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FFP 025: The Six Demands of Self Care

Taking Care of Yourself Allows You to Take Care and Lead Others

In this episode of The Future Focused Podcast, you will learn how to answer the six demands of self-care to become a better leader and live a better life.

As Katie Reed, a very wise individual, once said, “Self care is giving the world the best of you, not what is left of you.”  

In my last episode of focused on frustration and overwhelm and I discussed the five people you need in your life to combat it. 

In this episode I want to focus on what YOU can do. 

Self care is a real thing, just as Katie’s wise words remind us, for if we do not take very good care of ourselves, our beaten, worn, exhausted, anxious, self will be unable and unfit to take care of all those we love, serve, and lead. 

Self care demands knowledge of the self. We cannot take care of what we do not know nor understand. 

Many of you are purchasing Christmas presents this time of year; I also hope you will consider my book Along Came a Leader as a gift for yourself, a colleague, and administrator, and a family member this holiday season. It’s available on Amazon. It was a work of love. I am so proud of it. Level-up your leadership. Discover the 8 core attributes of leadership and how to put them work to impact lives and lead. We need leaders. If you’ve already read it, I hope you will leave a review. 

I also encourage you to follow me on Instagram between now and Christmas Day because I am sharing lots of my artwork. I am drawing a Santa Claus every day and posting the speed-painting video of me drawing it, which is so much fun to watch, alongside the art. You can only find it on my Instagram.

Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 148 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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FFP 024: Frustration and Overwhelm

Frustration and Overwhelm are Not Okay! Here's what to do about it.

In this episode of The Future Focused Podcast I talk about how and why frustration and overwhelm impacts so many, and more importantly, I talk about what we can do about it.

I have met too many people who talk about frustration and overwhelm with a sense of pride, a badge of honor, and as if it is okay. Why is that?

Frustration and overwhelm are NOT okay.

I’m not here to tell you that you’re doing it wrong. I’m not here to tell you that you’re living life wrong. I’m not here to be the expert. I am here to get you fired-up and to share some helpful ways to confront and conquer frustration and overwhelm. I also want to challenge your thinking and help you out.  

Frustration and overwhelmed or not OK. You should be leaving work proud of all that you did to make a difference. At the end of the day you should be proud of the way you lead your family. You should not go to bed nor wake up with regrets.

 Frustration and overwhelm the deplete us of the energy we need to raise our families, chase and fulfill  our dreams.  Frustration and overwhelm is a thief of our time. It’s a thief of our focus. It can create depression and anxiety if not addressed.

This episode will help you combat frustration overwhelm, level-up your leadership and design a more dynamic life. You will feel better about yourself too.

You will leave this episode feeling better about your day and the work you face. You also will look at your friends, coworkers and family in completely new ways! You are going to love this episode.

Many of you are purchasing Christmas presents this time of year; I also hope you will consider my book Along Came a Leader as a gift for yourself, a colleague, and administrator, and a family member this holiday season. It’s available on Amazon. It was a work of love. I am so proud of it. Level-up your leadership. Discover the 8 core attributes of leadership and how to put them work to impact lives and lead. We need leaders. If you’ve already read it, I hope you will leave a review. 

I also encourage you to follow me on Instagram between now and Christmas Day because I am sharing lots of my artwork. I am drawing a Santa Claus every day and posting the speed-painting video of me drawing it, which is so much fun to watch, alongside the art. You can only find it on my Instagram.

Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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FFP 023: The Four Essential Actions of Leadership

The Future Focused Podcast Returns for Season 2

This twenty-third episode of The Future Focused Podcast is the start of our second season. This episode focuses on The Four Essential Actions of Leadership.

Eleven minutes and forty seconds of pure “let’s level-up our leadership and design a dynamic lifestyle.” Buckle-up as I share the absolute transformational power of The Four Essential Actions of Leadership. They’ll take you to the next level, but be cautioned: these actions take practice, courage, and skill, and our best developed over time with reflection . The first action is so easy, but the other three are tough, and the fourth separates leaders from everyone else.

You are going to love this episode. It’s note-taking worthy. Share it out, replay, recommend, and subscribe.

I also hope you will consider my book Along Came a Leader as a gift for yourself, a colleague, and administrator, and a family member this holiday season. It’s available on Amazon. It was a work of love. I am so proud of it. Level-up your leadership. Discover the 8 core attributes of leadership and how to put them work to impact lives and lead. We need leaders. If you’ve already read it, I hope you will leave a review. 

I also encourage you to follow me on Instagram between now and Christmas Day because I am sharing lots of my artwork. I am drawing a Santa Claus every day and posting the speed-painting video of me drawing it, which is so much fun to watch, alongside the art. You can only find it on my Instagram.

 

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Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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October is National Bullying Awareness Month

October is Bullying Awareness Month. This is a great time for schools to organize events and programs to help educate students, families and staff about bullying.

I have created a free resource you can download titled, What Everyone Needs to Know About Bullying. I hope you will share it with everyone you can. I believe it delivers a message that many need to hear and practice.

I will be updating this this free ebook very during the month of October. I also hope to release an audio version of it on my Wired Educator Podcast so you can listen to it while you drive, workout, walk the dog, or whatever. I really want this message to spread to help as many lives as possible.

The bottom line is this: The opposite of bullying is leadership.

We need to teach and train students to be better leaders online and off. It’s that simple. Everyone talks about the importance of leadership, but few, very few, take the time to teach it.

I will be sharing my What Everyone Needs to Know About Bullying with schools and parent groups throughout the school year. I would love to share it with you!

If you are a parent, read this ebook with your child. If you are a teacher, make copies and share it with your students. If you are and administrator, share it with your staff. Have conversations about the material.

Kelly

Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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Eleven Ways to End Feeling Not Good Enough

Frustration and Overwhelm are Not Okay

We live in a time when frustration and overwhelm are not only rampant, but they are accepted as normal feelings and talked about as a badge of honor, or as evidence of being a hard worker.

Q: “How’s it going today?”

A: “I am so busy! It’s crazy. I am completely overwhelmed with the number of emails and work. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get in front of it. Same thing at home. I have to be so many places tonight.”

Isn’t the above accepted as normal banter?

Listen, frustration and overwhelm are not okay.

How we talk to ourselves matters. How we talk about ourselves matters. We must be intentional with how we speak about ourselves, our jobs, and our lives.

Frustration and overwhelm will not end by executing an enormous number of hours of work. Frustration and overwhelm will end when we interrupt how we are thinking, change the way we talk about work and life, and change what we take action on and prioritize.

Our brains are taking in a tremendous amount of messages from television, social media, interactions with others, main stream media and a variety of other sources. A good portion of these messages are manipulated in ways that create an inaccurate baseline of self value. Likes, followers, shares, filtered photos, editing apps, and other variables enhance a false narrative of normal. It would appear as if everyone is fit, always looks great, has more money, buys nicer cars, travels to exotic places, and is always happy. A part of us knows the reality that this isn’t really the case, but there it is in front of us again and again, like waves on a beach beating down on us.

Too many people, young and old, are feeling Not Good Enough.

How can we put An End to Not Feeling Good Enough?

  1. We need to limit our social media consumption.
  2. Interrupt what we focus on. Get an understanding that almost none of it is real or matters anyway.
  3. Change how we talk to ourselves. Journal some positive things to plant in your mind. Create a running list of positives to focus on in certain situations and especially before bed.
  4. Get our bodies moving. Especially when we are feeling beat down.
  5. Build a network of friends that include a truth teller, an encourager, a coach, and a friend. Be these for others too.
  6. Control what we are putting into us. That includes foods, music, books, drinks, thoughts, drugs, media, stories, and more.
  7. Change the story we tell about ourselves. Both at work and at home! Focus on what you are accomplishing and the positives of your day. Don’t exaggerate. They are there!
  8. Make gratitude a regular part of your self talk and outward talk. Make a list. Read it.
  9. Say “not right now” to new tasks and responsibilities and until you really have time for them.
  10. Make a list of what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. Schedule more of the former.
  11. Embrace mindfulness. Take a minute to stop what you are doing. Smile. Breathe. Limit your thoughts.

I don’t want others to feel not good enough. I don’t want to feel that way. I don’t want my family to feel that way. I don’t want you to feel that way. It’s not going to happen accidentally; we must start being intentional about it. Catch yourself talking outwardly or inwardly in negative ways and correct it immediately with a new version; that is habit interrupting and rebuilding. Catch yourself feeling negatively and immediately change what you are thinking about, and if you can, what you are doing and where you are at. Get in front of this and change your life.

I look forward to your thoughts and questions in the comment section below.

Kelly

PS. Season 2 of The Future Focused Podcast will start in a few days. I hope you will subscribe and listen.

Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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My Notes: Leadership Training from a Navy SEAL

Lead Now is an Excellent Leadership Training Opportunity by Focus 3

I recently had the honor and privilege to participate in an elite leadership training program titled Lead Now by the Focus 3 Team, founded by Tim Kight.

The Lead Now training I participated in was facilitated by Master Training Specialist and veteran of the United States Navy SEAL Teams, Scott Daly. Scott was excellent. He has spent a good portion of his life training people to perform at elite levels and become better leaders.  I loved how Scott was able to take his life experiences, combine it with the Lead Now system, and apply it to situations each of us face every day. I found the training beneficial on so many levels. I highly recommend it, and I will share a few highlights from my notes that really helped me.

A prerequisite for the training was the completion of a DISC personality inventory. This was very enlightening. It was helpful for me to see areas to improve upon, how others may view me, and most importantly how to work with and lead other personality types.

Focus 3 helps organizations with culture work in a way that is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It is an elite system used by Fortune 100 Companies, professional and collegiate sports, and some of the top school districts in the world. Tim Kight, the founder of Focus 3, was the Leadership Coach for The Ohio State University Football Team, and the system was used here with Urban Meyer and his teams. It is a system that helps people become better leaders, and trains people to better deal with the events we encounter in life. The program centers around working on your RESPONSE to the events that come at you, so you can help influence a possible, better outcome. Click to Read More

 

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Do Hard Things!

When I was young my dad gave me quite a few Herculean tasks. They were epic in size, labor and time. They also shaped me into the man I am today.

Throughout high school and college my coaches designed grueling workouts, challenges, and tests, that in the moment were torture, but in reflection steeled me and trained me for adversity.

The young mind has trouble seeing beyond the moment, difficultly seeing the purpose, and unfortunately allows their emotional response to distract and hinder. The good coach steps up and offers a new perspective.

Looking back, I am so glad I was “forced” to do hard things. I see now how they prepared me for other challenges much later in my life, in completely different areas. The sprints and ladder drills prepared me for adversity decades later. I learned patience, tenacity, fortitude, endurance, teamwork, greater good, service, and the ability to train myself to push past, way past, the moment of surrender.

Doing hard things matter.

If you want to get good at quitting, practice quitting. If you want to build tenacity, practice not giving up.

You’re most likely not going to choose hard things as a youth, nor as an adult. Some do, but most don’t.

Netflix, Cheetos, and the couch are screaming your name and welcoming you to some hours of leisure and fun.

The weight room, your running shoes, and the yoga mat whisper your name and promise only to test you.

The character traits you build in both are transferable to all other actions.

Why didn’t you start that project or finish? You have most likely practiced not starting and finishing.

We need people in our lives that challenge us. We need to challenge others. These challenges don’t necessarily need to be public and formal. I am challenged when I sit on my couch and see a runner go by the window. It gets me up off my butt. When I see a colleague publish, I return to the keyboard. And on and on.

To those who are doing hard things, thank you!

To the rest of us, now is a good time to start.

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Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

 

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Reboot Your Resolutions!

It’s June. Time to take a hard look at the resolutions and goals you made for the year.

What’s working? What’s not?

Read through them. (You wrote them down! Right? If not, write them down.)

Do you still have the fire, grit, spunk, and resolve you did on the first of January? Or has it waned?

I want you to look at the span of this year of your life a little differently. The past six months is valuable feedback on how you live in comparison to what you want. Look at your year, which still is half full, like you would an artist’s work in single year and ask yourself, “What will I be remembered for this year?” Also, examine the barriers, internally or externally, that have kept you from making progress, or pushed you forward. This first half of the year is feedback. Record it. Reflect on it. Redesign a plan for what needs to be done.

Six months is a tremendous amount of time. You can create a masterpiece in six months. A masterpiece of art, health, finance, or side hustle.

The year is still your’s!

What’s it going to take?

Here are SIX things you can do to reboot your resolutions and see them to completion:

  1. Rebuild your mindset. Get fired up! Make your reason for doing this passionate.
  2. Reflect on the past six months. This is how we learn!
  3. Record what worked well and what didn’t. Write down what worked and any obstacles you discovered.
  4. Redesign your plan. Write down what you are going to do over the next six months.
  5. Remind yourself daily of your why.
  6. Repeat at least one action daily that will take you closer toward that goal.

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Looking for a dynamic speaker for your event? • Kelly Croy is an author, speaker and educator. Want to learn more? Send me an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 121 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram