WILL #6

What I Learned Lately (WILL 13/14 #5) by Dr. Josh Garcia (@Garciaj9Josh)

When I was growing up, I wasn’t always proud of my address.  I was pretty sure, I would never grow
up to be anything “royal”.  In fact I don’t think I really understood what a royal was.  As a kid, I needed to learn to dream.  I needed to learn to dream in color, I needed to learn to see the love my family was giving me.  Ultimately, I needed to learn how to learn.  Over the course of my life, I needed to learn how to be a producer and not just a processor.  A producer not for myself but a producer on behalf of others.  This often brought me close to the “fire”.  Recently I was asked by a group of students to reflect on how to produce and not just process an idea to death.  Here was my thinking:

#1 Move carefully,
If they tell to only do 2 things, do 3,
Outwork everyone,
Don’t let them tell you to stop,

#2 When you ask yourself, where is the “Love”, look in the mirror,
Don’t look at the haters, look past them,
When they are all in your ear, because they will be in your ear… Breathe…
Take a deep breathe, a really big one and know that you are in control of you

#3  The reason we practice every day is that it’s easy to stray from the view; everything else in our life pulls us in different directions, stay focused
The more we’re able to gather our attention and focus,
The stronger our mind becomes,
The stronger the experience becomes, and
The stronger the result becomes

#4 What marks the border between small motivation and great motivation is a shift in focus from own happiness to that of others.
Be your own ruler,
Be your own dreamer,
Create your own reality by bettering the reality of others.

I am even clearer now that I will never be a royal.  However, I am very proud of my address (I am 253), because I now know the structure does not define the interior.  Recently, I experienced “We Day Tacoma” and it solidified my views above.  Real people willing to produce on behalf of others.  A title doesn’t define quality.  People define quality by their willingness to stand for something.

Finally,
"Fire is something we should all embrace - it has changed "mankind".  Be willing to stand next to the fire - you may change the way we live."

Cross-post: http://edge.ascd.org/_WILL-1314-6/blog/6552536/127586.html