Case and Core Contributions Summary
Life Leaders is either the only nonprofit leading or a key resource adding action to succeed and sustain on several important initiatives–help students plan for school and life and know the history and character traits of National Veterans Day Founding, both connected to a citizen’s freedom to flourish. If you want these results–for your children, students, or yourself–follow the movement and support Life Leaders–follow our work, advocate our work to others who may want these results, volunteer, or if no time, support financially.
1. Teach–and help others teach–Plan for School and Life and Best-Self Leadership principles and practices so students in school and college as well as True Professionals can “be, know and do” better at callings, commitment, and courage.
2. Help leaders in education to require and reward students to write Plans for School & Life to improve attitude, attendance, and action–boosting inspiration, perseverance, and “grit.” And, provide teaching materials on Veterans Day Founding Education for character traits, civil rights, freedom, patriotism, and personal leadership.
3. Advance Alabama for three national movements in America related to Freedoms: Veterans Day Founding History, Character, and Leadership Education (Freedom of Liberty); Civil Rights Movement (Freedom of Rights), and Plan for School & Life (to act on Freedom to Flourish). This will create more positive impact for students and the State. Inform and support teachers, students, parents, civic club leaders, historians, media, and, state leaders to put sustaining lessons, assignments, and requirements in place to create more successful and sustainable results.
Details and Discussion
1. Teach Best-Self Leadership so more students and true professionals can “be, know and do” better at callings.
Students, professionals, and other citizens should be taught common denominators for doing our best in school, college, and other areas of preparation, then trained, used, and rewarded more in church and corporate life. It’s a principle for doing our best that helps people and organizations. Study of Scripture and personal development literature tells us, it’s a requirement of good stewardship to identify and use our “talents” and to “write a vision….”
This is a core way for students and others to improve purpose, plan, and performance.
This curriculum is a requirement if we are to do our best preparing citizens to do their best. Most people feel they “know” about plans and performance best practices–the opportunity is based on the fact that leaders in education can put systems in place to support and sustain students, faculty, and staff to plan and lead in life. If we set a vision instead of “evolve” we can implement now.
Planning and personal leadership has not been part of formal education though we can help leaders fix that and succeed more in our generation. If a parent, do you like the idea of helping your child learn about personal leadership with a plan for life to explore, set priorities, solve problems, and take action–in addition to learning other vital topics we need to live? If alumni, do you wish you get help with plans and personal leadership when you were in school. Almost all say they do.
Educational leaders who help us get this done will leave a lasting legacy.
In spiritual life, institutions have long taught parables about they we should use our “talents” and in recent decades have added more assessment of gifts. This is evolving in the right direction though with clearer vision and leadership we could succeed in this generation, decades faster than just evolving on teaching and expectations slowly.
We seek to serve more state leaders who set policies, schools, colleges, communities, service organizations, families and teams to develop people and processes needed to develop, serve, and sustain as our best-selves. We provide advice and assistance as well as seminars, courses, books, and tools for leaders, teachers, students, and others who care about serving and developing people as well as sustainable systems in society.
Life Leaders has offered public seminars and services for over 25 years to inspire and guide people to plan and perform better focused on callings. Topic examples: Personal Leadership, Planning for Life, Achievable Resolutions, Master Your Goliaths, Patriotism in Action, and more. We have hosted major seminars presenting people like Dr. Stephen Covey and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Students and professionals can use these best practices in school, job, and home life.
2. Reward and teach Plan for School & Life to improve attitude, action, achievement, and grit, plus satisfaction of students, parents, alumni, and employers.
Students, professionals, couples/families will do better if we instruct and reward them to write plans for life that inspire and guide them. We can equip more teachers, students, parents, boards, and other Best-Self Leaders who teach and help other citizens to write Plans for the 7 Areas of Life to earn empowerment better and faster through program services, public seminars, and online resources.
Students who have been taught best-self strategy and guided to write their own plus plans for development and decisions in our seminars and courses report and/or show improved attitude, attendance, and achievement. This addition to curriculum adds to self “motivation” and “grit” leading to better “habits” and “perseverance.”
Former students who have become homeless, veterans and civilians, often do better if helped to develop a plan better than the one that led them to despair. Many have improved plans for life in our programs for Veterans Making Comebacks. Our results show higher probability of success if we help with planning and best-self leadership than if only given free food, shelter, and healthcare. We also have acknowledge some who have lost their way for so long, often with addictions stronger than their desire to restore self reliance and broken relationships, need more than short workshops can provide.
The paradigm has shifted for what we need to do to prepare people for what they need to know and do. People want more relevance and preparation to know and do what will “come at them” in life. For most roles people have, planning, decision-making, motivation, time management, leadership and more affect how we work with people and on projects as well in our personal lives and relationships. Personal leadership aka Best-Self Leadership affects graduation rates, success rates, and even divorce rates.
We have worked with professionals, students, veterans making comebacks from homelessness, and others resolving to change. We see patterns. We have learned that to succeed and sustain we must have policies in place such as graduation requirements, programs, and lesson plans to reward people to do what we say is important. Encouraging goals and good habits without rewarding enough to encourage action does not sustain, especially if rewarding other things.
This work seeks to develop and improve people who care about ideas that matter in the USA and beyond though we focus first on leaders and others wanting better in Alabama.
3. Advance Alabama adding inspiring education to events branding for National Movements led here–Veterans Day, Civil Rights, Plan for School & Life–and supporting teachers across the USA with resources they need to teach this annually.
As someone born in Alabama, I can admit, when I meet people nationally such as in Western states, some people perceive Alabama as good at college football and bad at civil rights. Many with those perceptions have never visited Alabama to meet progressive people. Of course, we are more and better than that though they may keep thinking that way until Alabama becomes more strategic in planning and communicating to the state, nation, and beyond our distinctive contributions that make us unique. What is the brand?
Alabama is the state that served as founder or cradle for national movements for Veterans Day and Civil Rights. Strategic thinking calls for educating, branding, and serving. Freedom of Liberty (“driving force for Veterans Day”), Freedom of Rights (“cradle of the Civil Rights Movement”), and Freedom to Flourish (Plan for School & Life) can be part of our more positive history for what happens here and a more distinctive future for how we serve as a role model.
Alabama could become more of a destination for Veterans Day, Patriotism, Freedom, and Human Rights. Tourism and Economic Development can grow with more meaning. We could serve the nation better with resources for educators and event planners that serve them and attract them to see us and/or use what we offer.
Alabama deserves the distinction for stating the national movement that became a national day to honor veterans and sustain world peace. Yet, because education typically does not include teaching where Veterans Day started, estimates suggest fewer than 1% in the nation know this positive history about Alabama. Some estimates include less than half of Alabamians know this state and national history. Teach students the history, the impact on patriotism and freedom, and applications to character and leadership, and most of this problem is solved.
We can do better with a state strategic goal to use and build on this distinction, including teaching our citizens this national history plus the character traits to inspire, such as “Patriotism, Courage, Perseverance, Loyalty, and Citizenship” on the list of 25 character traits to teach adopted in Alabama and similar actions taken in most other states.
Life Leaders led the state campaign to the U.S. Senate to restore the official recognition for Raymond Weeks, Birmingham, and Alabama. We published the book that tells how this happened in Patriotism in Action. We have posters and resources for teachers, veterans organizations, and tourism. We need to keep working with education to educate closer to 100% of our citizens. We can succeed only if we take more action and have more partners to finish the mission leading to education adding requirements and resources, which we seek to provide and support.
