Week 3 YLC Thought 2017

"The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own Example" John Wooden John Wooden is a legend in American Basketball. When Wooden arrived at UCLA for the 19481949 season, he inherited a little-known program that was based in a tiny gym with little to no support. He left it many years later as a powerhouse of college basketball with 10 national championships, maybe one of the greatest achievements known to college basketball. John Wooden ended his UCLA coaching career with a 620147 overall record and a winning percentage of .808. That was from just his run at UCLA. That doesnt account for his success at Indiana State Uni. The John Wooden era at UCLA included winning ten college basketball championships. A record that was only broken in 2016 by Geno Auriemma. Wooden had four perfect seasons!! The only other Division I men's or women's coach with more than one perfect season is Auriemma, with six at Connecticut. In 2009, Wooden was named The Sporting News "Greatest Coach of All Time". The thing for me that makes John Wooden a great leader is that he didnt just say words and hope people would follow him. He placed a great importance in life to lead by example. This is often termed Integrity. Does integrity mean you wont make mistakes? No it doesnt. What it does mean though that when you make them, you own them. No person is immune to stuffing up! All of us though have a responsibility though to learn from those mistakes and correct our wrongs. John Wooden lived a life of some 99 years. His later years demonstrated the respect that he had attained from his achievements, but more so the legacy that a man of humility demonstrated by raising up people under him to be great! I suggest that you find his inspirations on how to live a great life. His 7 points of creed are particularly good for those who wish to be the best they can be in all your endeavours but most of all life. Are you a leader? How do you lead? How do you want others to remember you?

Week 2 YLC thought 2017

"Set your Goals high, and don't stop till you get there! Bo Jackson. Welcome to your second thought for 2017. Most of you probably know by now that I love goals and achieving them. On Sunday afternoon, I met with one of my two mentors. 
We spoke about the challenges and joys of dealing with teenagers everyday, the experiences that sometimes can make us forget about how cool it is to be able to live in a world where technology and community allow us to share our experiences in real time and most of all, how challenging it can be to set good goals. We chatted for 6 hours!!! His last comment is something I want to share with you all as I find myself saying the same thing when I share about my students. "I am proud of you because you are trying to be better everyday." The first 5 words really hit you when you hear them from someone you respect. I remember the first time I heard my parents say it to me.. It made me sit up straight and feel on top of the world. You may never hear it if you expect to hear it though. It's much like Goals. You have to set them high and push through all of the rejection, pain, frustration and wanting to give up. When you get there (and you will) you might be like Bo Jackson. Dual all star in both NFL (Gridiron) and MLB (Baseball). His football career included four seasons in the NFL. Jackson rushed for 2,782 yards and 16 touchdowns with an average yards per carry of 5.4. He also caught 40 passes for 352 yards and two touchdowns. Jackson's 221 yards on November 30, 1987, just 29 days after his first NFL carry, is still a Monday Night Football record. After a career ending Hip injury he returned to Baseball for the White Sox. Here's some baseball achievements AL All-Star (1989) 1989 All-Star Game MVP 1993 AL Comeback Player of the Year Award 20-Home Run Seasons: 4 (19871990) 30-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1989) 100 RBI Seasons: 1 (1989) Why do you set goals high? They are not meant to be easy! They are challenges and for all of you, it is time to step up to the plate and smash a home run in whatever you choose to aim for. Injury didn't stop Bo Jackson. His attitude might of though if it wasn't for chasing after what he set out to do.

Week 1 thought for YLC 2017

You are receiving for the first of what I hope to be a weekly quote and thought to you. Do you have to read it? Do you have to answer questions on it? Do you have to take what is here and put it into your daily life? The answer is No. You don't have to care about it or read it or answer any questions or even make it something more than it is. But I believe that if you just spend a couple of moments in your week thinking about it, you may just find something to get out of it. So to Number 1 of the Year (Look at the attached image for the Context) Dr. Seuss was an amazing author. During his senior year at Dartmouth College, Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and nine of his friends were caught drinking gin in his room. This was the spring of 1925, and the dean put them all on probation for violating the laws of Prohibition. He also stripped Geisel of his editorship of Jack-O-Lantern the colleges humour magazine where Ted published his cartoons. To evade punishment, Ted Geisel began publishing cartoons under aliases: L. Pasteur, D.G. Rossetti 25, T. Seuss, and Seuss. These cartoons mark the first time he signed his work Seuss. As a magazine cartoonist, he began signing his work under the mock-scholarly title of Dr. Theophrastus Seuss in 1927. He shortened that to Dr. Seuss in 1928. In acquiring his professional pseudonym, he also gained a new pronunciation. Most Americans pronounce the name Soose, and not Zoice. And thats how Ted Geisel became Dr. Seuss. In 1955, Dartmouth gave him his first honorary doctorate. He would eventually receive several more honorary degrees, including one from Princeton. By pursuing his love of drawing, Ted Geisel became one of the few people to earn a Ph.D. by dropping out of graduate school. (Source: www.suessville.com) So you might say so what? He is famous and I'm just a kid. I want to share a secret about life with you. In life it is not the academic results that necessarily grant you success. Success is what you measure it to be. For me Success is achieving the things in life I strive for and feeling a sense that I have learnt something new. It is also not your teachers that will make an opportunity just work for you. It is your brains, your journey to greatness and in the end your decisions in which way you lead life that will give to you all of the things you aim for. If you want great, work towards great! Don't blame others if you don't put the effort in. You have Brains and you have Feet! Move towards where you want to go and we will support you all the way to achieve greatness.

Donald Mayne

Donald Mayne

Two very important things to remember!

TWO VERY IMPORTANT REMINDERS (from a very important discussion and self reflection):

Even when the mirror is smashed, the individual smashed pieces are still complete mirrors that allow us to see the perfect reflection even when the repaired mirror would still be distorted..

And

Doors are opened and shut in life not by us but by the creator of life and the universe (whatever you want to believe that is. For me it is God of the Christian faith). We can walk through the open door but only if it is unlocked. If it is locked it is not for us. If it is unlocked, it might still not be the room we choose to live in (our destiny) but when we leave, it is only our choice if we leave the experience there and let it be, or take it on as baggage and carry it with us.

It's no secret but the journey has had to be... until now!

So January 2014 was a month I am never going to forget. It wasn't the start of it all, but it was the time I sucked up my man pride and went and got help. 18 months has gone fast.

December 2013, I didn't feel right. It was an easy answer too, You are Medically Exhausted I was told!
It didn't take Einstein to work out why. One look at my self imposed schedule demonstrated why. It was the first time however that I truly stopped and looked at the diary and said out loud "what am I doing"?

But let me fill in the month.
Personally, I was slowly spiraling to my diagnosis and I was so in denial about it all that I just put it on the too hard to think about shelf. I was told that my once in a lifetime dream trip to play at Disney and the Rose bowl parade and other tour spots was in real jeopardy because the tank was on empty and the body was pretty much in limp mode. I refused to accept that and told the doctor my thoughts on the issue, but soldier on I did (this will form a theme later).

The trip is still a bit of a blur! Photos and videos bring back some memories but it shows me how good I was able to smile during it all. If you know me, you will know that smiling isn't my strong point. The denial for me was to smile and pretend it was a world away. In some ways it was. I was in a suspended state of anxiety and I thought all would be good.

Fast forward to the return home. Very few people on the plane home would know that as I passed the coast of Victoria, I had what I now know was a 'minor' anxiety attack. I started to shake, get cold, feel like the world was going to collapse around me and I knew something was wrong. I was so good at hiding it I think only one of my mates saw it and almost shielded me whilst looking at me saying What is going on? Little did I know what that meant for me but let me explain it the best I can.

Here it is:
I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder. Yep I have a mental health issue! In fact when I fronted up, I was a few points off an admission to hospital. That scared me a lot and still does when I think about it!
It to me is a condition and not an illness. It is a condition because sometimes it hits me hard and sometimes I bring it to the surface due to the conditions I see.
It is a choice I did not make, did not want and wished that I didn't have to live with, but it is me.
I am an artist, a thinker, an educator, a brother, a son. I am a christian and if you think that I haven't argued at length with God about why I have had to endure this, you'd be dead wrong. I went through a stage where I was so angry with God!! He waited, he listened, he told me to stop yelling.

In a crazy world though, I don't get nervous on stage. Never have and never feel anxious playing at all. But in a group or sometimes socially especially when I'm not feeling physically as strong as I should or just tired it does show. People notice something is not right and then I have to spend time trying to work out what to say......

Picture this:
There's a soft voice inside the mind that says I have control and you don't. It waits for you to not know it's there and then it connects the strings like a puppeteer and gets into position to make you feel like you have no control. Slowly but surely it controls little thoughts and patterns and slowly wears down your resilience until it finally says I'm here, and I have you exactly where you can't fight me... It lies to you so you fear it, it grabs you in such a submissive hold that as you fight it strangles you and latches on.
Other times it is like a crack of thunder. You see the lightening, but you don't know how far that storm is until you hear the thunder. It also doesn't count down to the crack, so you don't really know when it's going to happen.
or you may feel that you are the ship in the storm. You get smashed from wave to wave and you have no real control, but seas calm and sometimes it's about finding that lighthouse to focus on where that land is for you.

I cried, stressed, gave up on happiness, fought so strong it broke me down and then when I finally reached the point in which my family saw me at my weakest.. I decided to step up and face my biggest fear.
For me personally, it took away my sleep. It caused me to shake and tremor without warning. It caused me to replay events in my mind in which I had to endure watching every scenario played out. It took away my happiness and replaced it with confusion. It took away my smile and replaced it with a look of disassociation.
But most of all it took away my drive to face challenges. It made me physically sick, it 'helped' me lose weight, it showed me what was important, It made me say no. It saved me from total self destruction. Some of that actual is positives...

 When I was diagnosed, I was told meds were the way to go. I have yet to actually try them. I left the doctors totally deflated about the news. When I spoke to my family about it, they saw in me the pain and they too bore some of that pain as their son, admitted that he now had to face a few hurdles to wellness. The hardest thing in my life I think was to tell my parents. I did not want to burden them and they didn't deserve to see me so deflated and disappointment. I truly felt that day that the world had let me down. I never thought Suicide or harm to myself.. I only ever thought about kicking it's butt and making sure that it would not defeat me.

Sadly, I lost friends! It started to have a disastrous effect on my relationships with people. No more needs to be said there. They may read this and know a little more about why I was struggling, but it was one of the sad times when I realised that they couldn't support me through the tunnel. 

So I made some changes.

I studied all I could about GAD and other related subjects. I found so much support in reading of elite athletes and celebrities who like me wanted the best in their lives but found a bit of a wiring issue. I found comfort in setting goals. I found a love of exercising again and nutrition. I made steps to make life changing decisions in those areas and I can say I continue to challenge myself.

You may ask why now? Why write this now?

I am writing this because I am seeing people struggle and I want them to know you're not alone and it is able to be managed.
Some days are amazing for me and some days are terrible. I have learnt to accept that. My friends now can see it and I see in them so much care and support. Some days I know that people overlook me for opportunities. I accept that, although not fair or right, they do it because they don't want to see me in a bad state I guess. That is life though: You don't get every chance because life can't always work that way.

I soldier on, not because of an attitude that can be resilient, but because in my mind I cannot let this control me. I will fight for my right to be happy and by living with this condition, I will learn the enemy and how to overcome it.

If you are reading this and facing this reality. Please seek the help you need, please know that the friends that leave reveal the friends that matter and when it is at it's worst, know that you can be at your best when the storm passes.

Spot where you miss what's right in front of you....

Ever been in a spot where you feel so relaxed but also feel like you are not seeing something right in front of you? I think I am in that spot.

It's a weird spot to be in. I guess in some ways it's what you would expect when you knowingly shut your eyes to the world around you. But I have to say that maybe the blindness is either protecting me or just making me more aware of a wider scope.

Interesting quick thought.

Bye 2014

So I am sitting in the dark, home from the parties, alone and ready to plan out my new year. It's just the way I thought it would be. That's ok! I need it to be this way.

2014! The year I will try and be positive by calling it my journey year. In essence it would be  seen by me on any other day of the year a terrible nightmare of a year. I am going to look at it through the lens of positive thinking for one reason. That reason is journey.

I started the year in a foreign country! Awesome idea in a perfect world. For me, my mind was scared and confused about something I didn't know about, understand or care to sort out. The hidden monster that was my mind at the time was preparing to strike me as hard as it could and I never saw it properly through the busy life I lead. I got home and found myself in a war with myself. The issue is that when the enemy knows you so well, you have to be ready to submit to fighting out of it at all costs.

I did so and along the journey this year I found fragments of love, in hindsight, they were always fragments, fragments of an already broken mirror that really distorted reality. These fragments still cut deep sometimes but you have to deal with that wound.

I also took up fitness and have dropped some serious Kg's this year. I look at doing more of this in 2015 but not for anyone else. Just for me. If people knew how much some words cut deep, they may understand why I am so focused.

I won't name people in this post, but some will not be as close to me as they were in 2014. I'm sorry to those people. I know that at the time there is fault on both sides, but I guess it's easy to run when either people don't/can't bend to your every wish or it gets a little tougher  to help someone else out when they are down. It's OK, I get it and so will you. Please accept my thanks for what you have done. Sometimes seasons change and so do friendships.

Lastly, I will say this 2015: The year to find and love me! No one else has ownership of this journey of my own self discovery!!

So I had my wisdom teeth out on Wednesday. Just a few weeks earlier than planned. But what has it made me do... Well stop! It has made me stop.

Some would say that's great. The reality is that all it has done is made me think. Sometimes way to much about what I don't need to and some time has been spent maybe getting some clarity.

The season that I've been living in seems to be still strongly holding on. I am slowing trying to live during the storms and struggles but I long for a season of pure blessings.

I need to evaluate my life and it's purpose. I need to maybe make the decisions that others are scared to make and maybe at the end of it, I need to own what is mine and what is not.

My heart is in a weird place as I journey. Changes are coming, doors are going to close soon and I know that some will open but I need to be in the hallway, having my eyes open to what is going to open. I trust that.. I just don't know if I have the patience right now. I need to find that patience.

Confusion and Hope

So this week marks another time in my life where I reflect. 10 months ago I was diagnosed with Anxiety. A condition of my life that I am still trying to grasp. I was told by many to keep it silent and not say anything because some people would not get it and understand.

 

In 22 days, I get my wisdom teeth out. Again not a significant thing for most but I have a point of saying this. When I went to the dentist, people were very supportive of me having to have the teeth out. People were so compassionate about the pain I must be feeling or how I must be coping with the issues associated with the pain and discomfort. So what is different?

 

It's the issue of acceptance. People will allow themselves to be who they want to be by accepting what they want to accept. Some are scared of the unseen because they can't qualify it.

 

It's interesting to not though that I see many aspects of my life where I do the exact same thing.

 

What am I confused about?

 

• Taking a risk on someone or something
• Taking a chance on a dream without failing.
• Realising that I am far less perfect than my imperfections show and knowing that most of that is beyond my control.
• Knowing that I will never be good enough for some but want to still at least try.

What are my hopes?


Simple. That I will one day look back and realise that life is teaching me some very valuable lessons.