Chik Fil A Leadercast Indy (session 2)

So we’ve had a fun break, complete with musical and cow entertainment, as well as yogurt parfaits One thing’s for sure, at a Chik-Fil-A leadercast, you’ll eat well.

Did you know that there’s a Chik-Fil-A Bowl? they are giving away tickets in Atlanta, and holding twitter contest giveaways to the satellite locations. I love how they are supporting the use of Twitter, btw.

Mack Brown is starting this session on the Voice of Purpose. He is apparently a football coach of some note. John Maxwell is conducting an interview –Coach Brown went to the Middle East after a former player asked him to do so — via cargo plane. They visited troops in the hospital in Germany. Coach Brown is talking about how the troops there, severely injured soldiers, just wanting to get back to their guys on the front lines.

Three cheers for the Osama capture — the Armed Forces teaches leadership every day. Our military is strong, and proud, and we should all appreciate what they do.

Maxwell: What do you for in recruiting?

Brown: They look for the great players — if on video, you can’t tell he’s a great player in 5 plays, turn it off. He also needs to have atleast a 3.0 and be on a winning team. …….we want them to be good leaders in their community.

Maxwell: What’s your purpose for coaching? Beyond the wins/losses?

Brown: You have to win, or you can’t continue to do what you do. ((aside–good point)).

Apparently, Texas football is important. They made $93 million last year, spent $25 million on the program, the rest of the money goes to the other college programs. (seriously?!?! DAMN!) If they aren’t winning, he’s no longer coaching. (pressure much?)

Maxwell: Last year wasn’t your best year — what can you say to folks who aren’t having their best year?

Brown: About the time it gets easy is about the time you’re gonna get into trouble……..we went to work, but we didn’t create that same edge.  You better create an edge every day. You lose your edge, and they played better against us. Your worst day can give you your best results, because we wouldn’t have gone back to work so hard.

Sir Ken Robinson is up next ,according to Tripp Crosby. I don’t really know who Tripp is, but he’s ,well, a total trip. He’s showing us how he was knighted at Medieval Times and now walking the streets. You kind of need to see it to get it.

Sir Ken Robinson was knighted by the Queen of England and is a voice of innovation.

He’s warming the crowd up with his observations on LA, Las Vegas and his renewing of his marriage vows with the “Blue Hawaii” package.

Now he’s working his way to the point — there’s no reason for Las Vegas to be there. Most cities have a geographical advantage– Vegas is in the middle of nowhere.

Vegas is there because of humans. (aside -only humans can pole dance, but that’s not why LV is there) — LV is just an idea, it’s the power of human imagination.

You can predict some things — you know when Haley’s comet is coming back. But you can’t predict human affairs. Are you doing know what you thought you’d be doing at 15?

Very many people don’t enjoy the work they do or the lives they leave — they don’t enjoy it, they just get on with it, and they wait for the weekend. They endure their lives.

The people who love what they do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. They are in their element.

You’re doing something for which you have a natural aptitude. (does it sound like I’m typing in a British accent? Because I totally am)

Creativity rises from imagination, it’s the natural gift of human intelligence. Most adults think they’re not creative. Yet, all children think that they are.

CHildren are born with immense creative capacities, but many of use lose them as they get older. Yet, they are the greatest resource of any organizaiton.

We are living now in time of revolution. Literally. Technology is changing everything. Transforming economy, work, social life and culture.

When I was born in 1950, you could buy four gadgets.

A record player (they had one record– Tom Dooley)

The telephone

The television

The radio

If you had those four things, you had no reason to back to Best Buy. (btw, I LOVE HIM. I LOVE SIR KEN ROBINSON)

Technology is one factor, the second is population (his reasoning for calling our time a revolution).

Three key terms — imagination, creativity and innovation –innovation is putting good ideas into practice.

Creativity and innovation are now fundamental issues to every industry on earth. But we have to look very hard to how we’re educating our children — factory model, not inovative.

>>Jab at No Child Left Behind<< (it’s doing the opposite — leaving millions of children behind)

Your kids are different from each other, aren’t they? You’d never confuse them, would you?(point that one size fits all doesn’t work in education)

Leadership is about movement ….

oh, closing remarks. Now he’s gone…..oh come back Sir Ken Robinson. Seriously, I could listen to him ALL DAY.

Erin Gruwell is up next.

“I’m an ordinary person who had an extraordinary experience”. She talks about seeing footage of Tiennamen Square, and she realized that she never stood up for anything. She decided she no longer wanted to be a lawyer, so she became a teacher. She moved to LA and joined a school in a community where 126 kids were killed in just the previous year.

Her students laughed at her syllabus. 150 kids strong — she had the lowest 150 kids in a community of 90,000 kids. They just came from boot camp, or juvenile hall, or from foster care. All 150 of them scored in the bottom  25% of the standardized tests.

She thought about ways to get her students to tell her their stories.

She got them to play a game, “stand on the line” –it made them see that they all came from a similar place.  She is telling some serious tales — bout poverty, drugs, homelessness, CPS, etc.  Seriously powerful stuff. (she points out they are 30 minutes from Disneyland and 45 minutes from 90210, but these kids have been at war)

Her idea — she asked her department if she can use books by kids who have been at war — Anne Frank, etc.

The chair of the English department said they were too stupid, too dumb to read a book.

That inspired her to do better. To show them that they were better than that.

She started with the Diary of Anne Frank, and her students found themselves.

They started writing letters to authors they read — and they realized they were rewriting their own ending.

150 kids penned their own story.

Here’s more about Freedom Writers. I’m kind of overwhelmed right now — every school needs an Erin Gruwell.

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