I am starting a new series about leadership. Since I am new to this, I will be using another resource as inspiration for my posts:  100 Ways to Motivate Others, by Steve Chandler and Scott Richardson.

Surprisingly, they started off saying, “You can’t manage anyone.” Why would they have written a book about managing people if it isn’t even possible?

Here’s the thing. Chandler and Richardson later revealed, “We teach you how to get people to motivate themselves. That is the key. And you do that by managing agreements, not people.”

If only I had realized this earlier today! In science class, I was designing an experiment with two other people. Three other people kept asking us, “What are we doing? Do you use this thing to measure the blood pressure? What’s the answer to number 4?” I replied, “Do your own work!” and one of my partners even asked them to leave us alone.

Those people criticized us for having an “attitude.” I was seething! But now I wonder if I could have handled the situation better. I had judged them as thick, annoying, and lazy, and treated them as such. They may have been genuinely unsure of what to do. I now wish that I had taken the time to talk them through the experimental design procedure and show them how the equipment works. Then we could have had an opportunity to build a better relationship instead of resenting each other like this.

I was a little too forceful in trying to motivate my classmates to do their own work. They could have been motivated to do so if they better understood how to do their work in the first place, which I could have helped with.

Nobody will follow a leader who tries to make her do something; she has to want to do it herself. The trick is for the leader to figure out how to get her to do to want to do what she needs to do.

Challenge: Think of som

 

eone in your life, who you want to do a certain thing. Remember that person has to do it because he wants to, not becuase someone else pressured him. Try to figure out what would motivate him to do what you want him to do. If you’re not sure, you can always ask.

 

My school held a poetry conterest for Veteran’s Day. The winner’s poem will be read out loud at the assembly. I didn’t plan on going for it at first. If the whole school heard my poem, I would be afraid of their judgement; also, I have never known much about the military.

But I decided to go for it anyway. Since the drama teacher used to be in the Navy, I interviewed him for material to base my poem on. He was nineteen – hardly older than me or my friends – and helping direct actual planes!! At one point, he was on a ship, and it caught on fire somehow. A bunch of people died very painful deaths before his eyes.

He told me that experience opened his eyes to his involvement in other peoples’ deaths. Before, it wasn’t a big deal. He simply had to talk into a radio. It was easy for him to distance himself emotionally without thinking of them as flesh and blood people.

I crafted a poem and sent it in for judgement. I didn’t win. I was really disappointed, but I have won two of the most important things: getting a glimpse of someone else’s world, and giving myself a chance to do something with that. And I’m happy with that. 

 

 

Orange

Embers fading

in the fireplace,

a flicker of warmth

in my heart;

when the bitter frost

comes closing in,

my friend Orange keeps me

safe.

He smells like

pumpkin and nutmeg

baked together

on Christmas morning.

He feels like

a timid candle flame,

shying away

from my fingertip.

My life is

just a little bit

brighter

and a little bit

warmer

and to my good friend Orange,

I just want to say

Thank You.

 

Purple

A warm twilight sunset

An amethyst road

that curves along the river

It tastes like

frozen blueberries,

cold and sparkling

in my ice cream

It smells dark and wet,

like a rainstorm

It sounds like

a monk in meditation

silent thunder

in the soul

It feels like

strands of water

woven into a cloak

I’m putting it on,

so I can glide into the sea

when the moon comes out.

 

Grey

Cold sunlight on a lonely morning,

sliding its fingers over my curves in a

melancholy seduction.

It tastes like gravel

embedded in the snow.

I breathe in the sick

locker room smell

dirt and sweat

intertwined on

the skin of shivering

bodies.

I feel cigarette ashes

smolering on my stomach.

I’m too tired to brush them off

my skin –

it will never be the

same.

 

I just realized that I’ve hardly written anything here since
school started. It was easy to make excuses…

Too much homework.

Too tired.

Too heartbroken.

Too sick.

Lately I have realized that if I wait for the perfect moment
to start writing, that moment will never come. It’s time to get back in the game!

With just a pen and a piece of paper, you can change negative thinking into positive thinking.

Step 1: Be aware of your thoughts. Pay attention to what you tell yourself in your head. If it’s too hard to do in the moment, take a few minutes to write in a journal.

 

Step 2: Transfer the negative thoughts to one side of a piece of paper.

 

Step 3: On the other side of the paper, write a positive version of that thought.

 

Step 4: Cross out the negative thought.

 

I wrote a rough draft this week for my first official school newspaper article. I confess that I had several negative thoughts about it. Here’s one: “So our school district reached its 100th anniversary this year. That’s great, but nobody else will actually care enough to read about it.”

So I am writing this negative thought down, and now I need to think of a positive thought to replace it. Hmmm….

“The article I’m writing is rich with history. The other students may not appreciate it now, but I do, and so does the staff at school.”

Now I can cross out the negative thought, leaving the positive thought about my article. I recommend crossing out the negative thought because my math teacher says that a student who leaves the wrong answer on his homework will still remember it as being ‘right’ unless he takes the extra time to correct it.

It’s not necessary, or even realistic, to think positively all the time. It’s easy to make thinking black and white, good or bad. Focus instead on the question, “Does this thought help me?”

In my case, my first thought was unhelpful because it made me feel less motivated to finish the article and turn it in to be published. My second thought was helpful because it did motivate me. There are still instances in which negative thoughts can be helpful or positive thoughts can be harmful.

To keep it simple, just remember this: if you pay attention to your thoughts and write them down, over time you can rewrite the script inside your mind.

 

 

 

 

 

Twin towers crumbled

Leaving embers and decay

Hearts bled through rubble

 

The sky became ground

Ashes were raining upwards

Nobody breathed in

 

We still hold our breath,

Trace fingers over the stain –

This isn’t the end

 

The towers stand strong

Something rebuilt from nothing

This is our power,

 

To build again and

To love again. Those we lost

Would be proud today.

 

Remember to love.

Remember, those who destroy

Still can’t touch our souls.

 

We are above and

Beyond them. Listen to the

Song of the white dove;

It sings not because

 

It has an answer,

But because it loves our land.

It sings to honor

 

The fallen heroes,

The men, women and children,

And their survivors.

 

 

Today, my Creative Writing teacher revealed a deflating truth: it is all too easy to send a message using reduntant words.

But she turned it to an empowering truth by issuing a challenge:

“Describe a typical day in August without using the words hot, heat, humid, or sun.”

Rather than stating the obvious, she wants us to come up with fresh ways to say the same thing. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

Here’s an example of how this would work:

Instead of saying “The hot sun was shining,” I could say, “Scorching honey dripped down from the sky.”

Since I included the sky, it is obviously not literally honey – honey doesn’t just fall out of the sky. Balancing is tricky: how can you say the same old message in a different way, but still make the intended meaning clear?

I don’t really have any specific advice for that. You can experiment with your own writing, until you find something that works for you!

The example above is part of the assignment I’m working on, and I promise to post it later!

I just started senior year this week, and today in Creative Writing I received a poem I loved so much that it just had to be posted here for all to see! It’s called Ode to Autumn, by John Keats: http://clayriver.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/ode-to-autumn-by-john-keats/

Originally, I was going to cut and paste the poem, but I decided instead to type it out by hand. I turned out to be a very good decision! Typing somebody else’s work is a great learning tool.

It helps you see how the different words, phrases and images fit together. Typing is a more actively involved process than just reading the words. There is a strange sensation of writing with a different person’s hand, speaking with a different person’s voice. By removing yourself for a moment, you can gain a more in depth perspective on the poem.

Before I typed Keats’s poem, I just thought of it as another seasonal poem. It wasn’t until I typed it that I marveled at everything he accomplished in this piece: showing the close relationship between the sun and the plants, giving the season a personality and a body, and orchestrating an entire symphony at the end.

Copying is a useful tool because it helps you understand someone else’s perspective, how he put that perspective into words, and how he used those words. Then you are empowered to go within yourself, to better understand your own perspective and how you use your own words.

I have just one more thing to add: do this legally! Make sure you mention the author of the poem, because if somebody else reads it, she may assume that you wrote it yourself.

Have fun being a copycat!