Dear Difference Maker,
I never asked my kids if they wanted to brush their teeth. I directed them to just do it when it was time to get ready for bed and so they did!
When I first started my own business over twenty-five years ago I did not apply the same directives with my employees. Having worked with thousands of other people’s children I was passionate about calling out the best in them. With adults I had a mental block. I was surprised at how I did not seem to be able to simply lead and create team synergy like I had when I was a winning championships as a volleyball and basketball coach.
I was much more concerned with their buy in than the greater vision I was intending to build with them.
When I’d invested everything I had to get my endeavor off the ground and had not succeeded at being able to support myself or my young son as a single mother, I started bridging what I already knew to do with children with the adults working along side of me.
That’s when things changed for the better. There are just times when you take charge and direct people and there are times when you encourage them to brainstorm and participate in the direction you will all be taking together.
Reaching out …
Only You Can Make This Happen!
Excerpt from Make A Difference Power of Acknowledgment UTrain Curriculum
I’m not the only person who struggles with this. Whether it be in Business, Education, Organization or Church leadership I’ve coached gifted people in leadership positions over the years and the one area where many of them miss the mark of what’s truly possible is inadvertently being afraid of their people. That instead of making the decision to go forward with what they know will be best and just do it as the Nike slogan says, they acquiesce.
Heading up a program that can save lives takes a decisive mind because there will be those who say, “There just isn’t time to learn how to deal effectively with the social emotional issues creating violence in our schools and places of work!”
Here we are. As you well know, things are reaching an epic proportion: violence, drug addiction, suicide etc. Hurting others and ourselves all because we are not hammering the fundamentals of creating deep, meaningful and emotionally uplifting connections within our communities.
I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve talked with many a leader who is excited about my Make A Difference Power of Acknowledgment UTrain Program. They know they need to put an end to the energy robbing undercurrents among certain factions of their staff because they know just how much this negativity can trickle down throughout an entire organization and therefore generate more of the same.
Their excitement and complete understanding of what positive change it will bring inspires me. I can already see through their eyes what an enormous difference they are going to be making throughout their entire organization with this program.
And then they say, “Of course, I will need to take this to my top tier team and get their buy in before investing and moving forward with the logistics.”
So you know what happens next. I am told that their top tier team thought it was going to be too much additional work to their already maxed out work load and they were going to pass for now. Translation: change must be hard so let’s keep doing the same thing expecting different results.
This is a truly a defining moment for any leader in the face of resistance …
I’m very curious and so I ask, “Did you enthusiastically share with them how taking this program in bite size – doable pieces – will create a deep meaningful sense of community for them to work in and actually save them time? Did you take them through step by step how getting the social emotional issues and unnecessary drama dissolved once and for all will get them 5 times+ the energy and productivity that they are currently losing now?”
“Is there any way you can make an executive decision and … just do it?”
I understand that there are those who are concerned that an HOUR, DAY, WEEK, MONTH or YEAR long program may seem overwhelming initially. As an educator and business woman I can tell you that this is exactly why I designed Make A Difference with the Power of Acknowledgment UTrain Program the way that I did.
It is an extremely flexible program with a simple system that you can bring to your people one of many ways for your theme:
Make A Difference HOUR
Make A Difference DAY
Make A Difference WEEK
Make A Difference MONTH
Make A Difference YEAR
Now, you can take my ideas and create your own program which will cost you a lot of time and energy that you could be putting toward the other demands coming at you at this time of year OR you can grab a cup of coffee, sit back and relax. I’ve got this covered. I’ve done all of the heavy lifting for you.
Because it’s that time of year when leaders are thinking about their THEME for the seasons just ahead, today I’d like to do something I haven’t done before and that is lay out what a 12 month Make A Difference YEAR can look like …
August: Kick off In-Service with your top tier leaders setting the theme of Making A Difference with the Power of Acknowledgment Movie and I Make A Difference Ceremony. Your leaders then take the session you just did with them out to their people and they take this session out to their people, etc…
September: Make A Difference with the Power of Connecting Personality Styles with Grades K-4, Grades 5-12 & Teachers Styles.
October: Make A Difference with the Power of Owning Your Greatness.
November: Make A Difference with the Power of Compassion with the Teddy Stallard Story: both in English and in Española.
December: Make A Difference with the Power of Positive Self-Talk.
January: Make A Difference with the Power of the Simple Gesture.
February: Make A Difference with the Power of the Made Up Mind.
March: Make A Difference with the Power of Your Dreams in Action.
April: Make A Difference with the Power of Making Your Own Luck.
May: Make A Difference with the Power of Goal Setting.
June: Make A Difference with the Power of Peace Today.
July: Make A Difference with the Power of Giving Back.
=> Each Lesson has it’s own movie, discussion and building community (team) activities all laid out for you step by step.
=> You don’t even have to prepare ahead of time (I would but that’s just me).
=> You open up the designated Lesson and play the movie and follow my directions.
=> When time has run out, you wrap it up and save back whatever you haven’t used for another In-service when you need it.
Now, let’s say for example you want to Kick-Off your Make A Difference Year with the Teddy Stallard Story Movie instead of the Acknowledgment Movie.
You get to decide! Move it up into your first Lesson and go ahead and launch.
Then you can move the Acknowledgment Movie back to September which will coincide with National Suicide Prevention Month. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. This movie is a true story about how a very simple and heartfelt Acknowledgment Ceremony caused the actions of one teacher to dramatically altered the life a business man and his 14-year old son.
YES! You Can Do This …
You will see that this program …
– Increases EQ – (Emotional Quotient) & IQ for ALL students K-12.
– Reduces the discipline issues by getting disconnected students CONNECTED within a compassionate community of their peers.
– Increases academic productivity, performance and test results
– Creates the type of “safe to connect” school wide learning environment in which ALL students will THRIVE.
– Shifts perceptions and creates innovative solutions for problematic behaviors.
– Engages a diverse group of students in thinking, understanding and developing compassion and extending it out to others as well as themselves.
– Get’s students to make the 12 inch move from the heads to their hearts to better understand their impact on one another and that they DO Matter and the DO Make A Difference.
– Helps students take more ownership over their choices in every area of their developing lives.
– Increases an inner sense of one’s life purpose, one’s connection to others and one’s sense of purpose in the world to be reaching to make a difference each and every day.
– Develops highly empowering LISTENING skills.
– Encourages students to embrace their dreams and become self-motivated and collaborative in their academic endeavors.
– Greatly improves internal self-talk, motivation and communication with disgruntled students, faculty and staff.
– Helps students “find their voice” in ways that they can be heard.
Is today the day you really grab a hold of your life and own it!?
Mary Robinson Reynolds, Master’s in Educational Psychology Counseling and Development K-12 from the University of Nebraska; demonstrated expertise with every imaginable label awarded childhood behaviors, physical attributes and learning styles. This includes: Youth At-Risk, Substance Abuse, EBD, Suicide Prevention, GT, ADD, ADHD, Special Ed, i.e. Intensity, Academic and Behavioral. Extensive experience teaching educators the key to “connecting” with students and adults based on their attitudinal energy, labels and expressed (as well as non-verbal) expectations. Author and Producer of the world renowned videos – MakeADifferenceMovie.com – and AcknowledgmentMovie.com – both amassing over 10 million views within a few short months of their releases.
PS … Do-It-Yourself with UTrain OR bring me in to speak and train for your team! Questions? Just call me at Heart Publishing 603-997-1908
PPS … Let’s not forget that if you have been feeling like there’s something more that you want to do, you can take this program beyond where you currently work by becoming a Certified Make A Difference Facilitator. For those who feel the pull to make a difference and a living at this, I will give you 1:1 time every step a long the way.
