About Youniversalife

Ep. 16: Confidence Part 3

In Ep. 16: Confidence Part 3, I discuss a powerful quote that hits home for me and can be valuable for others. This is a quick episode, but I wanted to share my current story.

Confidence is knowing that you will do something. It is not knowing that you can do something.

Be a person of action and put forth the effort.
Persistence is the way to achievement. It may never be perfect, but at least you’ve stepped into the arena.

Check out youniversalife.com for more episodes and a wide range of leadership and performance content.

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How to Be a Champion for Students

Inspiration, Leadership

To be a champion for students, we meet their needs through immediate action. Consistently show up for their demanding life experiences. We must personally take the time to search out students. Go hold a conversation and ask questions about their life and education. Genuinely listen to their stories and react with empathetic body language and words.

Pursuit

Teachers and leaders are champions for kids when we pursue them and build trust. Educators unpack student gifts through conversation. This can be a friendly greeting in the hallway, a deep discussion in class on various topics, or a post-class status report with individuals. Seek to deepen conversation through open-ended questions. Students are humans who like to be heard and allowed to tell their stories. These stories often unpack student gifts. These gifts should then be brought to light.

Reveal their Gifts

Many students are quick to dismiss their talents. They have blinders to their developed gifts and do not continually cultivate them. They do not know what or how to release their gifts to the world for us all to experience and benefit from. It’s the educator’s job to help students to learn to fly. Give them the eyes and wings to take off. Show them how to build confidence and take another step forward. Make them believers in themselves.

Relationship Building

Students are worth the time and energy it takes to establish relationships. Relationships drive a positive culture and make any institution successful. Relationships through family, friends, school, and community build environments where we want to exist and contribute to.

Relationship building transcends all leadership. It is not limited to the educational setting. It rings true in business, family, and community. Do not underestimate the power of asking questions to extract life stories from individuals. It allows leaders to determine where gifts reside. Gifts that can enter the world and bring great value to us all.

Key Takeaways

Take the time to search out students.
Teachers and leaders are champions for kids when we pursue them and build trust.
It’s the educator’s job to help students to learn to fly. Give them the eyes and wings to take off.
Relationship building transcends all leadership.

If you found How to Be a Champion for Students helpful, check out the youniversalife archive for additional leadership content and how to implement strategies into your area of influence.

Equipping Teams for Success

Inspiration

Empowering Growth with Actionable Resources

Youniversally, we all have a deep desire to expand and learn more. Leaders utilize this craving to help others discover their innate abilities. They do this by giving ownership of tasks and equipping their team for success. Great school principals rely on department heads to design curriculums that impact students. They provide data and research-based protocols that will allow teachers to design an effective plan. Great coaches assign leaders within the team and provide them with leadership training. Leaders only give a person a boat with a paddle. They set their team’s course and provide solid instruction to increase the chance of success. There is a purposeful effort to empower growth with actionable resources.

Giving Support & Resources for Idea Generation and Prototyping

Great leaders empower people. They create an innovative culture by providing their team members with development opportunities in the form of support & resources. Leaders pinpoint useful material that feeds the growth of others.

Books
Articles
Blogs
Virtual classes
Clinics
etc.
Anything that improves performance through implementation.

When team members are supported, they feel encouraged to take action. The creative spirit awakens, and ideas begin to pore out.

Coaching Clinics

Glazier Clinic was the first professional clinic I attended. My Head Coach provided his staff a chance to attend the yearly meeting of coaches in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was an opportunity to immerse myself in the culture of football. It allowed me to meet the professionals in their element. I was able to see what great coaching looked like. These men took their craft seriously and made a continual effort to develop. From young twenty-somethings like me to old grey-haired veterans with seasoned raspy voices, coaches came from everywhere.

Idea Generation & Prototyping

With the proper resources and support, idea generation and prototyping are birthed. When team members are supported, they feel encouraged to take action. The creative spirit awakens, and ideas begin to pore out. Great leaders can teach their people how to harness this activity. The organization of thoughts followed by the implementation is critical. This is prototyping at work, designing products, tools, and strategies, and putting them into the world. If you’ve watched Shark Tank, you’ve seen the creative spirit in action. I love the process entrepreneurs go through to achieve success. The thousands of hours in development for their moment of success. They embrace the process and do not differentiate Work-Life-Play. Great Leaders lead their people down this path of discovery.

Take Action

Performance through implementation is essential. If the provided material is operational, it can save time and money. Players, employees, and team members must practice what they’ve learned. An awareness of the potential return on investment (ROI) is vital. Leaders need to ask themselves:

Is what I’m providing actionable?
Does the material lead to idea generation?
Does it feed a creative workplace?
Will my people apply these concepts?

If the potential ROI is high, suggesting such material is critical to developing team members. If the ROI is low, do not suggest it and continue searching for actionable items to provide.

Give Praise to Your Team

Once the team member has the support and resources they need, they enter the prototyping stage, creating actionable products that create value for the team and the public. Encourage your team to bring you ideas. Strive to create an environment where everyone thinks big and innovates. Get excited when someone approaches you with new ideas. Help them bring the concepts to life with energy, supportive ideas, and additional resources. Leaders should verbally reward their people through praise in private and public settings. Meetings are a great place to speak about people who generate ideas. If you choose to implement an idea, speak to the group about who created it and praise them openly.

The Landing

These leadership tools greatly impact development across the board. For more leadership tools, literature, and podcasts, check out the Youniversalife Archive. There is a treasure trove of information that inspires leadership qualities. Remember, leadership is developed with directed intention.

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Keep Moving Forward!

Ep. 15: Confidence Part 2

Inspiration

In the latest YL episode (Confidence Part 2), I discuss how to embrace your weirdness & that of others that leads to healthy confidence.

Weird is Good

Embrace our weirdness.
Take inventory of what we do that is unique.
- Be detailed
- Weird should not get labeled personally as a stigma, but a strength.
Weird usually brings new ideas and creativity to the world.
Things that remain the same or fit the mold don’t move the world forward.
A band you like that eventually everyone falls for.

Those that shame “weird” actions, often times lack confidence and creativity

They don’t want change and have significant interest in things remaining the same.
How the world currently works for them.
They may be threatened by change

To Embrace the Weird, We Must Build Our Confidence

It increases as a result of our experiences.
Stepping into the void and practicing
Achieving mini wins & milestones
Progress is progress

Those that have joy & those who struggle to find it

The Joy-us

The Joyus find the process to be life giving
They reflect back on the journey
They are grateful for each experience
They feel as if they have lived and are grateful for it
Hardship is part of it (I’m Still Standing by Elton John)
This approach helps confidence to row and manifest
They know that the hard times are part of the overall equation that ultimately creaes the next better version of them.
Lean into courage. I will go. I will move forward. Send me mentality

The Strugglers

Those who struggle to find joy only concentrate on the end product.
Good will only come if I am able to complete it.
The process is viewed as a struggle and their is a narrow view of its actual harvest
True healthy confidence is hard to obtain with this state of mind
Hard to establish consistency because the confidence is always being undermined by the hardships.

Can You Be Both?

Some aspects of my life I’m in the Joy-us state of mind. Some areas I struggle
It is a battle between the light and darkness.
I fight for the light. I fight for life.

Lean into the Joy-us and establish internal and external triggers that return you to it when struggling.

The Joy-us Athlete

What does it look like to be a joyus athlete?
- Find a role an embrace it
  - Stop comparing your role to those that are further down the road than you.
  - Small seat at the table

Confidence is not knowing you have the ability to do something, but know you will try to do it.
Rob Bell

Check out additional content at Youniversalife.com.

Before listening to Confidence Part 2, be sure to listen to Confidence Part 1 to set the stage for understanding.

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The Culture Manager

Inspiration

A Culture Manager is responsible for the energy swirling through a work or living space. Culture is consciously and subconsciously felt and needs strategic nourishment by a willing leader and their allies. Through diligent study and implementation, great leaders can grow culturally sound environments organically. It requires a practitioner who models the behavior they are seeking. Their integrity is airtight, and decision-making has the greater good in mind.

Who is responsible for the culture of a space?

Anyone who makes decisions that dictates the direction of an establishment.
- High Command
- Principals
- Teachers
- Coaches
- Fathers / Mothers
- Friends
- Community Leaders

Core Values

These leaders must stand for something. They must be passionate about certain ideals that cultivate a successful domain. The core values stem from upbringing, life experience, family, and social circles. Great leaders are students of life and continually seek knowledge that shapes their interpersonal well-being. Stagnant leaders are those who are satisfied with their current state. Leaders with terrific core values draw near like-minded individuals with similar belief systems. The culture manager attracts and hires talented individuals moving in the same direction.

Mission and Vision

Core values influence the Culture Manager’s mission and vision. These two statements are guiding lights to the organization—true intentions, which significantly impact building culture.

Bringing Trusted Allies on Board

Leaders will surround themself with professionals. They are in constant search of those who are emotionally intelligent, communicate well, and relate to others. These individuals make great team members and are culture builders. They value the leader’s direction, support them, and push to deliver their message effectively. To build culture, leaders can not afford poor recruitment.

The professionals must outweigh the amateurs. An organization will effectively function if most people have a team-first mindset. Leaders make little room for egocentric team members. Their alternate agendas stain the culture and stifle performance.

Living Out the Mission and Vision

To build high functioning culture, leaders must live out their core values. There must be a continual dialogue about the mission and vision with built-in status growth reports. Culture Builders are seen and felt within a space. They always have the pulse of the environment, where they know their people beyond the surface. They take great interest in bringing opportunity to others and seek to understand their professional desires. This approach encourages others to pursue professional development and stimulates an extraordinary culture.

Want More Leadership

Head over to the Youniversalife Archive to receive additional Leadership Skills. Leadership is acquired through diligent study and implementation. I aim to be more of a practitioner and perform the skills I acquire through research. Where do you go for your Leadership Development?

Rich Roll is my current favorite source for information about leadership, movement, and life. Check out his website and awesome podcast for great content to further your understanding.

Don’t forget to subscribe and join the YL Newsletter at the bottom of the page. Also, share with friends and close allies.

Keep Moving Forward!

Leaders Create Powerful Mission & Vision Statements

Leadership

Every organization must have well-articulated Mission and Vision Statements. These statements are touchstones for all stakeholders. They identify the ultimate goal for the overall community and create an ideal scenario for everyone to move towards. Considering the big things while completing the small ones ensures the team is heading in the right direction (Alvin Toffler, Futurist). Great leaders have an awareness of the overall picture. They must operate from a 10,000 ft view while their teammates are on the ground. This high vantage point allows them to direct and maintain the grand vision and mission. Great leaders understand the nuances of the functional space and are well-versed in multiple disciplines. This comes with practice and experience.

You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing small things so that all of the small things go in the right direction.
Alvin Toffler, Futurist

Form Direction for the Organization

When outlining the mission, vision, and core values, professional experience plays a significant role. Leaders must know what is needed and what the professional landscape is to create a powerful movement. They must accurately forecast where momentum is headed. With this knowledge in hand, they can communicate the needs of an organization to collaborators who also contribute significant input to the mission, vision, and core values.

What is Your Why?

Why does your school exist?
Why does your team exist?
Why does your business exist?
Why does your family exist?

Powerful questions that are at the heart of successful leadership. To outline an actionable mission, vision, and core values, you must know the why of the operation. The primary reason schools exist is to educate students and help them become highly influential members of society. Teams come in many shapes and forms that operate for different reasons. They are typically a subset of a larger community supporting it. Businesses exist to help solve problems and provide services or goods that benefit people. Families serve the deep meaning of us all. They are the support system that nourishes us on a micro and macro level.

Main Talking Points

Every organization must have well-articulated Mission and Vision Statements.
Great leaders have an awareness of the overall picture.
“You’ve got to think about the big things while doing small things so that all the small things go in the right direction.” Learn more about Alivin Toffler and his legacy.
When outlining the mission, vision, and core values, professional experience plays a significant role.
Powerful questions that are at the heart of successful leadership.
Leaders Create Powerful Mission & Vision Statements

If you enjoyed Mission & Vision Statements, look at the Youniversalife Archive. You’ll find additional Leadership and Performance tools that you can apply to your daily life.

Ep. 16: Confidence Part 3