who do you want to become?

This entry was posted on July 18, 2019. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
Two interesting thoughts to share:<p>

(1) If you’re into coaching, here’s an interesting article from the Harvard Business Review (I’ll attach as a file in case you can’t open the link):

“If You Want to Get Better at Something, Ask Yourself These Two Questions” – https://hbr.org/2018/11/if-you-want-to-get-better-at-something-ask-yourself-these-two-questions

Just so you know, the questions are: (1) Do you want to do better? and (2) Are you willing to feel the discomfort of putting in more effort and trying new things that will feel weird and different and won’t work right away?  In my experience, almost everyone will answer “yes” to question #1, but most would answer “no” to question #2, due to a combination of the amount of potential effort required, the increased level of discomfort, and/or the lack of patience/persistence.

(2) Last week, I watched a business marketing video by Michael Schrage; in the video, he asked the question: Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?  As I watch the video, it made me think, at least for us in higher education, to explore this question:

  • Who Do You Want Your Students to Become?
In a broader sense, this question also made me think about my own life – Who do I want to become?

In a 2-hour presentation/workshop for 160 15-17 year-old Hispanic/Latino students and 30-40 college-aged peer mentors, I started off with the question, “Who do you want to become?”  As we went through the session, I had them revisit this questions time and again, with the hope of getting a clearer sense through the three activities they had to do (40 Kick-Ass Questions About Life, the Value Tags Assessment, and writing a Mission Statement).  Needless to say, a few shared some pretty powerful mission statements that described how they would like to serve the world.  Their homework was to identify how their answers to the various activities would lead to at least one Educational, Experiential, Employable, and Entrepreneurial endeavor.  Just planting seeds, my friends, planting seeds.

So, if you have time, ask yourself:

  • Who/What do YOU want to become?
  • Who/What do you want YOUR STUDENTS to become?

If you find those answers, then it’s a great day!

Here’s what I came up with:

For the students that I work with, I empower them to optimize their lives so that they become the best version of themselves to serve something bigger than themselves in order to make the world a better place.  Although graduating college is one of the goals, it’s my goal that each and every students has the power to dictate how they want their lives to look like instead of following a prescribed plan that may or may not work.

For me, it’s a little harder to answer.  I want to become someone who made a difference in the lives of others by sharing my gifts with the world, whether it’s through coaching, guiding, trainings, workshops, etc.  Let’s start there…