Personal Development

I think I heard or read somewhere that people mature physically in their teens, mentally in their 20's, and emotionally in their 30's.  I think I would probably agree with that.  A friend who is 5-10 years older than me told me once that your 30's are a good decade.  For the most part I think I would agree.  But sometimes, all that emotional development can be stressful and involve some growing pains.

What brought that to my mind was some in-person training that I went to yesterday.  It was part of a leadership class that I'm enrolled in.  And the instructor was talking about how leading people is a privilege.  We spent a lot of time learning about how you coach people and develop them rather than just doing everything yourself.  Overall, it was interesting.  We reviewed the DiSC profile as part of that training, which I mentioned before.

They talked about leaving a legacy, and what legacy do you want to leave?  I suppose that applies to both your personal and professional life.  The instructor talked about how somebody's mom died, and right at the end of the visitation someone showed up and was so thankful they hadn't missed it because they wanted to pay their respects.  They had only worked with the deceased lady for 4 months about 13 years before that, but the person had made such a good impression and had such a good legacy that the lady wanted to go to her visitation.  I'm thankful that I have so many good, living examples of people leaving a great spiritual legacy.

Another interesting concept was that we can't only say what we won't do as a leader.  We also need to clearly define what we will do as a leader.  This reminded me of what Jesus said about the man who cast out the devils and swept and cleaned his house, but then he left it empty.  And soon, the spirits came back and were worse than before.  We not only have to try not to do evil, but we need to be filling that void with loving God.

It was mentioned in the training that for "S" and "i" people, trust is given/assumed up front and is broken later through experiences.  For "C" and "D" people, usually trust is not given right away, and trust must be earned.  I found that interesting.

Based on the pre-work we had to do for the class, I was afraid the training might get too touchy-feely for my taste, but I actually thought they did a very nice job of highlighting how leading people is mostly about people - coaching them, encouraging them, correcting them, etc.  We learned about addressing people's personal and practical needs.  They approached the training very logically and explained things well in a practical way without getting pie-in-the-sky.  Of course we had to do lots of group activities and role playing which I dislike, but I also realize how helpful it is to do role-playing sometimes.  And, they balanced it out with other things.  I was also lucky that the training was at the luxurious training center with the fancy food and delicious snacks.  I lead a life of great hardship.  ;-)

I sat next to one lady who is an extreme "i" personality.  SHE was too touchy-feely for my taste.  She talked about "telling your truth" and some stuff like that.  And she invaded my personal bubble within 15 minutes of meeting her.  I appreciate people like that sometimes because they are very much everything I am not, but usually I like to appreciate them in small doses.  :-)  However, opposites attract I'm told.

That's all for now.  Have a great weekend.