I AM A WOLF: "WISDOM OF WOLVES"

The folllowing exerpt is from Twyman Towery, Ph.D., a professional speaker and consultant who studied the lessons of leadership in nature, has captured them in a book for Simple Truths called Wisdom of Wolves. Twyman shares the parallels between the wolf pack and human behavior...in business life, family life, and personal life.

An excerpt from Wisdom of Wolves by Twyman Towery

The attitude of the wolf can be summed up simply: it is a constant visualization of success. The collective wisdom of wolves has been progressively programmed into their genetic makeup throughout the centuries. Wolves have mastered the technique of focusing their energies toward the activities that will lead to the accomplishment of their goals. Wolves do not aimlessly run around their intended victims, yipping and yapping. They have a strategic plan and execute it through constant communication. When the moment of truth arrives, each understands his role and understands exactly what the pack expects of him. The wolf does not depend on luck. The cohesion, teamwork and training of the pack determines whether the pack lives or dies. There is a silly maxim in some organizations that everyone, to be a valuable member, must aspire to be the leader. This is personified by the misguided CEO who says he only hires people who say they want to take his job. Evidently this is supposed to ensure that the person has ambition, courage, spunk, honesty, drive—whatever. In reality, it is simply a contrived situation, with the interviewee jumping through the boss's hoops. It sends warnings of competition and one-upmanship throughout the organization rather than signals of cooperation, teamwork and loyalty. Everyone does not strive to be the leader in the wolf pack. Some are consummate hunters or caregivers or jokesters, but each seems to gravitate to the role he does best. This is not to say there are not challenges to authority, position and status—there are. But each wolf's role begins emerging from playtime as a pup and refines itself through the rest of its years. The wolf's attitude is always based upon the question, "What is best for the pack?" This is in marked contrast to us humans, who will often sabotage our organizations, families or businesses, if we do not get what we want. Wolves are seldom truly threatened by other animals. By constantly engaging their senses and skills, they are practically unassailable. They are masters of planning for the moment of opportunity to present itself, and when it does, they are ready to act. Because of training, preparation, planning, communication and a preference for action, the wolf's expectation is always to be victorious. While in actuality this is true only 10 percent of the time or less, the wolf's attitude is always that success will come—and it does.

REALITY IS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT YOU SEE

Commentary:  Reality Shows 

8/21/13.  MikeHuckabee.com

QUOTING:

"Friends and family of reality star Gia Aleemand are still in shock over the news that she died Wednesday, apparently after trying to take her own life. The star of ABC’s “The Bachelor” was just 29. She was beautiful, famous and envied by countless strangers. She seemed to be well-grounded and happy. Once again, it serves as a sobering reminder to young people who worship celebrities and wish they could be beautiful and famous, too, that those things alone don’t protect you from the pains of life.

With the rise of reality shows, people feel they truly know the person on their TV screens, but there has yet to be a reality show that actually showed reality. We can never really know what goes on behind other people’s closed doors. If you want the truth, don’t look for it on television, any more than you should look to fame, beauty or wealth for happiness and fulfillment. That cautionary tale was first told over a century ago, in a poem called “Richard Cory,” about a handsome, wealthy man admired by everyone – a perfect candidate for “The Bachelor” - who suddenly, one night, killed himself. And in the poem, as so often in real life, we never do learn the reason why. "

DUCK DYNASTY'S PHIL ROBINSON SHARES SALVATION EXPERIENCE

http://youtu.be/7KwrmlTPI8w

THROW YOUR HEART OVER THE BAR

Poll colters say: if you can get your heart over the bar, the body will follow. 

This is true in any endeavor. 

http://www.onyxministry.org//01/over-bar.html?m=1

NARCISSISM IN THE USA

The following USA today article

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/science/seeing-narcissists-everywhere.html

GENERATION GAP, HOAX OR FLAWED PERSPECTIVE

In a LinkedIn Article, 8-2-13,

What Millennials Really Want Out of Work

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130801172600-69244073-what-millennials-really-want-out-of-work?ref=email&_mSplash=1

the author surveys and reports on the commonalities of what was once thought to be a vast chasm of differences. 

This very interesting and insightful article goes a long way to dispel the Generation Gap theory and compels us to look at our "similarities" rather than our "differences."  We can appeal to a younger generation by focusing on our common hopes and dreams, intrinsic and extrinsic desires. In short, we are really all looking for the same things out of life. This should link us together.  Maybe the "gap" that we perceive is more a perception than a reality, more a talking problem that could be solved with more listening. 

"Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." (James1:19)

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130801172600-69244073-what-millennials-really-want-out-of-work?ref=email&_mSplash=1

MY INSIGHTS WERE:

Baby Boomers were born 1946 to1964, Generation X, 1965 and 1981, Millennials between 1982 and 2000. Next generation tag will be ...?

THE ARTICLE STATED, "This is what psychologist Jennifer Deal has found in independent research. In Retiring the Generation Gap, she writes: “All generations have similar values; they just express them differently.” We might have unique ways of getting there, but we pretty much want the same things out of work."

She said:

"The high schoolers rated the importance of various job attributes on a 1-5 scale, where 1=not at all important and 5=very important. Twenge and her colleagues grouped the questions into five categories of work values:

• Intrinsic: interesting work, learning opportunities, being challenged
• Extrinsic: pay, promotions, status
• Altruistic: helping others, contributing to society
• Leisure: vacation time, work-life balance
• Social: interacting with others, making friends

END QUOTE

But all the values are surprisingly similar. 

Differences?

"Millennial generation do appear to beslightly more disobedient. When psychologists run the famous Milgram experiment today, asking people to deliver painful electric shocks, Millennials are more likely to object. They seem to care more about self-expression than social approval.

Narcissism

The biggest area of debate concerns narcissism, and Twenge has authored two insightful, witty popular books on this issue: Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic, with Keith Campbell. Both are based on findings that narcissism and entitlement scores are higher among Millennials than any other generation on record. 

"There is one place, though, where the experts agree: age differences swamp generational differences. Narcissism is driven much more heavily by age than by generation. Psychologist Brent Roberts and his colleagues have assembled an impressive body of data suggesting that “every generation is Generation Me, as every generation of younger people are more narcissistic than their elders.”

In essence, we are all made out of the same fabric, with Adam and Evenas our progenitors and human frailty as our heritage. We come from the same heritage, the same stock. At best, we are all self-centered in that we have an I ate desire to pursue life, liberty and happiness. We are really all quite the same. 

What I took from the article is this:

We all have the same desires in life. Our choice of HOW to reach those desires is vastly different! However, IF we can recognize that other generations WANT the same things (even if they are woefully misguided in their path to reach them), THEN we may be able to build a common goal bridge to interact with those generations we PERCEIVE to be so different from us. Our perception of them has become our reality, and that concept builds walls instead of bridges. 

Do we agree that the younger generations are on a philosophical, moral and spiritual dead end street? ABSOLUTELY!!

My question is: Has our method(s) to reach them been successful? Rhetorically, NO! Then there is an option we have not yet implemented and I contend that we can use the information gained in this study to energize our hope for success in bridging the gap BY finding the similarities in our image desires and focusing our conversation ON the desire we share and using THAT as our introductory draw bridge. After all, "If we always do what we've always done, then we'll always get what we've always gotten."

You and I do NOT disagree. We are looking at the problem from different angles. True?

We have a generational problem. No argument there. But our current course of action IS NOT WORKING! I'm all about finding detours when in road blocked. This is a huge road block that DOES have an alternate route. We can sit in traffic and road rage... Or we can go "off the beaten path." Road trip, anyone?

(Selah)

"Let no one despise your youth..."

(1 Timothy 4:12)

Until another day,

JoanElise

MYTH OF THE TEENAGER

This is really very thought provoking.

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/myth-of-the-teenager.php