Do you want to stop living with shattered dreams or take that fragmented life to the next level? Are there discrepancies between what you desire in your heart and what you are doing with your life? When was the last time you assessed your goals and values? Can’t remember? Then how do you know if you’re living up to your potential? Personal development is a lifelong pursuit to better yourself through new experiences, education, and more. I’m launching a monthly newsletter to help you find fulfillment and satisfaction in all aspects of your life—if you’re ready to grow, opt in today! https://carolyledestiny.leadingthebest.com/EEPD0001 Thank you
No lasting change ever came about without consistent effort, and in terms of personal growth, this often involves getting a little uncomfortable.
The ‘growth mindset’ is defined as an individual’s belief that their talents and contributions have the ability to be developed through hard work, practice, and patience. Those who instead believe their abilities to be innate and unchangeable are said to possess a fixed mindset.
While our current life situations may be sustainable, even somewhat comfortable, the fact remains that by staying within these comfort zones we automatically close ourselves off to the possibility of thriving and living a life rich in passion, inspiration, and creativity.
The study of the neural pathways within the brain has proven that over time, our brains become accustomed to functioning in a certain way. This creates stronger pathways that are reinforced every time we act that way or think specific thoughts. (This is why habits are so hard to break!) When we adapt our thoughts and beliefs, we are literally reprogramming our brain.
It’s important to know that by knowingly re-directing our thoughts, we can influence changes in the brain. This leads to the cultivation of stronger, more positive pathways which will lead to a growth mindset.
To determine if you have a growth or fixed mindset, read each of the following statements and decide whether you mostly agree or disagree with it:
1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much. 2. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are. 3. No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit. 4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.
Questions 1 and 2 reflect a fixed-mindset. Questions 3 and 4 point to a growth mindset.
We are motivated to educate as many people as possible which is why we host many events. From in-person educational experiences to virtual webinars, masterclasses, and even parties to celebrate our clients, we encourage everyone to get involved with all of our offerings. Take a look at all of our exciting 5 week Masterclass December 4th, 2021
Day and night, I saw the harms of drugs and gang violence. We could see the anguish on my mother’s face every day. Eventually, she succumbed to depression. We never could understand why we were staying at my grandmother’s house so much. In my book “The Enemy in the Bush”, there’s a picture of us sad-faced kids at my grandmother’s house. We had no idea what was going on in our mother’s life. But as we grew older, we did.
Mom always wanted to be a teacher when she migrated to the North. I remember her telling me when I was a child. But the reality of life stole her dreams, goals, and aspirations and she never realized her true potential. Instead, she became the head of the house, separated from my father, who was fighting his demon of alcoholism. My mother raised a total of 10 kids. When I reached the age of 11, my three older brothers moved out of the house. Seven of us, ranging from 4 through 11, remained at home. Seven children living in a three-bedroom apartment in an impoverished neighborhood. This was my reality.
As a boy, I saw my mother struggle and sacrifice just to put food on the table. Sometimes, I would hear her argue with God about the hardships she faced. Her many prayers went up to heaven to ask God to help us make it through another day. As a child, I had few of the comforts enjoyed by others who lived in the suburbs. We had lots of love, but little in the way of material things.
My mother died without realizing her dream to be a teacher. She died with her dream still inside of her. I made her dream a reality by becoming an adjunct professor for 10 years. Despite lacking the resources, we needed to meet our basic needs of her family, we survived. But my mother never realized her true potential and purpose in this life. I often wondered when I was older why my mother hadn’t pursued her dream. Perhaps fear and self-doubt held her back. I remember how my siblings and I made a pact never to follow our mother’s path. When I questioned the WHY behind our decision, I knew it boiled down to the struggles, hardships, and pain we saw her go through. Seven of us made this covenant, but only two of us had successful careers and made positive lifestyle changes. My sister Mary became a successful certified social worker/ supervisor working in hospitals and is moving towards private practice. I finished a successful military career as a senior ranking officer and continued as a DoD civilian working complex mission-oriented jobs for our government. I also became an adjunct professor, author, and contributing academic author. Now I’m a certified John Maxwell coach, trainer, and speaker.
If you examine our lives, we knew where we were and had our eyes on where we wanted to go. We had a definite plan to get there. Living in impoverished conditions gave us the motivation to never lack for anything again. We wanted to be able to sustain ourselves. We were intentional about reaching our goals and never looked back. We were purpose driven. We had a direction, a destiny to reach. When we looked back, we celebrated how much we had grown.
Psychologist Charles Garfield has worked with many successful people including astronauts, world-class athletes, scientists, business leaders, and other high achievers. He believes that the success of any endeavor starts with having a mission. You must have specific goals accompanied by a strong desire. “A dream becomes a goal,” said Garfield. “The goal becomes the achievement.” I repeat this saying often. Achievers reach their dreams by being intentional in their actions, which means working with purpose and making every action count. It’s about focusing on doing the right thing, moment by moment, day by day, and then following through consistently. Successful people aren’t scattered and haphazard. As Zig Ziglar said, be an aiming specific, not a wandering generality.
Never stop improving. Never stop growing yourself.
How intentional are you? As you proceed through your day, do you have a plan and a purpose for everything you do? Do you know where you’re going and why you’re doing what you’re doing, or simply drifting down the stream of life?
In the theme song from the motion picture Mahogany, Diana Ross brings this message home:
“Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showin’ you? Where are you going to? Do you know?”
I have been disappointed for some time from what I’ve read, watched in the media and heard through the chatter amongst peers as this crisis unfolds. I have seen everything from calm to stupid. After work on Wednesday I decided to stop by the grocery store and get a few things for the weekend; such as hand wipes, some Lysol spray and maybe some fruit and other little knickknacks. However, when I arrived at the grocery store and began shopping for my few items I notice to my surprise that the shelves were empty, of meats, of fruits, seafood and the other paper products that I was seeking for. I overheard a shopper asked one the store personnel about toilet paper, I thought for a minute in a humorous way that was strange. So I decided to go to the aisle to help the shopper out finding toilet paper. I didn’t really need any toilet paper but to my astonishment to was gone. The fully stocked shelves of paper products including toilet paper were gone. Go figure!!! No one sensible enough to believe that just a few weeks ago before this surge of panic hit the airwaves people would be fighting over toilet paper and paper products, so reality began unfolding. Then capture this moment in your imagination that other people with families were walking up and down the food aisles in a daze wondering like me where all the paper products, fruit and meats disappear to. I could see the look in the people eyes and in their expressions of disbelief; I missed out and thought in mind of when the shelves will be stocked again. The sad part of this experience is that I didn’t need food for the month or for the week. All I needed was a few things. However, looking at some of the families in disbelief of what they were witnessing walking up and down the food isles trying to find that needed food item perhaps dinner for that night; was sad to observe.
I guess people went stir crazy, when they saw that our Government at all levels didn’t have a handle on what was going on, held and back vital information to the people. This caused skepticism, cynicism and uncertainty amongst the general public. This causes psychological negative behaviors that were displayed such as fear, panic and stress. Those who took matters into their own hands panic and began buying in large quantities of essential items. Therefore, negative display of behaviors manifests themselves by shoppers raiding the supermarket stores shelves during the worst time in this world’s history. These were very selfish acts committed against our fellow men.
Another way of looking at the committed selfishness is the disruption on the supply chain just out of fear. Disruption in an already fragile supply chain, according to Steve Culp of Forbes magazine can reduce the share pricing as much as 7% of affected companies, and cause slowdowns in the market place in response to the disruption. This previous run on the supermarkets sent a jolt in the supply chain which was behavior driven. This false negative can cause bottlenecks within those effected companies.
From an economic scale the disruptive behavior disturbed an already complex and fragile supply chain. This behavior sent false negatives in the market place and distorted the prices of the commodity the law of supply and demand was not implemented. We live in free market system, the law of supply and demand says that when the price of a commodity will net demand goes up in the supply of that commodity is down in the price is higher. On the flipside when the demand for those commodities is down in the price or supply that entire commodity is up in the price is lower. The distortion comes in when the price of a commodity doesn’t follow the law of supply and demand.
While people made a run on the supermarkets just hoard it for them instead of buying what they need for right now. Instead people had no regard for others such as those families that were in shock and unable to find the flexibility of buying those needed items for that day or the week. People were out for self, these actions were based out of fear driven behaviors and this selfish acts happen across the nation. People were literally fighting for these essential commodities. This is a defining moment not only for leaders in organizations in the community but also leaders in Washington DC. I will save the politics for later but right now we have an elephant in the room and we got to get it out.
So I appeal to leaders at all levels, first must display calmness and control especially at the local levels and restore trust in the public. Leaders must display behaviors free from agitation, disorientation and anger, instead show strong tranquility free from anxiety and fear. As John Maxwell would say , “leaders must not lead and moan at the same time.” When people see that their leaders display behaviors of strength, the people with begin to trust and take on these transmittable behaviors. People are influenced by what they see not what they are told. To quote John Maxwell leadership is influence nothing more and nothing less.
James Allen, said “the more tranquil a man becomes, the greater it is his success, he’s a influence , his powers for good, calmness of mine is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.“
This past few weeks were crazy there were no, this was so wherever totally took everybody by surprise, preparedness wasn’t our strong point and calmness was not present amongst the chaos. Therefore it triggered the behavior of total selfishness within individuals that did not care for their fellow man.
What happens in the United States was a trust problem which displays negative behavioral problems. Leaders need to,
1. Restore the trust of the people. Right now their don’t trust the government to make the right decision and have a handle on this epidemic.
2. Show people that their leaders are in control of their of the issues surrounding this epidemic and a willingness to share information regardless if it’s good or bad. People want to know about the progress of the virus.
3. Restore the people’s trust back in the government as leading the way in sharing information, keep them up to date on the cure and be upfront and sensible about the true picture of the looming crisis.
The solution is to control the chaos by the display of confidence and strength. The restoration of trust of the public. A control on issuing the essential items and a willingness to share information at State and Local levels on how to obtain essential items need to get through this crisis. This is the bottom-line of Mark Weitzman, paper of “Price distortion and shortage deformation, or what happened to the Soap” written in 1991.
So my story doesn’t end there I’m still waiting for the abundance of supplies to fill the shelves to me that will take another week or so while these control measures are being implemented. Not saying that this will eradicate the shortage problem but at least the shelves won’t be as bare as I saw them a few weeks ago. What are your thoughts and comments on this matter? Am I far off?
