Expectations, Be Humble

God has a plan.  He is great!  Have you ever had an experience where your expectations are different than the reasons for why you are in that situation?  It was made perfectly clear recently that my reasoning for being hired was a lot different than what I had thought.

In my career I've developed a level of knowledge and experience to create some of the most beautiful and expense aircraft interiors in the world.  I've travelled the world and had the chance to meet interesting and powerful individuals.  I have developed some of the must innovative and interesting solutions to creating these interiors.  I had gained great experience in the process of launching my own company.   I put in my time and have reached a point in my career where I was ready to take on a leadership role of that opportunity was out there.

Through the process of building my own company I came across an opportunity to join a new company that wanted to do things differently!  I thought with my expertise and knowledge I could bring a lot of value to the table, being in the financial situation I was in, I could not pass it up.  Besides this was an opportunity to create a design studio from the ground up and get paid doing it!

I start in, even before my official start date of outlining how this now facility could streamline the design process thus saving time and money in the upfront process, which was the vision of the company as I understood it.  I was ready to work within the management team and outline the integration of the design with engineering and production.  Being strong with developing processes I was energized!  God had called me to this opportunity and I was ready to embrace it with all of my being.  God gives us our gifts and talents for opportunities like this!

After being in this role for several weeks it was becoming clear that some of the ideas and objectives I had envisioned for playing a lead role in creating the best interiors in the world was dimming.

I was starting to realize that my desires were different than the companies.   The time finely arrived to provide some direction to the path I was headed down.  A meeting was scheduled to discuss certain aspects of my work assignments.  (As a side note, even though the results from this meeting did not , as I felt came out in my career favor, it was freeing to know that the responsibility for the design would not be on my shoulders, God has bigger plans.)  It was made perfectly clear that design would not be managed by "us" internally but by an outside design firm, we would be operating in a support and coordination role.  I would be using my 20+ years of knowledge and experience to promote someone else's work above my own.

This shows that God has more important plans for my life then becoming the best designer.  He is showing me that I need to put him first in my life and my accomplishments second (John 3:30).  This is a good test of over coming worldly desires to be number one and promoting someone else.

God, keep me focused on you so my heart grows closer to you.  Teach me through this experience to be humble and that you are first, not me.

Celebrate Differences

We have rich, strong, and wonderful cultures that differ from one another.  These differences are what make us unique and interesting!  We need to explore our differences and learn from one another.  We need to celebrate those differences not suppress and conform.

I have visited may parts of the world through my business travels.  These trips have allowed me to experience the people living there ordinary lives.  That is ordinary to them, but for me it was an opportunity to see people that shared common concerns as a mother or father, manage work life and family life, living in a city vs. rural, living with financial abundance and without, etc.  In all my experiences it has been wonderful to take in and observe human nature and its reaction to these influences in our lives.  These experiences have made my life richer.  As we live in this world of political correctness, that wants to separate us from exploring our differences and discussing them, we are robbed of experiencing a rich life.

Let us open the door to experiencing the richness that fills all our lives, the struggles and the triumphs.  Just like telling our testimony to others, to ourselves, our life seems dull and boring, yet when we are able to express the highlights that have made us who we are, suddenly there is a richness that others can experience and gain from.

Future of Education

The education of the next generation lies with utilizing, incorporating, etc. the changes that have been brought about by the information age technology; database management, information search-ability, and access to infinite amounts of information.  The future of education will take full advantage of these opportunities to offer educational services to everyone who is willing to partake.

We need to understand how the next generation is being raised, what information they have access to, how they think (they think differently then being raised in a non information accessible generation) in order to maximize the learning experience and prepare them for their future.  Our current system of education, class room lectures, short periods of learning one subject and moving to another subject, corporate learning, everyone graded based on where they should be for their age level and in preparation for going to college, etc.  I would like to note at this time that college is a good alternative for kids that need additional training in a professional subject, but it is not the right choice for everyone, and in today's world even the idea of going to college is getting turned on its head.

It is amazing to see how all the schools in this country have finally gotten around to preparing all students to go to college.  We have eliminated shop classes (we are too smart to have to build things with our hands), we focus more on social agendas than factual information, and we have reduced education to teaching everyone that they need to think all the same so we don't hurt anyone's feelings.  Listen, we will not survive as a country if we continue down this path.  We need to understand, embrace, and learn to communicate our differences in a civil, critical thinking, and honest manner.  We need to offer opportunities for kids to fail, to understand that we are not all going to be successful at the same thing, or all live in the same type of life style.  We need to broaden the possibilities and the acceptance of the type of work that provides for our families, the type of lifestyles that make up a dynamic, fruitful society.

The future is not about getting a job, although that's what a lot of us will do and that's ok, but the job landscape is changing and we will get into that in a moment, its about preparing kids to be independent.  In our society today there is no company loyalty, we have moved to a "contract" mentality even if we work for a company as an employee we can leave at anytime.  We need to teach our kids how to represent themselves whether they go to work for a company, start their own company, or create opportunities that create an income; we need to teach our kids about all these opportunities and how to operate in this future environment.

When you look at some of the most successful people in the world, a lot of them did not have a college or even some a high school education.  As Robert Kiyosaki points out in his book "A's and B's work for C's", C's being capitalists, these are people that create opportunities.  They are the visionaries.  These are the people that create the future.  We need to prepare our kids to think like this in the coming "work" environment.  We need to teach them to think critically, creativity, and cognitively.  We need to offer them hands on experiences.  As they think critically they will discover to use their brains to solve complicated problems and overcome their failures.

We need to be teaching the next generation with the skills to think this way.  In a digital world we need to offer opportunities to be hands-on, to think strategically (verses data collectors, reference: "Making Your Brain Smarter" by Sandra Bond Chapman), and think independently.

What if we created an environment where kids could explore ideas, learn through doing (and failing), and get exposure to hand-on applications, and real life experiences?  An environment that will prepare them earlier in life for being leaders that are successful and productive in business, the community, and as citizens.  With the access to unlimited educational programs and courses on line this is possible, to gain insight from the best teachers in the world and at a fraction of the price of a college education.  We need to take advantage of this access and provide instructional support to guide our kids to thinking this way earlier in life.  The one piece of information that I remember from college about being a designer was, you just need to know where to look for information, because you are not going to learn everything in school.  I want to offer this opportunity to the next generation.  To teach them not about facts and figures, but about the learning process and that the opportunities are limitless, they just need to know where to look and how to manage that knowledge and they will go far in life.

Values to instill:

1. To serve God and our neighbors with all our heart, mind, and soul.

2. Instill critical, creative, and cognitive skills to foster innovation, creativity, and self reliant thinking.

3. We need to learn and work smart so we can give generously.

Teaching focused on:

1. Values and principles from the bible

2. Citizenship through History Study

3. Information gathering and management

4. Hand-on experiences

5. Business/Management Systems

The sooner one can fail the sooner they will become wise.  Through the exercise of trial and error kids can build upon that experience.  They not only learn that they made a bad decision (critical thinking) they need to work through that mistake (cognitive thinking) to develop a solution to being successful (creative thinking).  What if we provided the resources, guidance, and wisdom to get to a successful solution faster?  This is the idea behind the next generation "school".  It would be an entrepreneur experience that would immerse the kids in a high sensory learning environment.  At first this could be overwhelming.  Part of this experience will be to help manage and start to build a path that will lead to to being a creative, generous, and successful leader that will not only create opportunities for themselves, but others as well.