5 People You Meet In Heaven

Mitch Albom wrote the book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven.  His book was transformed into a movie of the same name.  In this book, Eddie, a war veteran, feels that his life has been meaningless as he has spent his days in the dull routine of repairing the rides at a seaside amusement park.  However, when he arrives in heaven he meets five people for whom he has had a profound impact.  He also meets a large group of folks who he affected less directly than the others. 

 Have you ever wondered what 5 people you might meet in heaven—people for whom you have made a difference.  Perhaps one of them will be your own mentor and role model.  While they certainly impacted your life, you changed them as well.  Each of you recognized your own unique gifts and talents because of the connection.  We know that every young person needs and deserves a positive role model and mentor.  It is essential as we all struggle to navigate a world that is yet to be determined.  We live in a time of ambiguity and a positive role model and mentor can be the most essential part of staying grounded and on track.

Like Eddie in the story, you might also meet a large number of people that you have impacted more indirectly.  While you might not be able to be a mentor or role model for the youth directly, you can support the efforts of those who work with youth daily.  Your financial support will help Entrusted Legacy provide training and coaching for these dedicated youth workers.  We need you and the children need you.  You can make a difference in the life of a child.  Donate at www.entrustedlegacy.com.  

The Ultimate Question

Fred Reichheld wrote a business book entitled The Ultimate Question.  In this book he says the ultimate question is “would you recommend this (product, service) to others?”  He’s right!  It really doesn’t matter what you are talking about—restaurant to vacation spot, doctor or attorney, a firsthand experience or a cause, if you would unequivocally recommend it to others, then you had a good experience. 

So it is fair to ask, why are we at Entrusted Legacy wanting to share our very gratifying experience in supporting youth workers with you? 

Is it because of the words of Margaret Mead when she says:  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  The answer is YES! We believe we can make a difference.  But that’s only part of the reason. 

Maybe it is the words of Arne Duncan who tell us, "If we are serious about having more students be productive citizens, if we are serious about having more students prepared to be successful in college, dramatically improving the quality and the quantity of after-school programming is going to be at the heart of our work as a country."  Again the answer is YES!  We believe that afterschool programs can provide a much-needed difference in a child’s life.   But it too is only part of the reason. 

The words of Mead and Duncan have certainly propelled us forward, but it is the words of people who have actually benefitted from the training and staff development that most resonate with us.  Here are the words that matter most to us. 

 “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t reflect on the training I received to help me with a management situation or improve my lesson presentation. The training has helped me feel more confident in my ability to support students, interact with the staff on campus and build positive relationships with the families.”

 “I can’t tell you how important it is for me to have access to training 24/7.  I can go back and review information when I get confused and this empowers me to offer stronger learning opportunities for kids.”

“In addition to benefiting professionally, my training has helped me in my personal life as well. When you are dealing with people it’s all about communication, communication, communication and I feel I have improved the way I communicate with my husband, family, friends, and even my own children. I think back to the countless hours of youth development training each time my four year old “creatively” dresses herself for school or my two year old wants to “help” feed the dogs. The training I received was invaluable and I am often reminded of how lucky I was to have been able to be a part of it.”

"I began working in after-school programming when I was 16. It was my first job and I really did not know what to expect working with kids.  I was able to learn various classroom management techniques and gain valuable experience in the classroom. As I became more confident in my abilities and gained program experience I moved up the after-school ladder and became a Site Coordinator. As a Site Coordinator I learned a lot about doing things for others and truly enjoyed creating a safe, fun environment for kids. I feel my time in after school has helped me be a better person and a better parent."

Please join with Entrusted Legacy in promoting high-quality training for role models and mentors who work with youth in afterschool programs.  If you are not able to work directly with youth to support them as a role model and mentor, then support someone who is.  Invest in the future by investing with Entrusted Legacy.  Contact us at support@entrustedlegacy.org or by going to our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org  

Rediscovering Hope—Our Greatest Teaching Strategy

Richard Curwin wrote the book, Rediscovering Hope—Our Greatest Teaching Strategy, over two decades ago, but the message is still relevant.  While I agree that “hope is not a strategy,” I do believe that it is an essential ingredient for people to move from where they currently are into a brighter and more meaningful future. 

In his book, Curwin spends some time discussing the meaning of “at risk.”  We all have our definition for this, but it boils down to youth being “at risk” of dropping out of school and not achieving their full potential.  Instead of spending time on what “at risk” is, Curwin devoted space to what causes youth to be “at risk” beyond the typical things we identify.  He begins by sharing that youth begin to be “at risk” the first time they feel unwelcome at school or in an afterschool program.  They begin to be “at risk” when they feel that there has been an attack on their dignity. They sense other youth are valued and appreciated while they are not.  They start to be “at risk” when they are labeled and cynicism sets in when youth believes, “What’s the use?  No matter how hard I try, I’m not good enough.”  Once the seed has been planted, the feelings and actions that become synonymous with “at risk” begin to manifest, the spiral down speeds up.

What can we do to mitigate this spiral and transport youth from “at risk” to “in opportunity?”  We have to believe that afterschool programs are for kids, all kids, and that when we support them it begins first by building a relationship with them.  We must let youth know that we value them for who they are and that we believe they have something important to contribute.  We must help them begin to HOPE again.

Hope is not one of those “one size fits all” things.  There are different kinds of hope.  Hope can mean dreaming or wishing for something to happen that is beyond our control.  This kind of hope is like passive perseverance.  In other words, I hope this happens but I’m not really doing anything about it to make it so.  When we cling to this type of hope if something concrete and wonderful happens, then we can consider ourselves fortunate or maybe even lucky.  A second kind of hope is based on faith, the deep down inside you feeling that things will turn out all right.  This kind of hope too, is beyond our control with the exception that we believe it can be so.

The third kind of hope involves taking some sort of action—or being proactively perseverant  I think of the story of former astronaut Jose Hernandez who applied 12 times to be an astronaut----the first 6 times with passive persistence and the last six with proactive persistence.  When hope resembles this, it becomes actionable, and with actionable hope we have great possibilities.  One person commented, “People with hope chase rainbows and sometimes catch them.  Those without hope see little reason to try.  They do not believe that rainbows can be caught and that even if a rainbow could be caught, it would be nothing more than colored mist.”  Positive role models and mentors give substance to rainbows. Hope gives youth the courage to be a rainbow chaser. 

Please join with Entrusted Legacy in promoting hope; hope that is about forming a positive future.  It is proactive when we begin to orient ourselves to this future we have imagined.  It is the beginning of our future self and of being convinced we have the capacity to become so much more than we are.  If you are not able to work directly with youth to support them as a role model and mentor, then support someone who is.  Invest in the future by investing with Entrusted Legacy.  Contact us at support@entrustedlegacy.org or by going to our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org  

Why Is Delayed Gratification Such An Important Trait?

We live in an instant world.  When you are talking with someone and a question is raised, before you know it they’ve whipped out a smart phone and are looking for the answer.  We have instant mashed potatoes, instant pudding, instant messaging, and instant credit.  A lot of work has been done around the importance of delayed gratification.  Below is an article that you might find interesting.

"The Power of Delaying Gratification"

“In 1970 psychologist Walter Mischel famously placed a cookie in front of a group of children and gave them a choice: they could eat the cookie immediately, or they could wait until he returned from a brief errand and then be rewarded with a second. If they didn’t wait, however, they’d be allowed to eat only the first one. Not surprisingly, once he left the room, many children ate the cookie almost immediately. A few, though, resisted eating the first cookie long enough to receive the second. Mischel termed these children high-delay children.

Interestingly, the children who were best able to delay gratification subsequently did better in school and had fewer behavioral problems than the children who could only resist eating the cookie for a few minutes—and, further, ended up on average with SAT scores that were 210 points higher. As adults, the high-delay children completed college at higher rates than the other children and then went on to earn higher incomes. In contrast, the children who had the most trouble delaying gratification had higher rates of incarceration as adults and were more likely to struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.

Which all suggests that the ability to delay gratification—that is, impulse control—may be one of the most important skills to learn to have a satisfying and successful life. The question is, how do we learn it?

The answer may lie in the strategies Mischel's high-delay children used. Rather than resist the urge to eat the cookie, these children distracted themselves from the urge itself. They played with toys in the room, sang songs to themselves, and looked everywhere but at the cookie. In short, they did everything they could to put the cookie out of their minds.

Taking his cue from these high-delay children, in a second study, Mischel placed two marshmallows side by side in front of a different group of children to whom he explained, as in the previous study, that eating the first before he returned to the room would mean they couldn’t eat the second. He then instructed one group of them to imagine when he stepped out of the room how much marshmallows are like clouds: round, white, and puffy. (He instructed a control group, in contrast, to imagine how sweet and chewy and soft they were.) A third group he instructed to visualize the crunchiness and saltiness of pretzels. Perhaps not surprisingly, the children who visualized the qualities of the marshmallows that were unrelated to eating them (that is, the way in which they were similar to clouds) waited almost three times longer than children who were instructed to visualize how delicious the marshmallows would taste. Most intriguing, however, was that picturing the pleasure of eating pretzels produced the longest delay in gratification of all. Apparently, imagining the pleasure they’d feel from indulging in an unavailable temptation distracted the children even more than cognitively restructuring the way they thought about the temptation before them.

In other words, one of the most effective ways to distract ourselves from a tempting pleasure we don't want to indulge is by focusing on another pleasure. So the next time you find yourself confronted with a temptation—whether a piece of cake, a drink of alcohol, or a psychoactive drug—don't employ willpower to resist it. Send your attention somewhere else by imagining a different pleasure not immediately available to you. For if you can successfully turn your attention elsewhere until the temptation is removed from your environment or you remove yourself from its environment, the odds that you'll give in to your impulse will decrease more than with almost any other intervention you can try.”

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, check out Dr. Alex Lickerman's book, The Undefeated Mind, which is available at Amazon.com.  You might be an interesting read.

Let us know what you think by contacting us at support@entrustedlegacy.org

A True Win-Win

We've heard it said that “people have the infinite capacity to wait to get even.”  Now when one first reads a statement like that the words that come to mind are revenge, retribution, payback, reprisal, and maybe even vengeance.  We immediately think about a time that we were wronged or belittled or underestimated and can conjure images not only of our own humiliated self but the perpetrators of those feelings.  In the book, Don’t Laugh at Me, the authors state, “Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names.  Don’t gain your pleasure from my pain.” 

In the movie and novel, Time To Kill, there is a poignant scene in which the character prompts the jury to think about a heinous crime and then flips the scene for the jury to consider how they would feel if that story applied to someone they loved.  This notion of “flipping the context” works equally well with the quote above, “people have the infinite capacity to wait to get even.”  What if we put a positive spin on those words?  Did you have a role model?  Did you have a mentor that helped you to believe in the possibility of you?  Do you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are better off today because of that relationship?  Do you have the “infinite capacity to wait to get even?”  At Entrusted Legacy we are working hard to “get even” with all our mentors and role models.  We are committed to developing a critical mass by training and developing others to reach even more youth than we can reach on our own.

Go to our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org and exercise you capacity to “get even” with those who helped you by helping others.  Together the difference we can make is powerful!