This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen.  As a father of a girl and boy; this definitely stirred some emotion and got me thinking.

Enjoy!

Who is leading the children in your life?

Jason Kiesau Personal Leadership, Relationships, Youth Leadership

Do you remember when we were little?

The sky was the limit and we could be ANYTHING we wanted to be. What happened to that dream?  Sure it’s easy to say “I was a kid”.

I talk to many people who are not living the lives they want to live for one reason or another.   MAYBE when we were three we were on to something.   Perhaps we knew so little about the world around us that we could be driven and motivated 100% by our interest and passion.    At what point and time do we forget about this?

Take a moment and think back to your childhood:

• Who did you want to be when you were little?
  
• What did you LOVE?
• What excited you?
• What could you not live with out?

When I was three I wanted to be two people:

• Superman
• Bo Duke

Both made the world around them a better place and protected people from evil.   When I think about my personal mission in life and why I started Full Circle Development Group, I can’t help but see parallels between myself as an adult and who I wanted to be when I was a kid.    Though I’m not driving around a fancy car and beating up bad guys OR flying around saving the world . . . I am trying to do what I can with what I got, BUT . . . and this is most important . . . I am doing what fires me up in life.

With all the disengaged people I see . . . I wonder what would happen if they would have followed their dreams from when they were three.

What would your life be like today?

(the cool thing is . . . it’s NOT TOO late)

Jason Kiesau Careers, Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

How are you competing with this?

A USA Today article says that consumers today encounter from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages per day, vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s, says J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich.

As parents we need to consider how many marketing messages our children see on a daily basis.

• How much television do we allow them to watch?
• How much radio do they listen to?
• How much time do they spend on the computer?

The fact of the matter is the business world spends a great deal of money to know how our kids think and act more than most of us will ever consider.   If you are not leading them, someone OR something else is.

I ask you this . . .

Of all the thousands of messages your kids see, hear, and feel on a daily basis . . . how many of them are coming from you?

-

Jason Kiesau Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

“That’s the first rule of being a leader . . . just put your ego aside and find people that are smarter than you.  I found they exist in groves.”

Jason Kiesau Business Leadership, Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

What if Leadership was taught in everyday life as it is in sports?

• You can’t be afraid to go out and compete and do whatever it takes!
• Losing gives us a great blue print for how to do things better in the future!
• You find a way! Everyone needs to step up and see how we can become better!
• Life is competitive!

Would the world be a different place?

Jason Kiesau Business Leadership, Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, (“This is my message to you-ou-ou”)

Singin’: “Don’t worry ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”
Singin’: “Don’t worry (don’t worry) ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”

–
It’s a dog eat dog world out there.   As hectic as life can get at times it’s absolutely critical to have good people around you that:

• Understand you
  
• Respect your values and beliefs
• Support your mission in life
• And occasionally sing you sweet songs and melodies pure and true

If you have read my blog and listened to my radio show you have heard me organize life into four areas:

• Health
• Finances
• Relationships
• Careers

I feel the area that is the most critical and can significantly impact the other three is relationships.   When we set goals in the other three areas: Health, Finances, and Careers we can become successful and fulfilled by setting our goals and with our individual actions.  Granted people are probably involved in each area, but in most cases we don’t have to be dependent upon anyone else for happiness, success, and fulfillment.

With relationships, we have to work directly with other people.  Other people who probably have different:

• Values and beliefs
  
• Perspectives on the world
• Reasons and methods for doing things
• Goals

A difference in any of these areas can lead to disconnection with in a relationship, be it personal or professional.

In ’7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ Covey talks about reaching the stage of interdependence.   This means that we approach the world around us understanding that our best chance of becoming a highly effective person is to work with others as we are working toward our goals.

He also talks about the concept of ‘Toxic People‘.  Toxic people are like poison.  They stifle or prevent you from being who you want to be and living the life you want to live.   Our ability to make wise choices with the people we surround ourselves with on a daily basis can make all the difference in accomplishing our goals and living the successful and fulfilled life we deserve.

In this song, the “Three Little Birds” represent those people in your life that help you be the person you want to be.  The are supportive and encouraging.   They want what is best for you!

We live in a crazy-fast paced world and sometimes it’s easy to forget and ignore the three little birds are in our lives are.   We also forget that we have people in our lives who depend on our sweet songs and pure and true melodies.

“Don’t worry ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”

Jason Kiesau Business Leadership, Employee Engagement, Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

We Are Losing A War . . . the Information War!

We could all learn a lesson from Bill Cosby in this clip of the Cosby Show.

We need to learn how to say: “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.”   We need to teach our children to do so as well.

Consider these statistics:

• Television – Direct TV has over 250 Channels
• Radio – Breaking it down, there are 4,776 AMs, 6,309 FMs and 2,892 educational FMs, which the FCC lists separately.
• Internet – Yahoo registered 19.2 billion websites
  

USA Today Article:

• Consumers today encounter from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages per day, vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s, says J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich.

Kid’s Health.org

• Two-thirds of infants and toddlers watch a screen an average of 2 hours a day
• Kids under age 6 watch an average of about 2 hours of screen media a day, primarily TV and videos or DVDs
• Kids and teens 8 to 18 years spend nearly 4 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2 additional hours on the computer (outside of schoolwork) and playing video games
• Children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight.
• Kids who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior but also fear that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.

About Kid’s Health

• In Canada, the average child watches about two hours of television a day and sees more than 20,000 commercials per year. And marketers have become increasingly sophisticated, using research into developmental psychology to exploit children’s age-specific vulnerabilities and make their messages that much more powerful:
  • Up to age four or five, most children don’t understand that there is a difference between entertainment and advertising. They watch commercials and television programs with equal attention. Commercials aimed at this group often associate the product or brand with fun and happiness, rather than talking about actual product facts.

  • Children don’t develop a concept of other people’s beliefs, desires, and motives, known as “theory of mind,” until they are at least six years old. It’s difficult for children younger than seven or eight years old to understand that the intent of advertising is to get them to buy things. They also tend to take advertised claims about a product literally.

  • Tweens, age eight to 12 years, understand the purpose of ads but are still vulnerable to them. These children are starting to develop their sense of identity. “Aspirational” marketing targets their desire to be slightly older and seem more sophisticated than they are.

  • Teenagers are trying to differentiate themselves from their parents and fit in with their peer group. Marketing aimed at teenagers may focus on teens’ insecurities, or it may take positive qualities such as their activism and desire to challenge conformity and repackage them in the form of cool, counter-culture brands.
    

As we “Americans” seem to be struggling in every area of life.

• Health
• Finances
• Relationships
• Careers

It is my opinion we as a nation are are living in insecurity and until we as individuals regain confidence in ourselves life will continue to be an unfulfilled struggle.

Why Is That?

As stated above the average American receives 3,500 – 5,000 marketing messages per day.   These messages come to us in a variety of ways and regardless of how they act like they want to help us . . . most messages have the senders best interest in mind.    In the United States alone, $6.7 million is spent on market research each year.   This means that $6.7 million is spent on understanding how babies to elderly people think and behave.   The business world knows that if they learn how you and I think and behave that they will be able to speak to us in ways that will influence, motivate, or manipulate us to take action in their favor.

They know what they’re doing . . . and they’re winning!

Let Me Ask You a Question!

With of all of the 3,500-5,000 messages your children or students are hearing on a daily basis, what are you doing to make sure your message gets the attention you need it to?

We wonder why parents are having trouble controlling their children.   We wonder why teachers are having a hard time in the classroom.   How are your messages competing with the thousands of other messages coming at them?

They’re not . . . and that’s a problem!

Parents and the education world need to start thinking like a business.    What do you need to learn about the children you are working with to touch them at their souls?  Businesses need to start treating their employees like they are customers.  You do market research for a reason.   Why don’t you give the same attention to your most important resource . . . YOUR PEOPLE?

Is There Any Hope?   Can we win this war?

It’s not looking good!

Jason Kiesau Business Leadership, Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership

Thank you for visiting my blog!  I’ll apologize a head of time . . . I have a feeling this could be a long one!

Have you ever heard the quote:

“It’s hard to see the forest when you’re standing in front of a tree.”

Over the last year the town of Parkersburg, Iowa has been rebuilding after a tornado ripped it apart.   This morning the town suffered another tragedy as Ed Thomas, a well known Iowa high school football coach and teacher was shot multiple times in the school’s weight room.  There were approximately 30 witnesses, but none were threatened and/or injured.   You can read more about this by clicking on the links at the bottom of the page.   The shooter is a 24 year old male who was a former student and player for Coach Thomas.

When I hear stories like this I of course feel bad and have great sympathy for the people a tragedy like this effects.   The sad thing is this is just “another story”.   It’s just another story of some young man who can’t manage his emotions and chooses to harm others and or himself.

This is the story this week and there will a new one next week!

• Why does this keep happening?
• What are we not seeing?
• What are we missing?
• What social conditions have we created is leading to this issue time after time after time.

Today the tragedy is in Parkersburg, Iowa.   Last year at South East Polk  High School near Des Moines they had three suicides in a span of five months.  All teen boys.

Scan the following bullet points:

• February 2, 1996 – Moses Lake, Washington
  Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
• Feb. 19, 1997 – Bethel, Alaska
  Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
• Oct. 1, 1997 – Pearl, Mississippi
  Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother.
• Dec. 1, 1997 – West Paducah, Kentucky
  Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
• Dec. 15, 1997 – Stamps, Ark.
  Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.
• March 24, 1998 – Jonesboro, Ark.
  Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.
• April 24, 1998 – Edinboro, Pa.
  One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
• May 19, 1998 – Fayetteville, Tenn. One student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
• May 21, 1998 – Springfield, Oregon
  Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home.
• June 15, 1998 – Richmond, Va.
  One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway.
• April 20, 1999 – Littleton, Colo.
  14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation’s deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
• May 20, 1999 – Conyers, Georgia
  Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.
• Nov. 19, 1999 – Deming, New Mexico
  Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School.
• Dec. 6, 1999 – Fort Gibson, Oklahoma
  Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.
• Feb. 29, 2000 – Mount Morris Township, Michigan
  Six-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint, Mich. The assailant was identified as a six-year-old boy with a .32-caliber handgun.
• March 10, 2000 – Savannah, Georgia
  Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19, while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach High School.
• May 26, 2000 – Lake Worth, Florida
  One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes.
• March 5, 2001  – Santee, California
  Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School.
• March 22, 2001 – Granite Hills, California
  One teacher and three students wounded by Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite Hills High School. A policeman shot and wounded Hoffman.
• March 30, 2001 – Gary, Indiana
  One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had been expelled from Lew Wallace High School.
• Nov. 12, 2001 – Caro, Michigan
  Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.
• October 28, 2002 – Tucson, Arizona
  Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student at the nursing school at the University of Arizona, shot and killed three female professors and then himself.
• April 24, 2003 – Red Lion, Pa.
  James Sheets, 14, killed principal Eugene Segro of Red Lion Area Junior High School before killing himself.
• Sept. 24, 2003 – Cold Spring, Minnesota
  Two students are killed at Rocori High School by John Jason McLaughlin, 15.
• March 21, 2005 – Red Lake, Minnesota
  Jeff Weise, 16, killed grandfather and companion, then arrived at school where he killed a teacher, a security guard, 5 students, and finally himself, leaving a total of 10 dead.
• Aug. 24, 2006 – Essex, Vermont
  Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend’s mother.
• Sept. 27, 2006 – Bailey, Colorado
  Adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School and then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself.
• Oct. 3, 2006 – Nickel Mines, Pennsyvania
  32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
• Jan. 3, 2007 - Tacoma, Washington
  Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in the hallway of Henry Foss High School.
  
• April 16, 2007 – Blacksburg, Virginia
  A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
• Sept. 21, 2007 – Dover, Deleware
  A Delaware State Univesity Freshman, Loyer D. Brandon, shot and wounded two other Freshman students on the University campus. Brandon is being charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless engagement, as well as a gun charge.
• Oct. 10, 2007 – Cleveland, Ohio
  14-year-old student at a Cleveland high school, Asa H. Coon, shot and injured two students and two teachers before he shot and killed himself. The victims’ injuries were not life-threatening.
• Feb. 11, 2008 – Memphis, Tennessee
  A 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School shot and wounded a classmate in gym class.
• Feb. 12, 2008 - Oxnard, California
  A 14-year-old boy shot a student at E.O. Green Junior High School causing the 15-year-old victim to be brain dead.
• Feb. 14, 2008 – DeKalb, Illinois
  Gunman killed five students and then himself, and wounded 17 more when he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the university in 2007.
• June 24, 2009 – Parkersburg, Iowa

Did you notice any consistencies throughout each bullet point?

ALL BOYS

Check out these stats from www.FBI.gov

In 2006 . . .

• 76% of all arrests are males
• 89% of all murder and non negligent manslaughter are committed by males
• 98% of all forcible rape are committed by males
• 89% of all robberies are committed by males
• 78% of aggravated assaults are committed by males
• 85% of all burglaries are committed by males

If you visit the FBI website you will see a much longer list of crimes that are also dominated by males.   I am focusing on males in this blog because the majority of events like the one today are committed by young males.  In fact, the majority of major crimes are committed by males.   When you mix that with statistics of young boys without male leadership and the statics that show how boys are falling behind educationally . . . I think it’s something we should focus on!

What is my point with all this?

My point is WE AS A SOCIETY ARE MISSING SOMETHING!

We are struggling in each area of life:

• Health
• Finances
• Relationships
• Careers

Adults are having a hard time managing their lives . . . how they hell are we supposed to expect children to figure it out?   How are we supposed to expect children to grow up to be responsible contributors to society when we aren’t doing it.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE!

• In our homes
• In our schools
• In our businesses
  
• In our churches
• In our communities
• In this country

Clearly what we are doing now IS NOT WORKING!   And if it is . . . we wouldn’t be in the messes we are in.   We wouldn’t have so many people wandering around trying to ‘figure it out’.   We wouldn’t have good, bright, and talented children running around trying to figure things out and deal with the craziness of the world on their own.

Today in Parkersburg was a tragedy.   This 24 year old kid has forever changed the world for himself and many others.  We’ll talk about the situation for a few months . . . we’ll talk about him and wonder why for a few months . . . and then we’ll forget about him until the next time this happens . . . and we’ll do it all over again.

How bad does it need to get before we wake up?  What can you do to help?

Jason Kiesau Personal Leadership, Relationships, What's Your Opinion?, Youth Leadership

There are a few great books out there that talk about the way people will need to think in the future.   One I’ve read recently is “Five Minds for the Future” from Howard Gardner.

All this information is great, but it still comes down to parents and educators laying the foundation for the children.   It takes everyone involved teaching kids how to think proactively and productively.   Right now we are in an information war and we aren’t winning.   From the time we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night every single one of us are getting hammered with different messages . . . so are our children.   If we don’t teach them how to receive information, ignore the bad, keep the good, and most importantly use it productively how are we preparing them for the real world?

Over the past couple of weeks I had heard an advertisement on the radio for a website that provides resources to help parents, grandparents, and caregivers create different learning situations for their children at home.

THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!

The website is BornLearning.org.  Their website states: Born Learning is designed as a tool for long-lasting community change that supports young children. It has three cornerstones:

1. Awareness
   Providing important information about how young children learn.
2. Education
   Providing easy, fun action steps that parents, grandparents and caregivers can use every day.
3. Action
   Providing a visible platform for public policy and action.

Their goal is to inspire everyone who impacts young children to make the best possible decisions to boost school readiness. And they aim to give each of them the tools to make long-lasting community change.

If you have kids or know people who have kids this site provides some great information!

Enjoy!

Jason Kiesau Personal Leadership, Youth Leadership