Play, Passion and Purpose with Harvard's Tony Wagner

Tony Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade. Tony consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.

The Finland Phenomenon

Finland now consistently leads the world in education including international test score results. The students start at a later age (about age 7), have shorter school days than there U.S. counterparts and have almost no homework.

What's Up With That?

A Harvard University Professor takes a look.

What Makes You Come Alive? - Sean Aiken

Sean Aiken graduated from college and like a lot of kids had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. What he did have was a very creative way to figure it out. He lined up 52 very diverse organizations who were willing to employee him for one week and then give his paycheck to charity. He filmed the project and wrote a terrific little book called The One-Week Job Project. Sean shares his experience here on a Ted Talk.

I work with people all the time to help them identify their strengths and then deliver them in the workplace. I use a variety of inquiries or questions, assessments and other tools to help my clients uncover gifts and talents long overlooked and underused. But the best indicator available is to "try stuff". Sometimes you need to try a lot of stuff before you find your niche.

In my last post I used the analogy of trying on a suit of clothes. When Susy and I went shopping for her wedding dress, we covered dozens of stores and half of California in the process. Then there it was...on a rack at Nordstrom in South Coast Plaza.

Lining up your dream job, the one that fits will take some effort. Sean Aiken embarked on a very novel approach that allowed him to "try on" a lot of jobs in a relatively short amount of time. You can take a similar approach. Conduct informational interviews. Set up job shadows and internships. Volunteer.

Watch Sean's talk and be inspired!

Does Your Perfect Job Exist???

Do you have your perfect job?
Somewhat near?
No where near?

Does the perfect job for you even exist? I think it does, but not off the rack. If you've ever bought a business suit you know what I'm talking about. I'm a 42 tall... but not a perfect 42 tall. When I buy a suit I immediately head for the rack with the 42 talls. And I also know that if I want a perfect fit, I'll be spending some time with the tailor.

It's the same with jobs. In the world of work, this tailoring is called job crafting. If you're interested in crafting your off the rack job and turn it into one that fits more perfectly, I recommend Marcus Buckingham's book, "Go Put Your Strengths To Work". If you'd like support around that along with a few more ideas, I'd love to help.

There is another strategy that works well for many people. It's called a portfolio career. In this Ted Talk, Katie Ledger talks about "working toward work that will work for you". She says, "Your perfect job probably doesn't exist...yet." Then she goes on to give some terrific examples of people who have pieced together a mosaic of fulfilling work. Take a look!

Re-Discover Your Creative Genius

When you are working in a strength, you have almost limitless access to creativity in that area. When you are working in an area of weakness, creativity may plummet.

This is a cool video advertising the book, "Unthink".

Ken Robinson's "How To Escape Education's Death Valley"

Our friend, Sir Ken Robinson has a new Ted Talk!

Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

This is another video short based on Sir Ken Robinson's new book Finding Your Element

Authenticity & Acting Like An Owner

I worked for one manager, Mr. A.W. Lanford during an eight year span of my career. At his retirement dinner he went around the room and said something about each of his District Managers. When he came to me, he said, "Dale pushed back on me harder than any district manager that I ever had". It was true. We had that kind of relationship. And it was with complete respect and even love that I had for him. One of the things he repeatedly taught me was, "If you're trying to keep your job, you're probably not doing your job".

In this video, Professor Kaplan talks about speaking up, acting like an owner and being authentic...

Leveraging Failure As A Strength

Is failure a strength? It is if you leverage it correctly! In this video short, professor Kaplan talks about pulling out our failure stories and mining them for wisdom.

Assessing Your Strengths & Weaknesses

Being Successful vs. Reaching Your Unique Potential

In this clip, Harvard Management Practice Professor, Robert Steven Kaplan talks about a critical distinction. He shares the difference between being successful, as society might view it, versus reaching your unique potential. These thoughts are shared in more detail in his book, What You're Really Meant To Do: A Roadmap For Reaching Your Unique Potential.

Finding Your Passions - Robert Steven Kaplan

Robert Steven Kaplan has come out with a new book, What You're Really Meant To Do: A Roadmap For Reaching Your Unique Potential.

In this video clip, he shares some thoughts from the book!

The Path To Discovering Your Talents and Passions - Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson wrote The Element just a few years ago. It's become one of my favorite strengths books. I'm just finishing Robinson's helpful sequel, Finding Your Element. It's very practical with lots of questions and exercises. Here is a series of videos from "Big Think" sharing ideas from both books.

How Would You Develop A Business Person?

If you wanted a child to grow and develop a head for business, what type of classes would you encourage him to take? Math? Science? Accounting? Surely you could make a case for each of these choices. But in an article for Inc. Magazine, Kevin Daum makes a pretty good case for the arts, specifically theater arts.

Daum argues, "Performing arts students must create a concept from scratch, refine it so they can articulate a compelling vision, recruit skilled labor, and manage everyone to completion on time and on budget, since moving opening night is never an option. They also get to sell their product and collect immediate customer response in the form of ticket sales and applause. This process is completed by millions of students several times a year, all over the world."

Of course, from a strengths perspective, we want kids to find the marketplace that leverages their passions and talents. If that happens to be math and science, that's wonderful. If that happens to be shop class, that's wonderful as well.

I maintain that I learned more about business from my high school baseball coach than any class I took. Ironically, he was also my high school business teacher and a very good one. But it was on the baseball field where I learned to compete, to win and lose, to understand the importance of both natural talent and developed skill and to cooperate with teammates toward a common goal.

Yet sports programs have been dropped, arts programs have been canceled and auto shop has been eliminated from the curriculum. I fully support science, technology, engineering and math or STEM classes. But they're not more important than theater arts, baseball or auto shop.

One would think that math and accounting are irreplaceable components of running any successful business. And maybe they are. But Richard Branson was already a full-fledge billionaire that had successfully started hundreds of businesses before his accountant was able to help him fully understand the difference between gross sales and net profit.

To read Kevin Daum's full article in Inc. click here

The One Thing Your Child Needs by Jenifer Fox

"Breakaway" - Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

This terrific video short was produced and distributed by Farmers Insurance. It's worth watching several times. Your second time through, pay attention to the lyrics from the song "Breakaway", performed by Kelly Clarkson. It was written by Avril Lavigne, Bridget Benenate and Mathew Gerrard.

Perfect!

Neurons to Networks: The Science Behind Your STRENGTHSPATH

There is solid science behind the STRENGTHSPATH principle. This short video, From Neurons to Networks is a good short explanation of the science supporting what I teach. Your STRENGTHSPATH is really a metaphor for neural pathways in the brain. Although I'm also a firm believer in the concept of lifelong nueroplasticity, or the ability to learn and grow throughout life, this video establishes that our hard-wiring begins before birth and is fairly complete early in life. The STRENGTHSPATH Philosophy is geared for the most part toward nurturing your nature, rather than attempting to completely re-wire what some might label as a weakness. Of course weaknesses must sometimes be addressed and managed, but the emphasis should always be on reinforcing what you naturally do well.

What's Your Child's Spark? 3 Responses

This is a terrific video from the Search Institute. It communicates 3 different parental responses to a child's passion and talent? If you're a parent or someone who otherwise has interaction with children, how are you doing?

How to Find Your Personal Calling - Brad Lomenick

In a recent article published by Outreach Magazine, Brad Lomenick writes about how to find your personal calling.

As Brad shares, asking good questions is one key answering this question well. I've been collecting such questions for many years. He's come up with some new questions and a few twists on some old ones that I plan to add to my collection:

What keeps me awake when I should be falling asleep?

What wakes me up when I should still be sleeping?

What are your passions and gifts? At the intersection of these two elements, you'll find your calling in life.

What would you work on or want to do for free? That is usually a good sign of what God has designed you to do.

What energized you when you were a child? Does it still animate you? Knowing your calling is often connected to childhood passions and gifts.

If you could do anything and take a pay cut, what would that be? You may have to blow up your financial goals in order to find your true calling.

What barriers are preventing you from pursuing your true calling? Can you begin removing those?

If you aren't engaging your gifts and talents where you are now, could you make changes in your current role to better to better engage those? Don't rule out the possibility that you are where you need to be.

Helping Your Child Find Their Spark!