Britely

 Today I have been doing some work on clarifying my vision for this site, for my role here and what I want to accomplish.  I am driven today by the work of Simon Sinek and his work captured in the book Start With Why . I want to give some back story to how I got here.  I think my journey starts with being pigeon-holed in the educational systems Special Education track in Oregon USA primarily because they misinterpreted the fact that I could not speak English as a sign of developmental delay.  I stayed on this track until the 10th grade where through some slight of hand while changing schools I was offered a true education.   Prior to this I was merely being housed and not educated in any way.  When I entered a more traditional educational system at 16 years of age, I had little foundation to work with and 3 years to make up the difference in order to graduate on time. I had little time for self pity and set to working myself out of the h...

Discipline is often spoken of as a predictor of success.  There are many articles studies and videos on the subject and in my experience, there is some ambiguity as to what the term refers to and what it takes to nurture it.  I have a personal reason for wanting to understand it and distill it into something that is easy to teach.  I have a family member with some mental health issues that I help by boiling concepts and practices down to skills and patterns that can be easily acquired and applied.   This is my attempt to understand and teach the concept of Discipline What is Discipline and what is it made of. “Doing what you said you would do long after the mood you set them in has left” Unknown My definition of Discipline is that it is an intersection or a relationship between four basic elements Goals Willpower Habits Drive Goal - First off, there needs to be a goal.  There is more to discipline than habit or willpower.  Ther...

I just read an article about plans and the need for flexibility.  Its a quote from Mike Tyson “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”  and this article does a really good job of expanding on the thought of plans and resiliency in the face of adversity. The concept that you should not throw out your plan if part of it breaks is a really good perspective.  That plan gives you something to start with.  You got your overall goals and division of labor from your plan...  so... if it broke that didn't change the base premise of the plan.  The execution portion needs to be reworked to meet the same goal...  Rework it and get back to production. Hesitation, indecisiveness are killers in the position you are in when plans fail...  "either to go for a knockout now or stay away for a while, his choice will have knock on effects for the rest of the fight but the fighter needs to make a decision or get punched in the face again" Sta...

Fighting Procrastination One of the many and most persistent issues that we deal with us professionals is the issue of fighting procrastination. It's problematic in that it appears when we want least to have to deal with it and when our projects are either urgent important or take a tremendous amount of effort. Oftentimes techniques like keeping a to-do list don't do much to help the issue of procrastination because some of the tests are long and complex. I've come across a new technique that seems to address these kinds of projects rather well. It's called the Pomodoro Technique. One of the things that I like about it is that it focuses on acting executing on the tasks that need to occur as opposed to planning or organizing. There is a stage where that happens but it happens at a more operational level than in typical to-do lists and project plans. It consists of 25 minute cycles of work and then a reward for diligence rather than for task completion...

Did you know that January is  National Mentoring Month ? This is a good time to start a blog on mentoring.  I love mentoring.  Its social event and lets face it, we are social animals.  I believe that mentorship is an essential skill for leadership and management. Exercising these skills gives us the ability to concentrate on the results and not the details of learning the skill.  And there is no better way to learn something than by teaching it. That brings us to the purpose of this blog.  It is intended to share the skills tricks and collect the tools that I have used in the process of mentoring someone.  I have lived the benefits of mentorship and have seen how powerful it can be.  It means so much to the person receiving it and it can mean so much to the person that is sharing their knowledge and skill.  Mentorship is a way to become a change agent in your work place and in the community at large.  It means that you take respon...