Tag: Associate
reading changes your brain and challenges your presumptions, pick up a book and install new software!
check out my recommended reading list at https://turningleafs.com/book-list/
book a free coaching consulting appointment https://calendly.com/turningleafs
you see my feet hanging through my ceiling. I was attempting to do work at my house without a friend to help me. I have found that when I try to do work on my house or my car without a friend, I end up in trouble. In 2014, I found myself in trouble at work. I was put on a 90-day personal improvement plan. The circumstances are not important right now; however, it was a big challenge to my job at the time.
During the year of 2014, I would wake up with nightmares of my boss coming to my home at 7 AM and firing me before I could go to work. Still to this day, I can clearly see his car at the time, and him walking up the sidewalk to that house. What happened after I was written up, is that an upper-level manager pulled me aside and offered to coach me.
I was invited to speak at one of my son’s school for career day. I was surprised when my son asked me. He said, “Dad, maybe one of the kids or teachers will hear what you have to say, and they will want to do what you are doing. It has helped you and our family so much!”
I was humbled by his request and started thinking of how I can teach what I do to a classroom of 10-year-old kids. I had about one and a half months to think about it before I would be speaking. Little did I know that I would get the privilege of speaking before 8 classrooms for about 15 to 20 minutes each.
I decided to use a kid’s film that many of them had probably seen … Kung Fu Panda. I love these films and believe that they teach some important lessons about life.
First, who is Po’s dad? What does Po’s dad do?
He’s a goose and he owns a restaurant where he makes soup, dumplings, stinky tofu, and noodles.
What does Po dream about in the beginning of the movie?
Poe wakes up from his dream and he’s dreaming about one thing. He spends all day thinking about that one thing. That one thing is not cooking, but Kung Fu!! We learn that Po wants to be a Kung Fu Master one day! However, Po doesn’t believe that he can become a Kung Fu Master because he isn’t like the Furious Five.
As the movie unfolds, we learn that Master Oogway is going to pick the Dragon Warrior. This is a huge event that many in the valley have been anticipating. When Po learns of this, he encourages everyone to go to the Jade Palace (the center of town and where some learn Kung Fu).
Po then goes to the Jade Palace to see who is going to be the Dragon Warrior. As he attempts to see who it will be, he ends up lighting a chair packed with fireworks. It launches in the air and dissolves before landing Po in the middle of the courtyard of the palace.
He opens his eyes to Master Oogway pointing at him. He asks if he was pointing to Tigress and he said, “No, I am pointing to you”.
reading changes your brain and challenges your presumptions, pick up a book and install new software!
check out my recommended reading list at https://turningleafs.com/book-list/
They also find accountability partners that help them to stay the course. It doesn’t matter what the industry is or their specific profession. Aristotle said, “We are what we do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
The pursuit of personal improvement can be as addictive as some substances. It can cloud the vision of those on the path seeking personal growth, like the fog in a mountain valley. It is not so easy to consider it a balance between work and family life. It is more a balance of development between different personality traits, or as Ben Franklin called them “virtues”.
The individual that can maintain a steady pace and a balance between the different virtues is the one that over time has the greatest growth. In Ben Franklin‘s life, he picked 13 virtues and rotated them every week throughout the year. This model allowed him to spend four weeks a year on each “virtue”. Over time, it became evident to him that success in each “virtue” multiplied across the others.