Encouraging Dreams

Mark Twain once said, “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”  These small people are the people who have nothing going on and who jealous of your ambitions. They put people down or try to convince others that their dream is unreachable. This allows them to feel better about staying in their comfort zone and never taking any action.

Be sure that you’re not one of these people. When you see someone who has a big dream which seems impossible to achieve, don’t criticize them, uplift them. The big dreams are the ones that need the most uplifting.

Sometimes we can become dream killers and not even know it. It may be a quick comment or quick joke, but even these small short words can kill someone’s ambitions. Quick careless word’s are powerful and can easily kill someone’s ambitions. “It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” wrote Robert Southey. So, how do we make sure we never demotivate someone in their dreams? Remember to always uplift and never give off-handed criticism.

Personal Change

Personal change is a very long process. In fact, it’s a lifelong process. You never stop changing or growing. You never stop bettering your character. I find that there are four basic steps of the change process.

First, recognizing what you need to change. This is what guides you. This gives you the focus of what you need to improve on to grow your character. Besides asking a trusted person, thinking about what happened in you day will give you a good idea of what you need to work on. For instance, you usually know right off the bat when you realize that what you just did was pretty stupid. Any regret you might feel about your behavior will indicate something you might want to change. Also, you can recognize what you need to change by asking yourself these questions: How does the environment change when you’re participating? How do others react? Sometimes you don’t need to search hard; it might just be right in front of you. Recognizing what you need to change is extremely important to improving your character.

Second, actually wanting to change. Do you actually want to change what you’re doing than just knowing what it is and letting it go? Do you really feel that you want to do something differently?

Now here is when it gets a little tougher. Okay so, you found what you need to do differently and you actually want to fix it, what do you do now? Where do you go from here? This is the third step; this is when you need to start changing. Keep in mind, at all times, what you want to change and be alert when you might slip into the old behavior you don’t like. Immediately divert from it and begin doing the behavior you want to make a habit.

The fourth step is just a reinforcement of the third step. Keep being alert and try hard not to do it until your form a new habit. Persistence is the key. Soon, you should be able to stop doing the thing that you really don’t want to do anymore.

By following these steps, you will be able to conquer the things you want to change and keep improving yourself more and more.

Five Characteristics of a Successful Leader

Being a successful leader means that you are always concerned about others well being before your own. I have laid out five main factors of what makes a leader successful:

1. Be encouraging. Don’t put down someone’s work and make yours better. Uplift them and give positive input.

2. Listen. Listen to what others say. Let them share their views and thoughts and don’t put them down.

3. Be accepting. Don’t fall for what others say about the new guy. Again, be encouraging. Respect their beliefs or views. Don’t distance yourself from them just because they’re different from you.

4. Keep a positive attitude. I mean, who wants to be around someone who is always talking about how something is so bad or has a negative air about themselves?

5. Always do the right thing. Don’t be pulled into doing something that you know that’s wrong. It might be fun at the time, but it will just end badly.

Serving the Community

Serving your community doesn’t always have to be some huge project. It can be something small, like a change of attitude. Serving doesn’t just pertain to just your community, it can be your school and home too. Serving your community also means inspiring your community to do better.

Well, how do we do that? Like I said earlier, changes and improvements don’t need to be a huge ordeal. In fact sometimes, the small improvements are just as a good or even more significant than the changes that are huge. Of course, I am not saying that big events are not good; it’s just that the smallest improvements can be just as important. Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Here are some things that you can do to improve the community that you are in. First, change your attitude or outlook on things. To do this, be positive. Take things you don't want to do and look at them in a way that's constructive and uplifting. Second, be aware of your behavior and how you come across. Don’t try to cause problems and make things difficult. This only causes tension in the community. That tension can crumble the community. Third, get to know other people that are outside of your close circle of friends. Getting to know more people connects more and different people and builds the community.

Just by doing something simple you can make a great impact on your community, school, or home.

More leadership and personal development articles like this at Leader: Me!

Leading with Grace

Today, I am presenting a post by Dr. Jack King of the Northfork Center for Servant Leadership. Dr. King works to develop servant leaders. At Leadership Upsidedown he develops and teaches young leaders the timeless principles and values of servant leadership. I met Dr. King on Twitter and always appreciate his support.

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I believe we often share a misconception about leading, leadership, and leaders. What do you think?

For example, does leading have to be stuffy? No. It is much of the time, but nothing says it has to be.

Leading has everything to do with love. Did you know that? Think about it for a moment. When you boil everything down, every leader you want to follow generously seasons all they do with love. Really.

They lead because they exude a love for others. They lead because they love what they do. They lead because they love what you do, and what you help others do.

Leading is not static. Because life is not static.

Leading is energy; it is flow. Leading is emotion, full tilt. Leading is electrifying. Leading is moving; it is intense. Because leading loves.

Did you watch the video? Did you wonder why it's on this page? Some of you may have thought something like, "Boy, Jack must have flipped his lid. What's this video got to do with servant leadership anyway?"

After all, servant leadership is soft, right? Only wimps are servant leaders, right? Wrong. On both counts.

Servant leadership requires strength; it is not for the faint of heart. The servant as leader, Robert Greenleaf suggests, sets out, first and foremost, to help those served to grow as persons, and for the least privileged in society to benefit, or at least, not be further deprived. Nuttin' easy about that.

Speaking of nuttin', Damien and Tourie Escobar, also know as Nuttin' but Stringz, bring popular and classical genres to the streets. In so doing, they edify, they inspire, they energize, and they move others to new heights. Did you pick up on their thoughts about "a lot of young kids getting violin lessons?" Damien and Tourie quietly lead with grace (well, maybe not so quietly.

And so can you!

Now get out there and quietly take the lead. Before you know it, followers will soon raise their arms high to the sky, joyfully moving them from side to side in tribute to your graceful leadership. Give it a try. You'll see!

Facts About Ego

Google’s dictionary defines “ego” as “an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others.” In other words, ego makes you feel inappropriately better than other people. For example, if you walked up to a person and said that you did something that they might like and they were to respond saying “Are you serious? Mine is so much better than yours,” this would mean they have a huge ego. Ego can destroy teams and relationships as you probably saw above.

Ego won’t just destroy others, it will also destroy you. If you have a big ego, you will learn to be more and more of disrespectful. Also, people will not want to be around you much because all you’re going to do is complement yourself. Another thing that will happen to you if you keep growing your ego is that you will never be happy. You will always try to make yourself better than someone else. You can never say that something is good or that you really like an idea. No, you will always try to put down others.

If you put ego aside, wonders will happen for you. People will enjoy your presence. People will want to share things with you. More importantly, by setting your ego aside, you will be so much happier. You will always feel more supported by others. You’ll also get that good feeling that comes from helping make someone else feel happy. Your mind won’t be clouded with thoughts of just yourself. Your mind will be full of thoughts of others.

A way to do this is to have the trait of humility. Humility makes you courteous and respectful. In Matthew 5:5, within the King James Bible, it says “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” An example of humility, is saying “You first buddy!” when you are entering a door or doing an activity. Being humble will help balance your ego by putting other people in front of yourself.

So don’t allow ego to get in your way because it’s just going to bring you down. Scientist Nathaniel Bronner Jr. says “Ego has a voracious appetite, the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.” I think he is so right.

My Leadership Page: Leader: Me!

How to Get Along With an Enemy

We always want to avoid making enemies, but it will certainly happen. It may be the opposite of what you would want to do, but the first step to try to turn enemies into friends is to get to know the person better. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” Getting to know them will enable you to learn about most of his or her strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that will help you understand them and get along. You might even figure out what you did (if you did really do something) to them. Then you can apologize to them and this will hopefully turn your enemy into your friend.

Now what if that doesn’t work because they just don’t seem to like you for whatever reason, you must now learn how to get along with them. To do this, you must first ignore their comments. Now I don’t mean that you should blow them off like “who cares about them” because that’s just what they would do to you. No, you must not react to their comments in a negative way. Don’t make their problem your problem. The next step is to not say anything about what he or she does. Don’t be critical of them. Don’t make negative comments. Otherwise, again, you are doing exactly what they are doing. You must ignore the urge to get back at them or the desire to embarrass them. Finally, you must always remember to be nice to them even if they are being a jerk to you. If you do this you will be setting an example. Hopefully they will follow your example.

The people we don’t like are usually the people we don’t know or seem to be not like us. We don’t usually like people that are different from us. The solution is to get to know others even if they are different and be nice to everyone we see.
Will Rogers, speaking of Leon Trosky, said, “I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn't like.” Get to know people. You’ll be surprised how much you might like them.