Life Lessons from the Playground - Drink Lots of Water
Drink lots of water I learned this from a continuing ed class – kids get to playing, enjoying themselves, forget to drink, and it causes chemical imbalances in the body, all the way to the brain level. They act out not (only) because they’re little terrors, but something is going on. When an incident happens or is starting to escalate, the first thing we did was make them drink water. Oh my word, the difference in behavior when they were re-hydrated was amazing! People, the human body is more than 50% water. When things are going downhill, re-hydrate.
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Personalities in the Workplace - Managing with Mind and Heart Podcast
I recently was a guest on a podcast series with Ethan Nash of Nash Consulting, a business and management consulting group in consulting who do awesome work in equipping leaders, engaging employees, and improving organizations (you can see why I connect with them, right?). We had a blast talking about Personalities in the Workplace – so much so, we’ll be doing a part 2 in the new year – but buckle in as we talk about everything from archery to diversifying your team!
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Life Lessons from the Playground - When You Hurt Someone, Say You're Sorry
When you hurt someone, say you’re sorry and give them a hug This lesson usually came after the sharing or biting incidents. We would sit both parties down, admonish who ever needed to be admonished, and then encourage this interaction. I was constantly surprised at how willing the kids were to offer forgiveness when asked. It was instantaneous most times. There are a number of terms for this – keeping short accounts, being accountable, whatever. The long and short of it is take responsibility for your actions and do something about it. You may gain a best friend for life.
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Life Lessons from the Playground - After Lunch, Change Your Pants and Take A Nap
After lunch, change your pants and take a nap The ritual after lunch was changing diapers and getting everyone went down for a nap. My fellow teachers and I had perfected a routine from Ben, who fell asleep in his food, to Chloe, who you had to practically lay on for her to fall asleep. There was an oasis of calm, and the kids were raring to go when they woke up. If they missed their nap, well, I believed I used the term “terror” a time or two? We need a break. When we keep pushing and keep pushing, our productivity actually decreases. We need to take the time to recharge and refresh, because let’s face it, most everyone around you can tell you need a break when you get cranky. Take Mr. Grumpygills for a short swim, and everything will look different when you get back.
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Beautifully Broken
Lately, I’ve been collecting fascinating and intriguing Japanese terms. When my husband and I were dating, we talked about our tsundoku habit (buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves or floors or nightstands). One of my colleagues is really jiving the ikagai philosophy (the concept that combines the terms “iki”, meaning alive or life, and “gai” meaning benefit or worth. What gives your life worth, meaning, or purpose). Today I’m reflecting on a term that has captured my heart and attention for the last several years.
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Life Lessons from the Playground - Look Forward When You're Walking Forward
Look forward if you’re walking forward I always laughed at this one. We’d be walking down the hall and Isaac would inevitably have his head turned behind him with his body moving forward and bump into the other kids. Enter the domino effect. I talked to Mia’s mom about this tendency, and she said she has a freezer full of ice packs. Life is full of distractions, and we may want to dwell on some sad, or even happy, event in the past. But if you have a goal and want to move forward, then that’s where your eyes should go.
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Life Lessons from the Playground - Say Please and Thank You
Say Please and Thank You This is where we teach gratitude to our kids, and the awareness that not everything comes to us “just because”. I loved this because when my precious Ethan (terror 80% of the time and melt-your-heart-just-plain-cute the other 20%) understood how being nice and kind and grateful felt, the biggest grin would come over his face, and he started acting much kinder to the others. When he wasn’t biting, but I’ll get to that later.
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Living Your Calling on the Kim Jacobs Show!
This past week I was a guest on the Kim Jacobs Show, and we had a lot of fun talking about my journey and my passion for helping people live their potential and calling. Check it out below!
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Snippets on Innovation - 4 feet 8.5 inches
Quite a while ago, I did a presentation at a fantastic networking group on Innovation, Creativity, and Facing Fears. The hosts distilled some of the talking points in a video that, when I watched it, I was surprised at how much it helped me!
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Small Band of Revolutionaries and Shawarma
I’m one of those people who sees a life lesson in a lot of different things, and movies are definitely one of them. A favorite of late has been the Avengers. It’s great, I love the plot, the script, just everything about it, but the last few months, I’ve been pondering about cadres. What’s that, you say? A cadre is a small band of revolutionaries, a small group that can sometimes get the job done better than a mass of people. I watch the end of the Avengers, and see how they have a small band of people facing down a large, intimidating army each in their own strengths. It seems overwhelming, but working in partnership they do triumph. And go for shawarma afterwards.
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Life Lessons from the Playground - Sharing
A while back, I wrote a post about lessons I learned while I was a learning development teacher, and how some of these lesson are quite applicable in our current day to day and business lives. As I shared and got feedback, I found that there was more to the story, and many more people who could add to it. For this series, I am going to expound, in collaboration with several others, on those lessons we may or may not have learned in our early years, and how we can use them to help us play better in our current sandbox!
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Keep On
Last month, I spoke at a ribbon cutting gala, and I included this incident I experienced some years back about how we should keep going, and not turning back. I had so many people tell me how much it made an impact with them, I decided to share it with you!
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On Ramp to Success - Akpene Torku Sims
I recently had the privilege of being on a podcast with John Sanchez of On RAMP to Success, a group dedicated to helping people with self-development.
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