Paying It Forward: Be Kind, Live Longer, Touch More People
Paying It Forward: Be Kind, Live Longer, Touch More People
How will you measure your life? Long Range Goals in alignment with your Purpose keeps one centered, engaged and focused on what matters most.
Monday Café con Leche shared that a “Culture of High Expectation” includes a college education with fifty Harlandale ISD parents in San Antonio. I felt their happiness personally. “Living longer from kindness” is documented says a Big Brothers Big Sisters flyer. Doing or observing kindness stimulates serotonin and oxytocin releases. These hormones facilitate our ability to connect with family or strangers. Kindness also decreases the stress hormone cortisol; allowing perpetually kind people to age slower than the average population.
I’m updating my long-range plan following my challenge last week; build a 10X solution as the key to attaining your goals. Clayton Christensen frames career, family, integrity as the “boundaries” in his article, “How Will You Measure Your Life[*]” of living a life of purpose: “How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity?”
My first aha; “Management can be the noblest of occupations, no others offer as many ways to help people find opportunities.” My greatest gifts have been the investment others made in me. Allowing me to “run” with the ball, failing “affordably,” learning without firing. Lead by keeping people challenged and resourced to win, but stay informed to “nudge” a person’s growth.
The second, without purpose, life can become hollow. Create a culture of respect, humility and choosing to do the right thing, in family and business. You have to design this into your culture, realizing that the future likely will be different than today. Understanding the “why” is as important as the “how.”
Finally, Integrity means no “just this once” exceptions. Do what you say. Christensen closes noting life’s key metric, “isn’t dollars, but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.”
I’m updating my goals to coincide with Texas’ Bicentennial. I have 4,406 days till due; 12 years, 3 weeks and 6 days for those using wall calendars. By Mar 2, 2036, I expect my seven grandchildren, currently ages five to fourteen, are joining the workforce. I hope that my children’s impact will be wider than mine and additionally, that the impact of my grandchildren reaches even further. I better appreciate my grandfather’s faith in education.
Because the Civil War called teachers to arms, my grandfather’s mother grew up unable to read or write. He became one of the first 24 professors as Stephen F. Austin University opened in Nacogdoches.
Consider volunteering, be kind, just show up.
How Are the Children Doing?
[*] https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life
Clayton Christensen challenged innovators in late 1990’s into early 2000’s with Innovators Dilemma
In his 1997 book "The Innovator's Dilemma," Clayton Christensen connects disruptive technology to Joseph Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction, introduced in the 1940s. Christensen uses extensive data from various industries to show that sound business management can inadvertently lead to a company's decline and demise.
The theory states that disruptive innovations, which are often simpler and more affordable than existing products or services, can fundamentally change the dynamics of an industry by appealing to new or overlooked market segments.Jan 28, 2023
Further developed is the concept that these disruptive innovation can be so beneficial as to overwhelm the established dominant suppliers, with a “10X advantage” explained as reaching a criticial mass that when attainable causes almost all to rapidly change to the new innovation.