Leadership problems

The Olympics of Dedication

The Olympics have a way of shining a new light on the meaning of dedication.

The opening ceremonies were comprised of one spectacular vignette after another, with thousands of performers, musicians and athletes knowing exactly where to go and what to do during every minute of their moment in the spotlight. That’s dedication.

Every commercial that runs during the Olympic Games tells the athlete’s tale of foregoing dessert, not watching TV, not skipping a single day’s workout in order to be the best. That’s dedication.

Then there was the Chinese farmer who spent the last two years traveling to London via rickshaw just to see the Olympic games. A little extreme, but yes – that’s dedication.

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Fear and Vision

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without ThinkingFreakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

Fear paralyzes; sometimes we allow it to, calling it “caution”. It’s good to be cautious.  Not so good to be paralyzed. Either by over-analysis OR by fear.

(Though, extreme analysis can combat fear; see Freakonomics for the statistics on child restraints…)

A good nugget from Tim Ferriss’s Four-Hour Workweek is this (paraphrased):

The thought of the “worst-case scenario” keeps us from acting, yet the worst-case scenario almost

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Why do student leadership?

About a third of my work in leadership training is with youth organizations, with an emphasis on true empowerment of youth leaders to contribute to the organization’s work.  It takes effort, so I was recently asked “Is it worth all the effort to have student leadership?”

I said yes, and here is my full answer:

Many would agree that it isn’t worth

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