Ah Ha Moments with Micah

This week I got to have a long talk with Micah. Micah is an art teacher and is working her way through classes as I am. She posed a question regarding connection and engagement that I loved, "The idea of building a connection on a foundation of your insecurities and difficulties diminishes our accomplishments, makes our ah-ha’s seem less special, and (I think) can lead to a cycle and habit of negative self-talk."

For me, there can be nothing more pernicious and undermining to our ability to move forward positively as a learner, teacher, and humans than that tendency for "negative self-talk" that you describe in that passage. I don't know if I have it in me to re-write rule #4 specifically, but that passage resonated and made me think of a couple of rules that I promote within my teaching and leadership teams. 

The first I learned in the military and anyone in the military should be familiar with it. "Complaints only go up, positivity goes down." There are many variations of this with more colorful language but to boil it down, never complain about things to your troops, only show the positive side of things. If you have to complain, complain only up the chain of command. This has served me well both in and out of the military. Complaining down the chain of command starts a vicious circle of kvetching and a spiraling disgruntledness that is hard to slow. This could be one of the first things I promote within my new leadership cohort whenever I train a new supervisor or trainer.

The second one is "Celebrate and advertise your own wins because you might be the only one doing so." For a long time I worked behind the scenes and things got done and no one seemed to know how or why. It was only in the last few years in my career when I saw my direct reports acting in a similar manner and not getting recognition for their work that I realized they were modeling themselves after me and how I worked. I changed the model to ensure our work was recognized. If you can't recognize your own successes who's to say others might? It's important to be able to promote and advertise the positive aspects of your work whether through quick elevator pitches to the CEO in the hallway, at lunches or even at end of project parties. 

Perhaps not the best rewriting of rule 4 but what you wrote really hit me as something I saw in The Skillful Teacher as well, a tendency to navel-gaze toward the negative without the promotion of and illustration of all the positives that might be out there. Great post Mica!