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Blue Print communication

The Whiteboard

Some times as a leader ahem parent, leading multiple people whether they are three years old or thirty three it can be a difficult task. Different opinions, different values, conflicting behavior standards the list goes on. At times we need to stop and as a leader take our team back to the drawing board so to speak and nut out the issues.

In our home, we now have a whiteboard, as we needed to introduce something subtle that would stop the lack of listening and the lack of -not-admitting emotions. ” I’m not tired!”, ” I’m NOT angry!”. You know how it goes, with tired and emotional children… and at times parents.

So how is a whiteboard helping the family with listening to each other? It actually isn’t. What it does do is, it stops us from speaking ( read repeating questions multiple times) and allows us to communicate through the board. It is an additional communication tool, one that has taken away our frustrations and enabled the kids to vent theirs by allowing their creativity to flow. No longer is it the kids trying to articulate words about how they feel, they know they can draw, write or talk to us in the moment of cranky, tired, hangry the list goes on.

When we installed the board we all sat and talked about how it will be used and why we felt we needed it as a family. Needless to say the two older kids love it and use it for its purpose – most of the time, the five year old has now finally lost interest in drawing all over it. Although we have enjoyed looking at the attempts made to draw multiple minions…

We have drawn icons for who is doing what task- an easy visual reminder of allocated chores, we have a table for feelings – happy, sad and tired. We can all tick off how we feel at the end of the day and chat about it at dinner time. One day I even wrote on the board, ” stop fighting” – aimed at the kids. They ran over to see what I had written and within minutes were writing funny responses and the tension had dissipated. We use respectful language on the board, we write quotes that inspire us, we write ” to do” lists and we leave love notes for each other. It has been a welcome addition to our kitchen and the family response has been amazing.

This may or may not work in your family life, but this brain wave from my husband has certainly made an incredibly positive difference in our home.

Take some time this week, to think about how you could adjust or add something small to your family home, that you believe will make a positive difference to your family life.

Categories
Victory

#homesofvictory

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

Maya Angelou
Categories
Leadership

look for the good

I love Audrey Hepburn. When I get asked, if you could invite anyone over for dinner dead or alive, she is always at the top of my list. Her life intrigues me, her beauty inside and out is incredible, for me she is inspiring. I also love this quote of hers. It’s not only inspiring but challenging.

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.

Audrey Hepburn

I am challenged, to make sure I have beautiful eyes, to have beautiful lips and to walk with poise. It challenges me, when my child stops to look at an ant on the footpath – do I see how late we are, or do I see the wonder in their eyes? Do I respond to my emotionally charged tween with kindness when all she is doing is spitting out words filled with misguided anger? Do I see the good in people I pass in the street?  Do I see the good in those I interact with at work? Those who pack my groceries? Those who forget to smile when the serve me because they’ve had a bad day.

The challenge for our day and every day is to lead by example and see the good in others and speak words of kindness. The kindness we speak may be the only kindness that person has had all day, week or month.

Once, when I was serving a boy who was around 12 years old at a public library, I helped him with what he wanted and he said thanks. I responded with “no worries sweetheart”. He froze and looked at me. I realised what I said and thought it may have come across inappropriately. All he could say was, “ No one has ever called me that before”. He walked away wiping his eyes. So many emotions pulsed through me in that moment, but I realised that my eyes saw the good in him and words of kindness are powerful. Likewise, when we choose kindness, we don’t go about finding fault in those around us, like so many do in our world. It becomes a habit to point out the positives and build up those around us. Oh! there is so much potential in our world, if all we did was say kind thoughtful words, rather than the first thing that pops into our heads.

How many people do you come across in a day, who may be lonely, sad, hurt, bitter… the list could go on. What kind words could you drop into their life? Will you make an effort to see the good in them, it won’t take much? There is always something good inside of everyone – at times we may just need to look harder to find it.

Categories
Leadership

enable

Enable means to provide (someone) with adequate power, means and opportunity or authority (to do something.)

Dictionary.com

Home of Victory has been designed to enable. The platform of Homes of Victory is built from a place of encouragement and seeks to provide opportunities for families to improve things in order to live in victory.

Aside from Homes of Victory, I love to encourage. I feel like it is one of my gifts, even a talent. I love taking kind words and wrapping them up in love and giving them to someone who is unsuspecting, someone who is in need of kind words or someone who doesn’t even  know they need kind words until they receive them.. I’ve always related easily to the word encourage which like enable is a verb meaning :

Encourage means to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence

Dictionary.com

Since learning more about the words and their meaning,  I’ve come to realise enable and encourage are two very different things, although they work really well together, some may say in collaboration. Enable to me is the stronger more practical of the two words as the definition includes the words  adequate power, means, opportunity and authority. While encourage is the quiet strong emotion, as it has the words courage, spirit and confidence in its definition. While I love to encourage, I also love to enable.

What can you do this week to not only encourage someone but enable them? Who can you build up with kind words? Who can you give adequate power to, to ensure they can use their gifts and talents to their potential? Who can you give the means and opportunity to?

It may be one of your children? It may be your other half? It may be a work mate, friend or stranger. Whoever you choose make sure you enable with purpose and enjoy the giving process. This world needs more kindness and it certainly needs more encouragement. Let’s see who we can enable this week.  We can’t wait to hear your stories.