Notes

How Can SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Dropouts and Extension Cords Boost Your Business Profits?
You'd think in the beautiful valley of Napa, CA that everything is wine and roses and families haven't any problems, but this school district has their share of dropouts and delinquents exactly like any district in the US.

The three high school teachers I met with the other day use the District's toughest youth - those who have been expelled from their regular school and that are given another chance in these special classrooms. We have been ending up in the Board of Education since September, 2009, and in April, we finally got the chance to visit the classrooms.

Last week, we had the honor of making a presentation to these hard-working teachers on what we're able to teach them life-saving emotional resilience and positivity skills that they could, in turn, teach the kids. It was a poignant, strangely timed meeting once we all got the news that morning that one of the former students committed suicide.

These teachers are fantastic, committed caring folks who are dynamite in their classrooms. The point of our meeting wasn't how good or bad these were as teachers, although certainly a gathering like this where you want to teach them something about their classroom skills - we, having never spent one hour teaching in the classroom could be perceived as threatening to them, increase defensive behavior on their part or, in worst case, could possibly be taken as downright insulting to believe we knew a lot more than them. They were more than good sports to be there and listen having an open mind, knowing it's all about the kids.

We made our presentation, and in August, we'll be delivering a workshop for the teachers on the most recent applications of resilience work, social cognition, positive psychology, and neuroscience. They'll subsequently, have the ability to share these ideas with the youngsters. A lot more exciting is we've found a method to measure before and after results so that we can quantify the result these tools are having.

After a while, the teachers let us know one of their biggest challenges: the "not my fault" syndrome. For example, "I missed the bus, it wasn't my fault." Boy do I've some tools for that certain. You can't have a single-engine airplane all over the world and live to inform the story with the "It's not my fault" thinking pattern.

I love the tools that help move people along the continuum from being victims of their circumstances to taking full responsibility. They're not only for kids; it is a lifelong lesson that is so powerful it could move people out of poverty (or even middle income) and into glorious wealth. It's initially counter-intuitive to take responsibility for things you don't think are your fault, but that is the only place where the "power" is. Without responsibility, you can't fix it.

If there's something in your life you're "putting up with" or feeling a victim of, then the answer is to move farther along the continuum of taking full responsibility. Take the economy. Most people feel like they are a victim of the economy. In that place, you merely suffer. When you change your mindset to take responsibility, you can start to plan new solutions and activities to rise above your suffering.

In flying this is taken to the ultimate level. A pilot could say, "engine went out, not my fault, let's crash and die." Or he is able to prepare yourself with checklists, contingencies, great training, another redundant engine. When I speak publicly, I take all kinds of extra equipment I don't need, such as for example an extension cord. I don't want to get to the event and have my laptop go out of batteries because I didn't have a power source. I take responsibility; I don't leave it to chance. I could create and improve my likelihood of success by anticipating my failures and being prepared to avoid them when they happen.

That is clearly a snippet of what we'll be teaching the youngsters in August. They will be learning it in the bottom rung of the ladder, but the real secret is that we now have a huge selection of rungs on the responsibility ladder. What get more info 've found is people apply responsibility intermittently in their lives and especially in their businesses. Almost always there is another rung of the ladder we can climb.

How can you apply resilience and responsibility to your organization to boost your profits? Here are several take-aways:

Know very well what drives you, and make decisions from that place and not from ego or from fear, like the majority of people do. For the teachers, it's about the kids.
Be and stay coachable. Being coachable never takes away from how good you are already. No one on the planet can know every tool they want at the rate science and knowledge is expanding. When we're not coachable, by default we become defensive, stubborn, and occur our ways. It's more pleasurable to give in to our natural curiosity and to be lifelong learners, especially if you're a teacher or a business owner.
Go where the power is. Take responsibility and develop creative solutions to control the situation.
Understand there are levels, layers, and rungs of responsibility. See if you can find a blind spot in your organization with regards to responsibility and shore up the gap.
Know you can find concrete tools now in science where we are able to now learn emotional resilience skills. These are the same skills that help people gain control of losing weight, making additional money, and achieving their dreams. It doesn't have to be a large unknown black mystery box any longer. It's learnable, just like math, reading, and science, and when we master this, the results produce the highest paybacks I've ever seen in business. This is my core message and service to others.
Although we're proficient at knocking out the things on our business plans or to-do lists, the ideas above often never make it to our lists. We read the articles, and soon we forget. Don't make that mistake. When you finally start developing these soft skills rather than continuing to focus on your hard skills forever, that's if you are going to see true and amazing transformation in your business and your life.

�2010 Sandra L. Smith, Inc. Sandi Smith coaches women companies to improve their revenues, live fearlessly, and take giant leaps within their business using the science of breakthrough success. Sign up at http://www.sandismith.com to obtain her FREE newsletter full of business-building tips.
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