Are you looking for creative ways to keep your "random acts of kindness" going?
Arvind has put together a quick list of 29 ideas that may spur your thinking...and more importantly...spur your actions!
Check out 29 Ways To Carry Out Random Acts Of Kindness Everyday. It's posted at lifehack.org. Which is a superb daily read that I highly recommend.
Student leaders often don't ask for help because they feel like it makes them look helpless.
Does that describe you?
If it does, there is hope. There is a better way. There is a way to ask for help without using the actual "H" word. There is a way to ask for help that makes the other person feel valued, appreciated, special, unique, qualified, needed, and motivated to help.
I've come up with a few ways to engage someone in the big ASK!
We ask because we need help.
We ask because we want to get others involved.
We ask because someone can help us.
We ask because it's what leaders do.
We ask because we can't and don't want to do it all by ourselves.
We ask because it actually empowers others.
We ask because it shows others where there is an opportunity.
So try some of these ideas. Some of them are simply statements that you can lead with. Others are direct questions that ask for help.
• I've noticed you did a really great job on that project. What do you thing about doing something similar for us?
• We need someone like you on our team.
• When we started this project, I immediately thought of you.
• Would you be willing to partner with us?
• Would you be willing to take the lead on this?
• Could you recommend someone who is as talented as you who could assist us?
• You were recommended as someone who could assist us with this.
• If you were in my position what would you do?
• Do you want to be a part of something remarkable?
• I know you're overqualified, but can you give us a bit of your expertise?
• I know you're really busy, but can you give us an hour of your time?
• I know you're interested in making this the best year ever, can you jump on board this project?
• We just need one more person to make this thing a huge success.
• We'd all feel a lot better about this project if we knew that someone like yourself was on board with us.
• This is going to make a huge difference on our campus. I know you'll enjoy working on this.
• I've seen you do this kind of thing before. Can you show me how you did it so that I can how as well?
• Just imagine how great everyone is going to feel if we can pull this off. Don't you want to be a part of making that happen?
• Hey! Could you look at something for me? What do you think?
• I am useless in this area. Would you be able to do anything to help move things forward?
• You're the most (insert adjective here) person I know. And I'm looking for a (insert same adjective here) person.
What do you think? Are you ready to go and recruit the people you need to make your student leadership year the best ever? Don't just lay general invitations out there through mass emails or a flyer. Ask individual people...those whom you feel would do a great job. Help them see why they'd be great and what they'd get out of it.
It will take some discernment.
It will take some courage.
It will take some humility.
It will take some time.
But it will make you a better student leader. So go ahead and ask for help. It sure beats being helpless.
Read Part One.
Read Part Two.
Read Part Three.
Here's a true story...
Sally (I changed the name) was our yearbook editor. She was fun-loving, easy to work with, and confident. Throughout the year, she would give update reports to the executive student leadership team about her progress on the book. When the end of the year came and summer arrived, she stated that she'd have the whole book turned in within a week.
At the beginning of the next school year, the new Student Government President and I sat down to talk about the plans for the upcoming year. He asked me when the yearbook would be arriving. I told him to call our yearbook company and check on the shipping date.
He came back into my office a few moments later. Our yearbook company had received NOTHING from our school.
Unfortunately for us, the previous year's yearbook editor did not return to school. As we worked to solve the mystery, one thing became increasingly clear:
This student had become overwhelmed with her responsibilities and was fearful of asking for help because she felt like people would think she was incapable.
As I stated in the second part of this series, some student leaders will never reach out and ask someone else for help. And it makes me wonder...why?
Here's some of the reasons why I think students will choose to face failure rather than facing the fact that they need help:
Insecurity - When a student accepts a student leader position, he wants to be perceived as a student leader. He wants people to think that he's capable of accomplishing all of the things that the position requires. But doing all of the tasks simply makes him a student worker. The reality is, he's not a student leader until he gets others involved. A student leader doesn't have to be able to do everything...he just needs to find the right people to accomplish the tasks.
Naiveness - Sometimes, a student leader won't realize all of the things that a position will require of her. She just thinks it will be fun. She doesn't realize that every position requires a price to pay in order to be able to play. If a student leader pays on the front end, she'll be better able to play on the back end. But if she plays up front...she'll have to pay at some point. And the cost keeps going up throughout the year. Simply ignoring a problem or deadline doesn't make it go away.
Ego/Arrogance - The term "student leader" infers that the one who is leading is also a student. That means that the leader is a learner. If a leader stops learning, the leader stops leading. A student leader who refuses to ask for help may be suffering from an overinflated ego. Even though a student leader NEEDS help, he may be reluctant because he doesn't want to look HELPLESS. But failing to ask is just asking to fail.
Past Betrayal - I'll be the first to admit that it's often easier to simply do things yourself. A student leader may have asked someone for help in the past and that person let her down. But that's how it goes sometimes. Rather than give up on people, why not learn how to spot better, potential leaders? Take the time to learn from the experience and create systems that help to keep people accountable and intrinsically motivated.
Not Sure Who To Ask - Sometimes a student leader won't ask for help because he doesn't see anyone whom he feels is capable. That's okay. One of the first things a student leader must decide is what are the things that only he should do. Then he can work toward delegating the other tasks and getting others involved. Is there someone whom you can train? Perhaps you need to look outside of your circle of friends? Have you asked your advisor whom he or she would recommend? If a student leader doesn't think anyone is qualified, he may have to reevaluate what he's asking for or his own perception of people.
Hopefully, you're beginning to understand that asking for help is not a bad thing. In fact, it can be the best thing you do as a student leader. What is it that scares you about asking for help? Is it the word itself - help?
Looks like I need a part four to this thing. Next up...how to ask for help without saying the word - help.
Most student leaders should realize right off the bat that they're working in a volunteer organization. The students that they invite to come alongside and assist them in various roles and capacities will probably not be paid (with money$$). That means that a student leader will need to rely on their intrinsic motivation to encourage them with the opportunity to get involved.
This is so important to remember.
When you are asking another person for help, you must show them the benefit it will bring to them and the benefit it will bring to you. What will they get in return for their help?
It could be something as simple as a heartfelt thank you.
It could be knowing that they used their strengths and giftedness.
It could be a sense of helping someone else move forward.
It could be the good feeling of solving a problem.
It could be the feeling of being needed.
It could be a stronger relationship with you.
It could be the satisfaction of accomplishing something.
It could be the sense that they belong.
It could be understanding that their help will make something great happen for others.
There are many ways to tap into the intrinsic motivation of someone else. When you identify what that is for an individual, you can connect the task your needing help on to it. You can show them what they will receive by helping you.
Realize this: People will often do more because of intrinsic motivations like I've listed above then they will if they're simply receiving money for their work.
As a student leader, there will ALWAYS be times when you will need to seek the help of someone else. Consider some of these scenarios...
You find yourself in a situation where you know you are capable of taking action, but you're unable to focus for the required amount of time necessary to complete the action.
You find yourself in a situation where you feel like your organization will be in serious TROUBLE if you don't do the right thing.
You find yourself in a situation where you shouldn't tackle an issue on your own regardless of whether you have the time or not.
You find yourself in a situation where you know you're capable of taking action by you feel like you would be better off if someone else got involved to think through the options with you or take the action on themselves.
Of course there are many more scenarios that could warrant a student leader going to someone else for help. Yet each scenario has the possibility of paralyzing student leaders when they feel like they have to do everything themselves.
WARNING: Some student leaders will never reach out and ask someone else for help.
Don't let that be you. There are a variety of reasons why a student leader (in name only if no one is following you) will try to do things on their own and hesitate to ask. In fact, that's going to be the subject of my next post on this issue.
We started a new tradition on our college campus this year. It's called CRAK!
Campus Random Acts of Kindness
It's a big hit. We made t-shirts and encouraged students to go around and do something nice for someone else. They responded and it was a great shot in the arm to our campus community.
When someone saw another student doing something nice, they reported it to the CRAK Committee (CC). The CC then put a tshirt in that student's mailbox.
What's amazing is that even when we ran out of tshirts, people still participated.
Think about your own campus. How can you change the culture? Perhaps it's through one random act of kindness at a time.
Don't you think it's time for your school to get onboard with CRAK?
In this series, I've attempted to give you some of the key markers that describe a connecting relationship.
All of the first four markers - Beginning, Breakthrough, Bonding, Building - can take place in the midst of our work with student leaders. But there's a final stage that moves past the role of advisor and student. It comes about long after we've moved past those descriptions.
The final level of a connecting relationship is Blessing.
This is the hardest of the five stages to define. There can be glimpses of the blessing stage within each of the other stages, but it’s only after much time and much love do we realize the depth and value of this kind of connecting relationship. It is the culmination of two lives spent fulfilling the first four stages. It is reached by very few. More often than not, connecting relationships that reach the level of blessing are more realized at the end of things then they are at the beginning of and in the midst of things.
The Blessing phase may be characterized by:
* A closeness or sense of closeness that is evident in the midst of absence, distance, and lifetime pursuits.
* A realization that my life has been altered or changed for the better because of this person. They feel the same way about us.
* Extremely high level of mutual trust and respect.
* A strong sense of devotion and willingness to do anything for the other person.
* A high level of confidence that the other person has my best interests at heart.
I'm not going to spend much time trying to explain it because it is difficult to put into words. I will offer you a passage from Mitch Albom's captivating book,“Tuesdays With Morrie.”
I'll set the scene a little bit: Mitch has been meeting for weeks and weeks with his old college professor, Morrie. Morrie has contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease, a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system. The topics have ranged from fear and regrets to money and family. All along the way, Mitch and Morrie connect. The following is from their last encounter together before Morrie passes away. Mitch walks into the bedroom where Morrie lays, crippled by his disease, and gasping for each and every breath.
There he is, I said, mustering all the excitement I could find in my empty till.
He exhaled, shut his eyes, then smiled, the very effort seeming to tire him.“My . . . dear friend . . .” he finally said.
I am your friend, I said.
“I’m not . . . so good today . . .”
Tomorrow will be better.
He pushed out another breath and forced a nod. He was struggling with something beneath the sheets, and I realized he was trying to move his hands toward the opening.
“Hold . . .” he said.
I pulled the covers down and grasped his fingers. The disappeared inside my own. I leaned in close, a few inches from his face. It was the first time I had seen him unshaven, the small white whiskers looking so out of place, as if someone had shaken salt neatly across his cheeks and chin. How could there be new life in his beard when it was draining everywhere else?
Morrie, I said softly.
“Coach,” he corrected.
Coach, I said. I felt a shiver. He spoke in short bursts, inhaling air, exhaling words. His voice was thin and raspy. He smelled of ointment.
“You . . . are a good soul.”
A good soul.
“Touched me . . .” he whispered. He moved my hands to his heart. “Here.”
It felt as if I had a pit in my throat.
Coach?
“Ahh?”
I don’t know how to say good-bye.
He patted my hand weakly, keeping it on his chest.
“This . . . is how we say . . . good-bye . . .”
He breathed softly, in and out, I could feel his ribcage rise and fall. Then he looked right at me.
“Love . . . you,” he rasped.
I love you, too, Coach.
“Know you do . . . know . . .something else . . .”
What else do you know?
“You . . . always have . . .”
(p183-185)
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: What keeps us from reaching the blessing stage as we connect with others?
SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: Do you have a "Coach" or "Morrie" in your life?
: : : :
Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Trainer & Tool Maker
www.studentlinc.net
* * * *
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Four]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Three]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Two]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part One]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [intro]
Who can forget the relationship that developed between Danny Laruso and Mr. Miagi in the movie, The Karate Kid? (What?! You've never seen it? Where have you been?)
More than teaching Laruso about karate, Mr. Miagi used the pain and realities of life to teach Danny how to be a man. The movie powerfully illustrates the role of nurturer in the life of a young teenager.
In the character of Mr. Miagi, we see a grace giver fleshed out. He does not demand. His own life becomes open for Danny to find what’s most important in life. In the end, Danny comes out on top.
As the movie comes to its dramatic close, you find yourself cheering over Danny’s victory. More than defeating a cocky kid from the enemy dojo in a karate match, (yes, I gave away the ending...but you've had 20 years to see the movie!) you realize his greatest opponent had been the obstacles he carried within himself.
And when the victory was sure, young Laruso having discovered the elusive balance he had sought, the final words of the film ring out above the applauding crowd,
"We did it, Mr. Miagi. We did it!"
The camera freezes on a short, Asian man who seems to be standing head and shoulders above the crowd; his face and countenance is beaming. He is Mr. Miagi. The model. The molder. The mentor. The nurturer.
As we bond with others, there’s still a tendency to focus on how the relationship affects me. It’s still somewhat self-centered, even though there may be mutual respect and genuine admiration for the other person. The relationship matures (or the connection deepens) as the two people begin to focus on the other…this is the Building phase.
Building becomes effective as I’ve walked through the previous three stages (beginning, breakthrough, bonding) with another person.
As I’ve laid a foundation of relationship with someone, spent my life getting to know them better and share experiences with them.
As I’ve come to a place where I can see what’s most important to them.
THEN, I am in the right place to truly add significant value to their lives. Before this, my teaching and guidance may be useful, but now it is meaningful.
“No man can become rich without himself enriching others.”
- Andrew Carnegie
Ways to build into the life of another:
1. Bring tools and resources to the table.
2. Share lessons learned from life experiences.
3. Offer your strengths and skills.
4. Accountablility.
5. Shared projects.
6. Recognizing untapped or unrealized potential.
The following is taken from a letter that I wrote to my staff about the importance of equipping (building) our students:
“Be not afraid of going slowly; be only afraid of standing still,” says the ancient Chinese proverb. Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one things of changing himself.” And one famous philosopher said, “There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.”
Words of wisdom. They come in all forms. But they’re just words. Until they change a life. I heard one person say, “You better be careful because the life you lead just might be your very own.” What’s so great about this adventure called life is that we get to make some choices, and those choices count (i.e., personal hygiene is a good choice!). A life that never changes, never grows, never risks, never tries, is not a life, but an existence. Oliver Cromwell said it well when we wrote, “He who stops being better, stops being good.”
One of my mentors has taken the word “EQUIP” and formed the acronym: Encouraging Qualities Undeveloped In People. That sounds good to me. The next step is to equip them with tools and resources that will guide them on their journey toward achieving their potential.
I believe that adolescence is a key decision making time. Students begin to chart the course of their lives not only in the area of occupation, but also in personal habits, character, and relational skills. This is not a period of time where we can sit back and hope for the best. It is a season of growth like no other. The transition from childhood to adulthood is the laboratory for discovering what we will pack in our suitcase for the journey of life.
Working with students lets us walk alongside through the processes of discovery. What’s cool is that we also learn something in the process. It’s not about creating manuals with all the answers in the back. It’s about creating growth by wrestling with the issues of life together. There are four aspects to this model:
Relationships: Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. This is realized as we are interested in who they are and what makes them tick. Helping them identify their strengths and weaknesses. Finding their heart before asking for their hand.
Personal Growth Plans: The only thing you truly have the ability to improve is yourself. In forming the patterns of our adult lives, we want to inspire students to develop a plan for their personal growth. Under the guidance of a mentor, these plans can be updated and reviewed on a regular basis.
Freedom To Fail: Henry Ford said, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.” As I mentioned earlier, adolescence is a laboratory. Our guidance needs to be a safe place where students experience growth being modeled by people who care about them.
Taking Someone With You: Philip Yancey tells a story of Albert Einstein, who toward the end of his life, removed the portraits of two scientists Newton and Maxwell from his wall. He replaced them with portraits of Gandhi and Schweitzer. When asked why, Einstein explained that it was time to replace the image of success with the image of service. As we grow and develop, we need to invest in others and help them to do the same. A key to our continued growth is the ability to take others with us.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: Everything you know, you learned from someone else. Who are the people you need to express gratitude for the building they did in your life?
SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: In the comments below, offer ways that you strive to build into the lives of students.
: : : :
Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Trainer & Tool Maker
www.studentlinc.net
* * * *
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Three]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Two]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part One]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [intro]
[photo credit: IMDb]
In our society, much of our day to day lives and relationships are maintained by a contract mindset.
We make deals, carry out responsibilities, fulfill roles, and provide accountability with the use of contracts. These contracts may be formed through a person’s word, a handshake, or a formal written agreement.
A contract is a normal and necessary standard through which we conduct certain interactions with each other. But they tend to be based on legality and reciprocity. Contracts can break down under the inevitable duress of conflict or change. These binding agreements, in their specified stipulations, leave LITTLE ROOM for reaching our potential.
They are designed to keep order and avoid confusion. They measure out control and can be complied to with little or no interaction.
In Max DePree's landmark leadership book, Leadership Is An Art, Depree helped me see the ultimate value in moving from a contract-type relationship to a covenantal one.
Covenants are based on a RELATIONSHIP. They are formed on the basis of deep needs and enable interaction that has meaning and fulfillment.
A covenant evokes such words as love, warmth, personal, and contentment. It is open to influence and flexes with the occurrence of conflict and change. There is a freedom, not paralysis, that commits itself to SHARED ideas, SHARED issues, SHARED values, and SHARED goals.
While a contract seeks to control, a covenant is open to risk. Inherit in all covenants is the requirement to abandon ourselves to the talents and skills of others. It prescribes a sense of vulnerability, much like risking one’s heart by the placing of trust in another when falling in love.
As one moves deeper into a connecting relationship, the covenantal aspects wil move you closer to the next marker: Bonding.
Most people who have reached the level of bonding have noted at least five criteria on which their connecting relationships tend to rate quite high:
1. There is a high investment in the relationship, with frequent face-to-face contact, and/or mail or telephone.
2. Strong emotional tone characterizes the relationships; you are not indifferent to each other. You would cross the street or spontaneously stop what your are doing to make time for friendly chatter.
3. The emotional tone is consistently positive and affirming for both you and the other person.
4. The relationship has an “instrumental base.” That is, both you and the other person know that in time of emergency the relationship could “cost something” and that you would make the sacrifice to help.
5. The relationship is RECIPROCOL (this is HUGE!) and symmetrical. Healthy friendships are so evenly paired that both persons can give and both persons can receive and can do so without “keeping score.” You find yourself saying, “Let’s not talk about it. If this had happened to me, you would have done the same thing.”
As a relationship begins to experience breakthrough moments in the “right direction,” there will be a sense of bonding.
Bonding can be characterized by:
1. A closer friendship
2. Sense of dependence on another
3. Fondness for the other
4. Desire to be around the other, to spend time together
5. Shared experiences that form various levels of attachment.
Attachment: Throughout life we are drawn towards or pushed away from people. Like a magnet, we encounter relationships at varying polarities - the level of attachment is either growing or diminishing.
Alignment: When a relationship is moving toward common purposes and goals. It is a point where we begin to move our lives alongside another’s, seeking to walk the journey together.
Agreement: Based on common interests, opinions, and perspectives. Both people identify common interests and values that solidify the relationship.
In connecting with students, a little adolescent psychology may be appropriate here. Often adolescents will seek to move their lives out of alignment with their parents in order to gain independence. In so doing, they will heighten areas of disagreements, so that they may find their own identity. I believe the thing that brings them back around is their attachments to their family. The weaker the attachment, the more difficult the return.
In bonding with your students you should:
1. Find areas where you’re in agreement.
This is especially powerful when you discover areas outside of yourself (personal preference) such as matters of character, values, and faith.2. Identify where a student is attaching him or herself.
This is the key to discovering what’s important to him or her at this point in life.3. Let them know how much their friendship means to you.
This will show them that the relationship is something you value.4. Recount with them the significance of the breakthroughs - retell your story together often (the “remember whens”).
5. Realize that continual bonding will require continual breakthroughs. Look for new experiences, deeper intimacy, or working through crisis to allow this to happen.
a. Share significant events in your own life with them.
b. Look for opportunities to serve them. (related to “Building,” which is the next step)
c. demonstrate acceptance without judging (acceptance is different than condoning).
As Bonding continues you will have increased influence over the student’s life, just as they will in yours. This is a valuable gift and should show itself in the next phase…Building.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: In what ways have your relationships with your students been reciprocal?
SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: What types of relationships do you have that are necessarily contract-oriented? When would this type of relationship be appropriate when working with students? Leave your answer in the comments below.
: : : :
Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Trainer & Tool Maker
www.studentlinc.net
* * * *
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part Two]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part One]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [intro]
A woman read somewhere that dogs were healthier if fed a tablespoon of cod liver oil each day. So each day she followed the same routine -- she chased her dog until she caught it, wrestled it down, and managed to force the fishy remedy down the dog’s throat.
Until one day when, in the middle of this grueling medical effort, the bottle was kicked over. With a sigh, she loosed her grip on the dog so she could wipe up the mess -- only to watch the dog trot to the puddle and begin lapping it up.
The dog loved cod liver oil.
It was just the owner’s method of application the dog objected to.
Once we move through the beginning of a connecting relationship, we begin to discover things about the other person. Things that hopefully lead to some breakthroughs.
Breakthroughs occur as a result of:
1) Extended time together (ex., retreats, road trips, meals together)
2) Points of commonality: interests, causes, commitments, etc.
3) Working through crisis together
4) Acts of sacrificial love -- meeting needs
5) Memorable experiences: victories, defeats, out-of-the-ordinary, etc.
Breakthroughs are based on:
1) Time
2) Trust
3) Tragedy
4) Triumph
Types of Breakthroughs:
1) Mild: similar experience, hometown, something in common
2) Major: powerful experience together, become dependent on each other, intense crisis
Why do Breakthroughs happen?
Breakthroughs happen as a result of mutual trust and respect or in the midst of circumstances. While beginnings are the start of a relationship, breakthroughs begin to cement the relationship. As we discover more about a student, we have opportunity to find ways to experience breakthroughs in the relationship. Breakthroughs occur over and over in a relationship. But they are extremely important at the start of a relationship to take it to a deeper level. Yet when breakthroughs cease to happen, the relationship can begin to plateau.
Breakthroughs require a certain amount of transparency and vulnerability. This goes hand in hand with establishing trust. Breakthroughs are hindered when we hide our lives from each other.
Barriers to Breakthroughs:
1) Absence
2) Dishonesty or Broken Trust
“One of the realities of life is that if you can’t trust a person at all points, you can’t truly trust him or her at any point.”
- Cheryl Biehl
3) Prejudice (preconceived negative feelings)
4) Disinterest
“In our solution-oriented society, it is more important than ever to realize that wanting to alleviate pain without sharing it, is like wanting to save a child from a burning house without the risk of being hurt.”
- Henri Nouwen
5) Doubt
6) Manipulation
How Do You Have A Breakthrough…
1) Listen with everything you’ve got.
“The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.”
- Unknown
2) Learn all you can about the other person.
3) Love in every situation.
“Talk not of wasted affection, affection was never wasted.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How to Have a Breakthrough in the Classroom:
We can say that a teacher is called upon to create for his or her student, a free and fearless space where mental and emotional development can take place. This occurs as teachers are:
1) Revealing - teachers need to reveal that their students have something to offer.
“We will never believe that we have something to give unless there is someone who is able to receive.”
- Henri Nouwen
2) Affirming - teachers need to encourage, affirm, and show support as students offer their gifts.
“It is good to realize that students cannot be molded into one special form of the good life, but are only temporary visitors who have been in many rooms before they came into ours.”
- Henri Nouwen
Realize this, that a breakthrough is important, especially in light of the purpose of the relationship. It is more than getting to know each other better, it is seeking to connect at a deeper level. It’s the difference between interest and influence. Many study and get to know students to see what they can get out of them. Students are very wary of this. Our purpose is to partner with a student in order to discover a point of connection in which we can invest in them.
“You can buy a man’s time, you can even buy his presence at a given place, but you cannot buy enthusiasm…you cannot buy loyalty…you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.”
- Charles Frances.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: What kinds of breakthroughs have drawn you closer to someone else?
SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: Leave a comment below explaining how you move from acquaintance to friend with someone else.
: : : :
Tim Milburn
Student Leadership Trainer & Tool Maker
www.studentlinc.net
* * * *
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [Part One]
Read The Art of Connecting With Students [intro]
John Wooden, the inspiring and successful former coach of the UCLA Bruins, loved to quote a line from Cervantes who said,
"The journey is better than the inn."
Connecting with someone else is not a destination we arrive at, it's all about getting there. The getting there is what shapes and sharpens our relationships. Oliver Wendall Holmes said, "The great thing in this world is not so much where we are but in what direction we are moving."
Connecting with students is a process. Like preparing the earth and planting the seed for a beautiful garden, each of our relationships require personal nurturing.
I helped a friend of mine relocate from California to the Midwest. We traveled in a huge rental truck packed with everything he owned, towing his car behind us. Along the way, we saw a lot of signs. The most frequent signs, popping up from the moment we hit Nevade until our destination in Missouri, was the numbered mile markers. They were like a faithful dog. Always there. Letting us know every minute or so how far we'd come or how much further we had to go.
Connecting has markers of its own, much like our journey across the Western United States. I believe that along the way to deepening our relationships to the point of "binding together" (remember that I define connecting as a process by which two lives intersect in such a way that it binds them together), there are some markers we can watch for.
The first marker is Beginnings.
Many of the greatest pieces of literature have started out with, "Once upon a time..." Even the pages of the Bible begin with three words, "In the beginning..."
Beginnings speak of a time where things have their start. In relationships, they become the arena of reflection, of a point in time where two worlds came together, where two stories began to share the same timeline. What's so beautifully strange is we never quite realize our beginning moments in a relationship until we've realized that the relationship is worth continuing.
The beginning of a relationship with students can be anticipated. Some would call it first impressions. Whatever the term used, there are some ways we can prepare ourselves.
What kind of attitude should you have when you meet a student for the first time? Use the following "BE-Attitudes of Beginnings" as a checklist:
» BE yourself
» BE interested
» BE prepared
» BE trustworthy
» BE friendly
» BE secure
» BE open
Once you know your attitude is in the right place, there are other ways to prepare and be ready for initial encounters with students:
"It is quite important to understand that the attitude with which we approach people will be largely fashioned by what we believe about the nature of the human race."
- Alan Loy McGinnis“Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.” - Goethe
A wonderful illustration of the power of beginnings is how often we talk about them or reflect on them when we are in the midst of an intimate relationship. For my wife and I, it is usually the most often asked question when we’re with other couples: “How did you both meet?”
People are curious and enjoy hearing about other people’s beginnings.
A beginning is the launching pad for becoming.
Sometimes, students may push back a little bit when we attempt to meet them. I would simply offer these three thoughts:
* Meet their fear with assurance.
* Meet their apathy with tenacity.
* Meet their insecurity with support.
We must constantly be people who encounter students as ones who would offer inspiration rather than intimidation.
Think about where your beginnings take place with students:
* On the campus
* At the church
* At their hangouts
* In your neighborhood
* At school events
* Through community service projects
Many of us desire to be liked. The difficulty with this is that we strive to make others like us by becoming the type of person we perceive they would like. Doing the things we can see they affirm, and not doing the things that irritate them (I'm thinking of Andy Bernard on The Office sharing that he'll win people over by "personality mirroring.") The priority of the early phases of a connecting relationship with students isn't to make sure that YOU are liked - it's to help them realize that THEY are liked. I believe that the mature adult who serves in some capacity of working with students can learn how to comfortably meet students by helping them feel comfortable. There are some things that we should all have in common when we are in the process of meeting students. By…
1. Displaying common courtesy.
2. Seeking common ground.
3. Using common sense.
In the next post in this Connecting series, I'll address the next marker in connecting relationships: Breakthroughs.
