must do things differently than the norm.  I thought living below my means allowed me to make decisions with much less fear and freedom than my colleagues.  That the fact that I did neither worry about job security or wages freed up my mind to focus on solving the problems of the company.

One day I woke up and realized that I did not want to travel around the country anymore being a corporate executive.  I had lost the passion for the job.  So, because I was living below my means it was easy to walk away from this job and find my true passion which is teaching.  Never once as a teacher have I looked back and thought I wish I was still living that corporate life. The students I teach have filled my heart with joy, gratitude and passion to make the world a better place, which more than compensates for the difference in pay.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Empathy

                                                            Empathy

In our school we are trying to change the climate of our school so that every child feels that they have at least one adult in the building who cares about them.  As we push to be a more caring faculty we realize that we not only have to show empathy to the students but to each other. (empathy quick two minute video)

Empathy can be hard to do.  When people come to us with problems we tend to try to diminish the problem which does not truly help.  Sometimes nothing can make it better except for a person listening, taking your perspective, not judging you and connecting with you.  There are a couple of examples that happened  this week that really showcase empathy in action and how it can make a difference.

On a personal note I was having a couple of bad days.  As happens with me at times, I take this out on people who had no impact on why I was feeling down.  I have some people in my life which I call my critical friends.  They are the people who in my life will point out when I am not living my values.   When my friend pointed this out to me, I totally agreed and apologized for my actions.  They made sure that I knew that they were not judging me but instead trying to help me.

The no judgement part was great to hear.  I tend to beat myself up about these types of things.   The next day as I was getting more back to myself, my friend made sure to see me during my off period.  Just checking in on me to see how my day was going and what they could do to make it better.  Again, there was no focus on my poor behavior but the focus was on, I am here if you need me, which brought a smile to my face.

Many times, we get so caught up in the behavior that we do not step back and think what causes this person to act this way?  Recently a student acted out of character.  Instead of talking to the student about the behavior and how unacceptable it was (which she already knew) we talked about what caused her to act that way.  As we continued to talk about what caused the behavior I could feel our bond getting stronger which is what she needed.  Someone to listen to her and understand what was really troubling her.  At the end she said, ‘I just needed to talk to someone”

 I truly recommend a critical friend, a person who you trust is going to have the strength to tell you when you are off track and who you know is only doing it for your benefit.  Changing habits is hard to do and what I have found is that the critical friend provides feedback which allows you to grow.  It is also sometimes easier to change when you are working together with someone else.

A national survey of students reported that 8-10 students said that they would be kinder if they knew just one adult in the building cared about them.  My guess is that is probably true of all of us, if we know someone cares about us it gets us to act with kindness and gratitude. 

I will leave you with this quote, “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about” Be kind, to yourself and others, it really makes a difference.  Forgive yourself at night, and recommit to your goals in the morning.

Please feel free to comment below as I would love to have a conversation.  Here is a link to another video about empathy that you might enjoy.  health care

How my son taught me to be gritty

                                            

Angela Duckworth, the co-founder of the Character Lab, sends out a weekly message to all the people who work with her.  This weekly practice has inspired me to try to send out a weekly commentary to all my students.  Since Angela, is the leading psychologist on GRIT, I thought in her honor my first message would be about GRIT.

My youngest son has taught me so much about being gritty.  I remember when he played organized baseball for the first time.  It was the first time that you had a chance to compare him to other kids his own age.  He had a very weak arm, did not field well and really struggled at the plate.  As often happens at that age he was put in the outfield, where balls a rarely hit, and batted last.  Despite probably being the weakest player on the team he fell in love with the sport.

That summer we often went outside to play catch and when I was inside the house I would often hear the ball being thrown against the wall of our house.  He was determined to get better.  As the summer progressed we continued to move from simple catches, to pop flies, to catching fly balls over his shoulder.  By the end of the summer he progressed to being an average fielder.

As the years went on he loved both watching and playing the game of baseball.  He continued to improve athletically.   Watching so much baseball gave him the knowledge of the game which allowed him to make some plays that other kids could not.

This year as a freshman in high school he tried out for the ninth grade baseball team.  The school he attends is one of the baseball powers of the area and I truly wondered could he make the team.  He told me, “Dad you cannot make the team unless you try out for the team” The other day after practice he told me, “I made it”.

It would have been easy for him to give up and stop playing.  There were a lot of bumps along the way.  Times where he did not want to go to bat for fear of letting the team down.  Coaches who lost confidence in him.  Despite it all, he was not going to allow anyone to take away his love for the game.

There is a lot to learn from my son.  I think many of us underestimate how much we can improve if we really focus on improving.  How that if you continue to practice, listen to the feedback you get, use your strengths (in his case his mental knowledge of the game) to help improve your weaknesses (athletic ability) learn from your mistakes, you can really overcome a lack of talent.

That learning is not always easy or fun.  That many times learning is frustrating (try missing pitch after pitch).  It is often boring (try chasing 1,000 pop flies one summer) but that is how we get better.  It does not happen overnight and improvement is not linear.  It is working hard each day so that you level off at a higher spot.

So my challenge to you is pick something difficult for you and develop a plan to get better.  It does not have to be a school thing it can be anything.  I am working on generous assumptions.  Generous assumptions is just giving people the benefit of the doubt, not assuming the worst but the best.

I want these to be meaningful to you, so please give me feedback on how to make them better.  Have an awesome week.