Emotional Intelligence Part 1

        Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Essentially, we are all emotional creatures that tend to make emotional decisions. Then, as emotional creatures, we then subsequently find ways to rationalize and back up with logic, the things that we have already emotionally done or decided. However, our emotions, which were created to protect us, sometimes also gets us in trouble, especially when the emotion of anger is involved and we are looking for some logic to back it up.

 “As the wail of newborns testifies, we humans have intense feelings from the moment we are born,” says Daniel Goleman author of,

Thus, when feeling angry it is as important to remember Aristotle’s challenge: “Anyone can become angry- that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way- that is not easy.”

Emotional intelligence in one form or another has been around for a very long time. In more recent times, however, one of the big names that has had some influence on emotional intelligence is Howard Gardner and his 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Near the end of the 1980s, John Mayor of the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey were the first to actually offer a formulation of the concept called “Emotional Intelligence”.  And eventually, thru Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, the term emotional intelligence finally becomes widely known after thousands of years of humans using it and living it, even though, most weren’t aware of it.

So, now that we are aware of emotional intelligence and that it is indeed important in our overall success, how do you plan on learning more about and using it effectively in game plan for improving your life and the life of all those that you love? 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 4

MINDSET

Part 4

How to Be A Growth-Mindset

            There was a famous saying among the counter-culture during the 1960s that it was better to become than to be. Growth-mindsets are always in the process of becoming, while fixed-mindsets always think that they already have to be. As a society, if we were able to effectively change most of our fixed-mindsets to growth-mindsets we would solve a lot of the world’s problems. As individuals, making that shift from fixed-mindset to growth-mindset wouldn’t make our lives perfect, but it sure would make them richer.

            Andrew Carnegie understood what it meant to be a growth-mindset person. He once said that he wished to have his epitaph read, “Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.” Carnegie is a very rich example who we can all learn from. Lesson: Get around people that are smarter than yourself.

            Another way that helps us to become growth-mindset is just knowing that the two mindsets exist. Knowing these mindsets exist will allow us to start thinking about it and consciously choosing to act differently. For example, people are born with the love of learning, at some point, especially during adolescence, that love of learning comes undone for a safer route of not doing anything that will give people a chance to judge them anymore, also known as, a fixed-mindset. We can make the conscious choice to keep making the effort to learn and not worry about being judged. Some of us may even remember that old saying that goes something like this, “When I was 20, I thought everyone was looking at me. When I was 40, I didn’t care anymore who was looking at me. When I was 60, I finally realized that no one had been looking at me.” Let’s not let the fear of what others may be thinking of us keep us from becoming all that we were meant to become.

            Beliefs are powerful. Change your beliefs and you can change your mindset. For example, intelligence is not set in stone. Even Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test admits that this test that has been labeling kids for so long, was really designed just to identify children who were not profiting from the Paris public schools, so that new educational programs could be designed to get them back on track. According to Dr. Dweck, Binet said that “With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgement and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” Believe it or not! You better believe it!

            Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence, writes that the major factor in whether people achieve expertise, “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.” Stop believing that you’re smart of not smart. Regardless of where you are, you can choose to, and more importantly, make the effort to become smarter than you presently are. But, first, you have to believe that effort is a good thing, and it’s worth it to work harder. Check your beliefs.

            Benjamin Bloom, and eminent educational researcher who after forty years of intensive research on school learning said his major conclusion was, “What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”

            Binet, Sternberg, and Bloom understand that we can all learn under the right conditions. Those right conditions are growth-mindset fed through effort and proper praise that recognizes effort over innate talent and performance. Talent is over-rated here in the United States, as well as, elsewhere in the world. And talent certainly isn’t heroic, like some try to make us believe. What’s so heroic about a gift anyways? You want to know what’s truly heroic? A heroic effort is heroic and worthy of praise, not natural endowments that one didn’t do anything to deserve.

Finally, if you are an adult working with our youth, don’t praise their performance, that only weakens their resolve and lowers their IQ in the end. Recognize and praise their effort and willingness to take on hard things, and to actually fail at hard things and bounce back from them. Now that’s something that is truly heroic and worthy of praise.

            In the end we become more through a herculean effort and a growth-mindset.

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 3

MINDSET

Part 3

           So, what does growth-mindset look like? Well, it looks like Henry Ford, Michael Jordan, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Thomas Edison, Jack Welch, and Winston Churchill. Let me explain. According to Dr. Dweck in Mindset, a growth-mindset is more concerned about learning than grades. Thus, growth-mindsets find new ways to create learning. Henry Ford showed this love for learning over his paycheck by constantly taking a new position at the bottom of a new job every time that he just mastered his old one. People thought he was crazy not to stay in the job that he had mastered. And they thought that he was even crazier to take a pay-cut to go back to the bottom of a new job. He did it because along with his vision, the learning was more important than the paycheck and praise.

            According to Dr. Dweck, a growth-mindset never rest on their laurels as the best, but keeps making an effort to learn and to become even better. This is exactly what Michael Jordan did. He was always willing to work harder than anyone else, even at the height of his career. Former Bulls assistant coach John Bach called him, “A genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius.”

            In addition, Dr. Dweck shares that a growth-mindset teacher or coach doesn’t judge, but in contrast, gives equal treatment to each youth. This is exactly what Coach John Wooden did at UCLA as he equally expected each and every player to get a little bit better every day while equal concern, compassion, and consideration for each and every one of his players were always priorities of the highest order for him. Concern for his players were even more important than winning. And as you probably already know, Coach John Wooden won a lot!

            A growth-mindset doesn’t make excuses, even when they have good excuses. One of Coach John Wooden’s star basketball players, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, could have made lots of excuses when basketball outlawed his signature shot, the dunk. Instead, he went right to work on his other shots; perfecting them. His skyhook shot became unstoppable and carried him, his teammates, and future teams/organizations to many, many victories over the years. His growth-mindset coach did a great job teaching him a growth-mindset and countless people benefitted from it.

            Similar to Coach Wooden, Thomas Edison was a growth-mindset type of person who also helped others become growth-mindset. Not only did he model and live a growth-mindset, but he also mentored the previously mentioned Henry Ford and laid the way at General Electric for future CEO, Jack Welch.

Thomas Edison was once asked by a reporter what it felt like to have failed 10,000 times to create a light bulb. A fixed-mindset would have seen each one of these attempts as horrible failures and would never have been able to persevere long enough to create a better light bulb. Thomas Edison, however, didn’t look at life like this. His growth-mindset framed that constant internal conversation going on in his head of: What is happening? What does it mean? What should I do about it? Edison knew exactly what to do. He smiled at that reporter and said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison knew that with each way that wouldn’t work, he was one step closer to finding the way that would work.

            Jack Welch was the most widely admired, studied, and imitated CEO of his time. And one of the things that made him great was that he surrounded himself with great people that he had selected through mindset rather than pedigree.

            Welch was growth-mindset all the way through. He was constantly learning. And when he needed to know more he went directly to his front-line employees to figure out what was going on. He respected these people, and learned from them. It was always “we” not “I” with Jack Welch while he ran General Electric.

            General Electric was always about growth, not self-importance under Welch. He shut down elitism. Got rid of brutal bosses. Always asked his people at all levels what they liked and didn’t like about the company. His approved way to being more productive was through mentoring, not through terror. Leaders were encouraged to share credit for their ideas and successes with their teams. In the end, Welch as well as thousands of others, benefited immensely from his growth-mindset.

            Finally, there is Winston Churchill. Being a leader is stressful, especially during wartime. And as mentioned earlier, fixed-mindsets tend to eliminate their competition and silence the critics so they get only good news from their subordinates and thus continue look good, whether it’s true or not. This type of silence that only allows one voice, and sometimes even only one way of thinking comes from a dangerous phenomenon called groupthink according to Dr. Dweck. Fortunately for England, Churchill was a growth-mindset type of person that combatted groupthink by setting up a special department. The job of this department was to give Churchill all the worse news. This helped keep Churchill out of a false sense of security and forced him and his team to keep learning and searching for better ways to beat Hitler.

            Next month’s article will explain how to be a growth-mindset type of person…

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 2

MINDSET

Part 2

         

   So, what does a fixed-mindset look like? Well, a fixed-mindset is someone who is bent on talent and believes that if you have to try hard it must mean you aren’t talented enough. Fixed-mindset is a life of being judged and judging others. It is a life where we are only allowed to be successful. Success has to happen immediately or we shut down and blame others. However, if the mentality of a fixed-mindset person is that you are someone when you are successful, then what are you when you are not successful? Unfortunately, a no one. And feeling like a no one really hurts. So, because fixed-mindsets now feel labeled and can see no road to success, their only option to repair their self-esteem is to blame others and make excuses. They won’t make more effort to become successful because making more effort is scary; it robs them of their excuses if they don’t succeed and exposes their inadequacies for others to judge, which they are certain that others will judge. The fixed-mindsets are easy to identify because they are the naysayers sitting around who are constantly saying, “I could have been…” They’re basically polishing their unused endowments like they were trophies. How sad, wouldn’t you agree.

            Fixed-mindsets run away from problems because they believe that if they truly are as talented as they think they are, then success shouldn’t take so much effort. Believe it or not, it has actually been shown through various studies that a fixed-mindset person’s brainwaves only fire up as the answer to a problem is given. They want to know if they are right. Period. Don’t care about the rest. If they aren’t right, according to Dr. Dweck, then they aren’t interested anymore in the activity.

            Fixed-mindset is a huge problem in the adolescence years because during this time of our lives we already feel awkward and judged, as well as feel that everything has all of a sudden become more difficult. Now imagine how a fixed-mindset adolescent naturally multiplies all these negatives and you can imagine a scenario that is unbearable to them, and usually results in them turning off to education. Sad. And avoidable.

            It doesn’t get easier though for these fixed-mindset kids after school is over. Teens with fixed-mindsets usually grow up to be adults with fixed-mindsets. In professional sports fixed-mindsets can be identified pretty easily because they are the ones always saying, “I”, “I”, “I”. They act like they won the game all by themselves and they don’t need teammates.

            Some fixed-mindsets end up as CEOs. They are the ones that develop CEO disease and are more bosses than leaders. This CEO disease tends to eliminate competition, silence critics, squash employee development programs, and put themselves up on a pedestal to be admired by all at the expense of their co-workers and even the company.

            Finally, many fixed-mindsets end up as parents, teachers, coaches, or just adults who interact with kids on a daily basis. Most of the time these adults will create an atmosphere of judging, punishing, and labeling kids. And if any other adult should challenge them, or heaven forbid, if a mate were to leave them, they would be devastated, believed they have been judged, and label themselves as unlovable or unworthy, and then they would usually want some kind of revenge on the other adult.

            Next month’s article will explain what a growth-mindset looks like.

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 1

MINDSET

Part 1

  

          According to Dr. Carol Dweck in her very influential book called Mindset she states that since the dawn of time, people have thought differently, acted differently, and fared differently. So now, I must ask you: what has been the difference? Dr. Carol Dweck says in her book Mindset that the difference has been mindset itself. A person’s mindset frames the on-going internal dialogue taking place in our heads that consist of: What is happening? What it means? What we should do about it? This never-ending internal dialogue molds our thinking, values, and behaviors into a person that either acts with a fixed-mindset or growth-mindset. A fixed-mindset is a person who feels judged, judges others, and believes in talent over effort. A growth-mindset is someone who doesn’t think others are criticizing, but rather helping with their advice, and believes in effort and learning over talent.

            Malcolm Gladwell, famed author of, Outliers, says that sadly Americans like effortless achievement. Gladwell’s statement makes me wonder what happened to the ruggedness of our cowboy days here in America. What about proud heritage of a hard-working immigrant nation? The people that built this great country never tried to take the easy effortless way out, right?

            Well, like it or not, according to Dr. Dweck, our most potent path to success- our effort, is being pushed aside for talent. Just look around at what big business, sports and even now schools are doing by bringing in all of these big hotshot leaders. It seems apparent now that people are picking talent over effort.

            Dr. Dweck, in her book Mindset mentions Jim Collins the famed author of, Good to Great, and his message of getting the wrong people off of the bus, and the right people onto the bus. It appears that most of our society thinks this meant to recruit talent over potential. Basically, to recruit the Lee Iacocas of this world. That’s not what Jim Collins meant in his book. People that read Collins’ book closely noticed that he said the best leaders weren’t the charismatic ones oozing with self-confidence, but the self-effacing ones that asked questions.

            Well, as a society that now seems to value talent and quick fixes over potential and slow sturdy lasting fixes, we have some real challenges to face. And according to Dr. Dweck, these challenges are going to be compounded by the fact that we have the “Praised Generation” now hitting the workforce who are bursting with self-esteem and unable take constructive criticism. The big question now is are we going to be fixed-mindset or growth-mindset people?

            Next month’s article will explain to you what a fixed-mindset looks like…

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

The Psychology of Achievement Part 2!

In my last blog on the psychology of success I shared with you that achievers, whether they know it or not, practice many of the following methods: Peace of Mind, Health and Energy, Loving Relationships, Worthy Goals and Ideals, and a Feeling of Personal Fulfillment or Self-Actualization. I briefly talked about each one and ended with what Dr. Abraham Maslow called our highest human need of self-actualization in which all of our basic needs are met and now we are working on doing something that is meaningful and fulfilling.

However, self-actualization is not an easy things to obtain. Henry David Thoreau said, “Most people live lives of quiet desperation.” So, why is this? Why is it that after a life time of working only 5% of people ever achieve the kind of financial freedom that will allow them to do what they want to do, when they want to do it? Brian Tracy, the author of, The Psychology of Achievement, believes that even though we have been born into the richest and most advanced society that the world has ever seen, we struggle to achieve because we are born into this world without an operating manual. It’s like having a super computer without the owner’s manual. That computer, like ourselves, is capable of doing amazing things, but without the operating manual, we are lost, and so much potential and capability is wasted.

            So what do we do about this? Well, if we want to get the best out of ourselves then we have to learn a few laws of success like the Law of Control, Law of Accident, and Law of Cause and Effect. In the Law of Control we want to feel like we have some input or control over what happens in our lives. Unfortunately, though, most of us don’t control our thoughts and then our thoughts run wild and make us feel like we aren’t good enough to control anything, or accomplish anything of real value. In regards to the Law of Accident, many of us feel that life just happens to us. We won’t become achievers with that mindset. We have to make things happen. In addition, in order to become an achiever we are also going to have to get a better grasp on the law of Cause and Effect. Every effect or outcome has a cause. We can cause the effects or outcomes that we desire if we believe it can happen and then do the necessary work to bring it about.

So there is our next step in our own psychology of achievement. Let’s master the Law of Control, Law of Accident, and Law of Cause and Effect. Master these laws will move us a step closer to being the achiever that we want to be. 

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator who wrote the Granddaddy's Secrets Teen Leadership Book Series. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com. 

The Psychology of Achievement! Part 1

Brian Tracy, the author of, The Psychology of Achievement, asks, “Why are some people more successful than others?” He eventually answers his question with the statement that achievers, whether they know it or not, practice many of the following methods: Peace of Mind, Health and Energy, Loving Relationships, Worthy Goals and Ideals, and a Feeling of Personal Fulfillment or Self-Actualization.

Perhaps you use at least one of these success methods, or could at least see yourself using one of them very soon. Is what you are doing right now giving you peace of mind? If it is not, then stop struggling against your natural tendencies and find out what creates a sense of peace for you. Down the road you will thank yourself for this. Do you find yourself with an abundance of health and energy? Are you taking care of yourself and doing what you were meant to do? If not, it will wear away your health and energy, and without that we don’t have much. Do you have loving relationships? In the end, these relationships really are why you do what you do. If you lose sight of this you won’t be happy or successful, no matter what you do.

People need worthy goals and ideals. It is what drives us as the highest species on the food chain. It gives us that inner feeling of being successful. If you have nothing to shoot for, then you’ll find a meaningless life of turmoil and struggle. Finally, if you haven’t found personal fulfillment yet, hopefully, someday you will. Personal fulfilment or self-actualization is what Dr. Abraham Maslow talked about on his hierarchy of needs as being the final step to a happy life once our lower more basic needs have been met. 

So there you have it. Pick one or more of the categories above and spend some time truly thinking about it, as well as figuring out how to apply it to your own life and you too will become more cognizant of the psychology of your own success. Subsequently, success is sure to follow.

 Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator who has written the Granddaddy's Secrets teen leadership book series. Learn more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com. 

Don't Let The Start Stop You!

Nike says, “Just do it!” And I must admit there has been many times that I have followed that advice and have “just done it.” Now I’m going to honest with you here. I didn’t always know what I was doing! And sometimes I actually had to apologize for doing it…

As a matter of fact, many times I did not know what I was doing and many times I had to apologize, but I somehow had this blind faith that somehow, someway, things would find a way to work themselves out…

And you know what? Things usually have found a way to work themselves out.

Now don’t get me wrong here. This has not always been painless. I have made many mistakes and have often taken the long way home, but somehow I have always made it home, if you know what I mean…

This whole conversation reminds me of a new friend I made the other day who asked if I had any advice for an aspiring writer. My advice was to give yourself permission to write a bad first draft. If you can give yourself permission to write poorly at first, eventually you will surprise yourself with your ability. It’s just like everything else in life…

In other words, “Don’t Let the Start, Stop You!”

How about you? Have you taken any chances lately? Have you given yourself permission to do something new poorly at first? If so, then I think you’re on the right road. Furthermore, I think this road may even delightfully surprise you

However, when this road leads you to victory, then it will be your turn to teach others the concept of, “Don’t Let the Start, Stop You!” Enjoy.

Daniel Blanchard is the author of the Granddaddy’s Secrets teen leadership book series and is available to speak at your events. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.GrandDaddysSecrets.com. Thanks.

A Stroke of Insight Part 2

Last month in the first part of this blog series we talked about the brilliant Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and her stroke of insight. Dr. Taylor is a Harvard trained brain scientist that was named Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2008. At the young age of 37 years old Dr. Taylor experienced a massive stroke that she claims is the best thing that ever happened to her because it finally allowed her more connected peaceful right side of her brain to move to the forefront because her left side analytical and judgmental brain had been incapacitated.

Well, the beauty of this story is that with a lot of help, Dr. Taylor did make a full recovery over her eight years of rehab. However, eight years later, she wasn’t the same Dr. Taylor that she had been in her previous life. During those eight years Dr. Taylor was very careful which parts of her left dominating hemisphere was allowed to be restored. She carefully selected what she wanted to reprogram in her mind. She did everything she could to not let judgment back in while she continued to focus on her right hemisphere connectedness with people. She saw us all dependent and interconnected with others in a free flowing form of energy. She didn’t ever want to let her left hemisphere’s judgment destroy that connectedness to herself and others again. Furthermore, she vowed to never let insecurity take up a permanent residence ever again in her brain.

           

Now, Dr. Taylor isn’t perfect and sometimes these negatives from her story-telling left hemisphere gets too chatty every once in a while. But, since her stroke, the difference now is that she can recognize the chatter and then silence it. And the good thing is that we too can learn to recognize the chatter and then silence it. We too can live a life of more peacefulness, and connectedness with others thanks to Dr. Taylor’s stoke of insight…

           

So what’s the lesson here? Well, I’d say it is for all of us to realize that we have much more control over our thoughts than we think we do. We don’t have to be a victim to our thoughts and the chatter in our brain anymore. Let’s do what Dr. Taylor did. Recognize the chatter and then silence it for a more peaceful, fulfilling way of life.

Daniel Blanchard is the award-winning author, speaker, and educator of the Granddaddy’s Secrets teen leadership book series. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Melodrama Part 2

Daniel Blanchard- Author and Speaker!

In my last blog I talked about drama being everywhere. Furthermore, I offered advice on how to be that leader that we were meant to be by better understanding our history as a species. For about 300,000 years we were hunters and gathers and we survived on our own aggressive individual survival instincts. And as odd as it may sound today, in the old days, being aggressive, selfish, and even somewhat brutal was a virtue in some ways and helped our species survive. Then I talked about how the more civilized agrarian age came along about 30,000 years ago, but that sometimes our 300,000 years of basic survival instincts still overpowers our 30,000 year history of more civilized farming way of life.

So, where do we go from here? Well, to city living of course! So now to confuse us humans even more, within roughly the last hundred years or so we have moved off the farms with their strict way of living and moved into the cities where once again our norms and social pressures have confused us by changing. To make it even worse, we’re left to our own to figure it all out without a map or any directions. Hmm… like us men would use the map or directions, anyways… It’s tough to be human.

             In the busy cities, our minds have become even busier and even fuller of mental melodrama. Our psyche, or that little voice we constantly hear in our minds won't ever shut the lights off. We have become so accustomed to this little voice, or maybe I should say noise in our heads that it doesn't even seem weird to us anymore. The funny thing is that it's frequently wrong and it is also constantly contradicting itself. For example, does this inner conversation sound familiar guys? "I don't think she likes me. No. she likes me. Why wouldn't she like me? Well, she doesn't like me because I'm too short. So give it up and don't even bother asking her. No. I'm going to ask her out. Don't..."

          Hey, that’s how our mind talks. It’s very melodramatic. And believe it or not, as crazy as our “psyche” can be at creating all of this mental anguish within us, we still listen to this mental dramatic conversation and allow this sometimes-crazy inner roommate of ours with the weird name to wreck our happiness. I bet none of us would allow a real roommate to talk to us like that! 

So, what is the leadership advice here? Well, it’s the same advice that I offered in my last blog. We have to remember that we’re all in this together and sometimes our history as an imperfect species, as well as a constantly changing world, makes us do stupid things. So let’s look beyond our imperfections and all this melodrama and let’s move towards being that sturdy leader that is inside of every one of us! 

Melodrama Part 1

Daniel Blanchard- Author and Speaker!

Drama, drama, drama! Drama seems to be all around us and all inside of us. It’s everywhere, and it’s mentally draining. Why is the world so full of drama? Why are we so full of drama? Is there any way to rise above this mental melodrama that resides both inside and outside of us and become the true sturdy and steady leader in mind and body that we were meant to be?

            In order to understand some of the drama that lives both inside and outside of us we need to understand some of our history as a species. Surprisingly, some of our vices, things that get us into hot water today, used to be virtues and helped us survive as a species in the past. You see, us humans were hunters and gathers for about 300,000 years. We survived on our own individual aggressive survival instincts. As odd as it may sound today, in the old days, being aggressive, selfish, and even somewhat brutal was a virtue when dealing with animals and potential mates. This selfish, individualist behavior helped our species to survive way back in the wild when we were still trying to stand up straighter and master the use our opposing thumbs to manipulate tools.

                Then along came the agrarian age, in which we moved away from strictly hunting and gathering and moved into the era of farming. Through the life of farming we formed civilizations with social norms and social pressures to comply and lose those old individualist ways. However, the agrarian pressure to live a more civilized life has only been around for about 30,000 years and it is sometimes overwhelmed by the 300,000 years of basic survival instincts.

                So, when someone does something out of the norm that others frown upon, maybe this bad behavior is really a left over relic from our rising as a species rather than our overall failure as a species. Hey, let’s give ourselves a break, it’s tough to be human; even if we are on the top of the food chain.

                So, what is the leadership advice here? Well, it's to know that we are all in this together and we are all struggling with our history as an imperfect species, as well as our own psyche. And that's why we all tend to occasionally act crazy and do irrational things sometimes. So, now that we know why people, including ourselves, don't always do what's wise, we now have taken our first step in pushing aside the crazy mental melodrama and are now moving forward towards being that sturdy leader inside of everyone of us!

Daniel Blanchard

 Hello fellow Shakers and Movers, and welcome blog readers! My name is Daniel Blanchard and I am an award-winning author, speaker, and educator. I have been an inner city school teacher and coach for more than two decades and I have written the Granddaddy’s Secrets teen leadership book series. In addition, I also write four weekly newspaper columns. I speak on teen leadership, what is possible, and working with difficult teens. I have done a myriad of radio, television, magazine, and newspaper interviews. Finally, I was picked as one of ten people to be featured in January Jones’ new book, “Priceless Personalities” as well as Bill Corbett’s new book, “The Expert Guide to TEENAGERS”.

            

My future post will have valuable information on building your business and brand through building yourself from the inside out. You see, all success starts on the inside of your mind and body. Thus, I will share with you great content and great ideas to get you thinking about what is possible, and even more important, how to get yourself to do the things that you should do in order to live your dreams. I’m looking forward to spending some time with you.

For more great leadership tips from Daniel Blanchard the award-winning author, speaker, and educator, please visit Dan’s website and blog/vlog at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com. Thanks.