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 have no 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 last week 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 meeting with the Board of Education since September, 2009, and in April, we finally got the chance to visit the classrooms.

Last week, we'd the honor of earning a presentation to these hard-working teachers on how we could teach them life-saving emotional resilience and positivity skills 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 idea 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 possibly be perceived as threatening in their mind, increase defensive behavior on their part or, in worst case, could be taken as downright insulting to believe we knew more than them. They were a lot 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 latest applications of resilience work, social cognition, positive psychology, and neuroscience. They'll subsequently, be able to share these ideas with the youngsters. Even more exciting is we've found a method to measure before and after results so that we can quantify the effect these tools are having.

After a while, the teachers tell us one of their biggest challenges: the "not my fault" syndrome. For instance, "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 around the globe and live to tell the story with the "It's not my fault" thinking pattern.

I love the various tools that help move people along the continuum from being victims of these circumstances to taking full responsibility. They're not only for kids; this can be 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's the only place where the "power" is. Without responsibility, you can't correct it.

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

In flying that is taken to the ultimate level. A pilot could say, "engine went out, not my fault, let's crash and die." Or he can prepare yourself with checklists, contingencies, great training, another redundant engine. When I speak publicly, I take all kinds of extra equipment I usually don't need, such as 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 can create and improve my chances of success by anticipating my failures and being ready to avoid them when they happen.

That is clearly a snippet of what we'll be teaching the kids in August. They will be learning it at the bottom rung of the ladder, but the real secret is that there are a huge selection of rungs on the responsibility ladder. What There is is people apply responsibility intermittently within their lives and especially in their businesses. Almost always there is another rung of the ladder we can climb.

How will you apply resilience and responsibility to your business to boost your earnings? Here are several take-aways:

Know 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 all about the kids.
get more info and stay coachable. Being coachable never takes away from how good you already are. No one on the planet can know every tool they need 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 also to be lifelong learners, particularly if you're a teacher or a business owner.
Go where in fact the power is. Take responsibility and come up with creative solutions to control the situation.
Understand you can find levels, layers, and rungs of responsibility. See if you will discover a blind spot in your organization when it comes to responsibility and shore up the gap.
Know there are concrete tools now in science where we can now learn emotional resilience skills. These are the same skills that help people gain control of slimming down, making more money, and achieving their dreams. It doesn't have to be a large unknown black mystery box any more. It's learnable, exactly like math, reading, and science, so when we master this, the outcomes produce the highest paybacks I've ever seen in business. This is my core message and service to others.
Although we're good at knocking out the things on our business plans or to-do lists, the ideas above often never ensure it is to our lists. We read the articles, and soon we forget. Don't make that mistake. Once you finally start developing these soft skills instead of continuing to work on your hard skills forever, that's when you're likely 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 in their business using the science of breakthrough success. Subscribe at http://www.sandismith.com to obtain her FREE newsletter filled with business-building tips.
My Website: https://diigo.com/0sjzpt