Be Creating

In 1932, Victor Halperin directed White Zombie, a horror film starring Bela Lugosi sharing his view of zombies. The film depicted zombies as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Although Zombies are rather on trend, thanks to The Walking Dead , far too many individuals spend their days powering through life, racing from email, to text, to twitter, oscillating between online and real time, unable (or unwilling) to slow down. Mindlessly pushing through the day. There are far too many zombies out there, and unfortunately education is full of them.  Recognizing who they are and realizing that if you can wake-them-up they can move an initiative far faster and deeper than almost any other group in your organization. Zombies are often the unofficial power brokers of the school. Teachers who have taught the same lesson for the past 20 years.  Students who only do as much as is required to not get into trouble. Parents who see education as the total responsib

I’ve always said the best training I had for working with adults was Jr. High School.   With every change initiative or innovation of which I have been a part I’ve learned we never really leave behind the social behaviors we adopted during our teenage years. Under pressure we revert back to our teenage years as easily as slipping on an icy road in the winter.    Ironically as a change catalyst I often hear the phrase “But, we are all adults.” popping up when individuals are confronted with a challenging situation involving others.   In the back of my mind I find myself saying “So- what difference does that make!”   It’s as if people think because someone has reached a certain age they are now magically going to take on a whole new set of behaviors.   Believe me after 40+ years of working with people in transition it doesn’t really make one lick of difference how old you are.   You, and those around you will revert back to the behaviors you learned the last time you were

  Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes William Bridges captures the process of transition – the psychological re-norming that occurs after change in his book, Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes .  Although no two people transition in exactly the same way, understanding the basic process has served me and those I have worked with well. It has helped ground me during times of stress, by providing a framework to reflect on how I’m managing myself and anticipating what may come next. I have always been fascinated by the process of moving individuals to a new state of being.  Bridges’ work helped me become clear that change happens in an instant.  It is what happens before and after the change that is often difficult for individuals to manage.  His work focuses on three phases, Endings, The Neutral Zone, and eventually New Beginnings.  I believe that individuals accept/decide to change and when a significant number of individuals in an organization change

Transformational Life Skills are not about fixing what is broken or learning to manage the day-to-day of life better, they are about freeing yourself from the constraints of the past and creating the future of your dreams.  Most people think of life skills as money management, time management, daily living skills as well as the abilities necessary to get and keep a job. All of these are important however; they are not transformational they are the basic skills for living.  Transformational life skills apply everyday in every way and take you into a future on the edge of your imagination. They require a systems level change in your thinking and beliefs.  Transformational life skills alter who you are, what you believe and how you act with the least amount of effort.  They literally transform your life.  There are four transformational skills:     Letting Go     Imagineering     Mindfulness     Healthy Self-evaluation The Chinese use a symbol for change that is a combinati