Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve - Liz Shakespeare

This was probably my favorite lecture of this semester. She facilitated a discussion and allowed our ideas to come forth, instead of simply lecturing to us. I felt MUCH more involved in this.

1) Get involved in student service associations. The more involved she was, and the more busy she got with school, the better she did in school. She was a LOT happier working for causes besides herself.
2) It's the human skills that you learn in college that really helps you in real life, not the actual knowledge that you gain in your major courses.
3) In college, you learn how to learn.
4) Engage in class
5) What attributes come naturally to YOU for service and leadership?
     -I love people. I love bringing happiness into their lives. I try to be humble and to listen. I try to rely upon the Lord and I try to look to Christ always as the guiding compass for my actions.
6) How are you using these gifts to serve people?
     -We should always be trying to expand and move forward with our gifts and talents.
7) Life Suggestion: Every Christmas, instead of celebrating by ourselves and only with our families, find an opportunity to serve someone in circumstances more dire than ours. That will really help us to feel the spirit of Christ, the spirit of Christmas.
8) Instead of getting into a thoughtless routine, think about what we're doing and where we're going.

Quote by Marvin J. Ashton - Give the Lord what it means to be our best.

All of these things are things that I wish I had done in the past, things I wish I had known when I first entered college. Now, it's not too late, so when I get back from my mission, I am going to make sure to keep this in mind and to not forget. These are some truly precious pieces of wisdom to live life with. I am going to show this to my sister and be a leader to her in my brotherly way.

Leadership for Change - Tamara Gray

In this lecture, Tamara Gray drew from the book "The Influencer" from Vital Smarts. She talked about some interesting points. She said that in creating good habits and in getting out of bad habits, there are vital behaviors or vital moments that act as a positive feedback loop to these bad habits, or as a negative feedback loop to creating the good habits. In order to get out of bad habits and set good habits, we must identify these crucial moments that move us farther away from our goals, then target these specific moments to change our behavior so that we can move further towards our goal. We need to look for examples of positive deviance in our lives, so that we can look back upon them and recognize what it takes to do these good things and set good habits.
She talked about six steps to influencing people:

1) Personal Motivation - make the undesirable desirable. Story-telling can be used to motivate people to quit AIDS-inducing behavior in Tanzania. Vicarious experiences are even better to motivate people.

2) Personal Ability - surpass your limits. Demand deliberate practice. practice, break the skill into small parts, get feedback from a coach, prepare for setbacks.

3) Social Motivation - harness peer pressure. find strength in numbers by targeting the influencers. Pave the way and enlist the power of those who motivate.

4) Social Ability - Seek the support of those who make it possible for you to achieve.

5) Structural Motivation - design reward and accountability. link rewards to vital behaviors. abundance mentality - NOT the employee of the month, but rather motivate everyone. not just one person.

6) Structural Ability - change the environment. use the power of space, data and cues, and tools.

Most of this stuff truthfully went over my head, but I did learn something important about tackling problems - you gotta take em down at the crucial points. Then we can take our inner monsters and chase out any devils that are chasing us.

Seeking and Creating Leadership Opportunities - Elise May

Elise May, our BYUSA President came to speak to us about seeking and creating leadership opportunities. This rings true with the General Authority, I forgot who, that said that this world needs more leaders. We don't have to be CEO's or in positions of management to be leaders. We can all go about being leaders. This world needs leaders who have a vision of great things that are to come. This mentality of a destiny to fulfill gives us strength in times of hardship, times of obstacles, and times of momentary failure. When we have this strength, we can be sources of strength by providing a very positive and uplifting view of the future in this forsaken world to those who need it. We can give strength to others in this way, and not only that, we can truly try to love and show compassion for those around us by praying for them and really giving them acts of service when in times of need. This will not only make us leaders, this is something that contributes to the Lord's great Plan of Salvation.