Tagged With "Encouraging"

Have you ever Googled "leadership"? The other day I got 2.5 Billion search results in under half a second. That might indicate I've got to get a whole lot better at searching for content on the internet. It also means the real messages of leadership can get buried in all that great information. Here are a few qualities (as verbs) that might resonate with you. L – Listening E – Empathizing A – Acting with awareness D – Dedicating time for others E – Encouraging R – Removing doubts S – Serving...

The Extension Foundation and Dr. Raison are partnering to present this series offering self-study materials and advice for career growth. The series will focus on early, middle, and later career stages. We are proud to share this series with the Cooperative Extension System! The ideas shared in this series are extracted from Dr. Raison’s 2024 book, The Encouraging Mentor: Your Guide to 40 Conversations that Matter . This is a how-to manual for mentors, teachers, coaches, and anyone...

Imagine a point in the future where you have achieved your greatest professional goal. Invest a moment here. Try to visualize your career success—you are at the top of your game. Imagine you’ve worked hard and have earned this. Now consider this question: How might that success feel? I think most people will have some level of contentment or satisfaction. Others may feel a bit of pride in the accomplishment. Some may begin to ponder, “What’s next?” Those responses are all normal and valid.

This blog series offers questions from my teaching and practice at The Ohio State University where I coach and mentor numerous faculty, staff, students, and organizational units to help them move toward mission and accomplish goals. If you are reading this blog (and discussing the question prompts with a mentor), your responses will reflect talking with another person. But if you are using this resource on your own for personal and professional development, you can still ask yourself these...

How do you want to be remembered? This is a rephrase of the classic Steven Covey question from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People . It is one of the most powerful questions one can ever ponder. In this blog series, I’m attempting to both challenge your thinking, but also encourage your progress. You may consider the question prompt in this post alone, or in conversation with a friend or mentor. Let’s begin. Look at the question below. Spend some time with it. It is a definite brain...

Five Things to Have, Do, Help, and Be: A Personal Futuring Exercise At a very early age, most people are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We often prompt young minds with examples: “Do you want to be a firefighter? A teacher? A farmer?” But what if there is a more important question: “Who do you want to become?” This is qualitatively different. This is perhaps the best question to ask to prompt future thinking, focus, and goal-setting. In this blog series, I’m attempting to...

Triangulating Your Skills, Abilities, and Interests to Find Your Future What do you enjoy doing? What are you good at (i.e., your natural gifts)? Where do you want to learn more? These three items, together, can powerfully steer you toward your desired future. Let’s talk about that today. Most people have multiple gifts. Many people can do a variety of jobs, and career paths are frequently not linear. Anecdotally, my friends and former students share that their journeys have been directed...

The Values Review Our values may be defined as beliefs that guide our behavior or motivate us to act. As individuals, we all have varying values and belief systems. We come from differing backgrounds and places. This gives us a rich and beautiful diversity. But how do we incorporate values into our everyday work? How do we ensure our core values are the fundamental beliefs that guide behavior and action? Here’s an exercise that can help. Grab a piece of paper. Look at the table below, and...

Your Personal Mission A personal mission is a statement about your why. This is what drives you to get out of bed in the morning. It describes what you believe is most important in life, what you wish to focus on, and what you want to be known for. If you allow it to direct your thoughts and actions each day, it has the potential to direct your life and achieve the future you want. I often tell my students to consider doing this exercise and then holding on to it. When one finds themself...

We are very fortunate to be surrounded by so many generous Cooperative Extension professionals throughout our country. Dr. Brian Raison from The Ohio State University exemplifies the concept of "giving as you go" throughout his distinguished career. In that spirit, this guest series launched with valuable insights for early career professionals! The ideas shared in this series are extracted from Dr. Raison’s 2024 book, The Encouraging Mentor: Your Guide to 40 Conversations that Matter . This...

Thank you for your kind words Karl. I'm blessed to share these ideas and materials. As noted, I'm posting each of the 40 "conversations" online. Everything is free (unless you want a physical book from the publisher). I'm also adding new videos this month. Glad to collaborate, coach, chat and/or answer any questions. Cheers.

Whether you’re working in Extension, education, the non-profit or government sector, or private business, mid-career can bring exciting professional development and growth, as well as great internal worry and doubt… often at the same time. At mid-career, we begin to trust ourselves (having been around long enough to learn a few things), but we can also have lingering existential questions about whether we’re really on the right path, or if our management and leadership and communication...

In this mid-career series, I mentioned that this time in your professional life can be exciting and scary… simultaneously. That’s just the nature of mid-career. If you embrace both the excitement and the worry with humility and a growth mindset, you can set yourself up a fantastic late-career success and positive impact. The next six posts (titles listed below) will give you some specific ideas ( and pose some challenging questions ) that will help you move through this part of your career.

Are you any good at managing your time? Some of you may think, “I'm not bad at it.” But most, like me, are no good at all. So here's the question. What if you worked on managing your energy instead of managing your time? Time is finite. But energy can appear seemingly out of nowhere. In truth, energy has four sources: the body, our emotions, our minds, and our spirit. Tony Schwartz, founder of the Energy Project, says we can learn to harness these dimensions, creating our own energy. Tony...

Imagine a point in the future where you have achieved your greatest professional goal. Invest a moment here. Visualize your career success. You have worked hard and have earned this. Now consider this question: How does this success feel? I think most people will have some level of contentment or satisfaction. Others may feel a bit of pride in the accomplishment. Some may begin to ponder, “What’s next?” Those responses are all normal and valid. Now, imagine it’s six months after that major...

Have you ever found your ability to make a choice and act upon it lacking? Choosing and acting define the broad concept of volition. Some label this as having the power to use one’s free will. But in times of stress or anxiety, we sometimes feel hindered in our ability to exercise that choice and action. We may even feel powerless, frozen in place, and unable to act at all. Can you think of a time when you felt unable to make a decision and then act? It could be something major or minor.

Can increasing gratitude improve your brain chemistry and help you feel better? Can it improve your career? The science of gratitude has expanded greatly in the past twenty years. Studies increasingly show that regularly practicing gratitude contributes to better relationships, decreased anxiety, and increased internal satisfaction. These bolster what Daniel Goleman labels emotional and social intelligence, key items for success in our careers and lives. Though once labeled soft skills—i.e.,...

What are you curious about? Some folks will respond to this question with an immediate answer: “Everything!” Others may just look at you and ask what you mean. Whether at one end of the spectrum, or somewhere in the middle, watching someone respond to this question will allow you to immediately know a lot about them and their potential for long-term success. In brief, curiosity is one of the most important traits and a high predictor for success identified by researchers at Korn Ferry, an...

Do you want to become a more effective leader, or teacher, or team member? Or how about becoming a better family member? I teach a short segment on EQ in my grad classes here at Ohio State… and if you know Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence construct… you understand that when we know ourselves better (recognizing our own emotions), we can use that knowledge to guide our thinking and behavior. That’s powerful stuff. But how do you improve your emotional intelligence? One way is to learn a new...