Week 162
Positive post Sunday, March 29, 2020- Week 162.
I’ve enlisted the support of the newest member of our family, Benjamin, to help me write this week’s Positive Post Sunday. For our family, and I suspect many other families with school age children at home will face this soon, spring break is coming to an end and it’s time to go back to school, at least virtually. With schools closed, sheltering in place and the need to homeschool, it’s hard for children (and maybe even harder for adults) to shift gears and return to a schedule that includes education and learning. I’m especially thankful for the teachers and administrators (and parents and grandparents) who are working very hard to help our children continue to learn during these most challenging times. Please keep them in your prayers.
That brings me to my focus for this Positive Post Sunday, Learning and Knowledge. My close friends and colleagues have heard me say, “When you stop learning, you may as well stop living” or “You’re never too old to learn” many times. I believe that our quest to learn and obtain knowledge is how we grow, and for those of us more experienced in life, it’s what keeps us young and sharp. It’s our form of mental fitness!
Let me introduce you to an excellent adult learning tool, fs: Farnam Street. Here’s the link to the weekly newsletter titled Brain Food: https://fs.blog/newsletter/. I encourage you to subscribe. I read it every week and find it full of thoughtful insights and knowledge that will sharpen your mind and that you can apply in your everyday life.
This week’s newsletter, Brain Food No. 362 is particularly timely and relevant for leaders managing through these unprecedented times. Brain Food No. 362 includes an article titled, The Mental Habits of Effective Leaders with Jennifer Garvey Berger. If you are a leader in anyway (which we all are), you don’t want to miss this one. Here is the link: #43 The Mental Habits of Effective Leaders. Here are a few highlights that caught my attention:
- History is filled with leaders, who were told in whispers that there was a disaster ahead and who were so certain about their own perspective that they marched into disaster headlong. A curious leader listens to whispers and begins to make sense of them, not necessarily to believe them all, but to know that there’s something going on to be attuned to.
- I am continually surprised by the power of genuine listening. I know it sounds fairly simple, but people who are led by their curiosity and who genuinely listen to the perspectives of others, they learn like crazy.
- You can’t tell the difference in a brain scan between somebody having an opinion and somebody remembering a fact. Our brains think they’re the same. So, we have to get really careful with what we think is an opinion and what we think is a fact.
- One of the different questions adult development theory lets us ask is, “Who am I being right now and is that the person I want to be?” You bring that question into your everyday life and it moves you.
How are you and your family continuing to learn and gain knowledge during these most challenging times?
How are you helping our teachers, administrators and parents of young children advance the learning of our youth?
Who are you being during these challenging times, is it the person/leader you want to be?