Leaders Eat Last

The really gifted Completers start thinking about what workarounds they can use if whatever they tried before isn’t working well enough or quickly enough.

Real learning happens when things go wrong or when we screw up.

Real learning happens when things go wrong or when we screw up. What we should all want is a balance of feedback.

Try to brush aside the stuff that offends or upsets you to really try to hear what they are saying you can do better next time.

Preparing to solve a problem for next time feels better than getting upset about our failure to solve it this time.

Digital-Free Family Vacation

Sign the Contract Cell phone companies make us sign contracts filled with terms and conditions to have our phones, so why shouldn’t our kids have to sign a contract to have theirs? Delany Ruston is a psychologist and filmmaker who produced a great documentary called Screenagers, in which she tackles whether or not to buy her young teenage daughter a cell phone. In the film, she demonstrates a unique and effective idea—if their daughter wanted the smart phone, she had to sign a contract and agree to certain conditions. I’ve heard of other parents trying the same thing, too. They are writing up contracts that include terms such as: The phone can never be used or even kept in the child’s bedroom. The child cannot have the phone at any meal table. If friends come over, ALL the children have to forfeit their phones while they are together. (If the friends’ parents complain, saying they want their kids to have their phones on them at all times, call those parents and give them the house number to call if they need to get hold of their kids at any time.) Restrict the times when they are allowed to use their phones. If any of these terms are violated, the child loses their phone for a week.

Lead by Example I frequently hear from parents complaining that their kids are constantly on their phones. However, I also hear from kids that their parents are always on their phones. If

Lead by Example I frequently hear from parents complaining that their kids are constantly on their phones. However, I also hear from kids that their parents are always on their phones.

it would do less long-term damage to a kid to put them up for adoption than to hand them a device every single time we don’t want to deal with them.

Kids are annoying and loud and they fight and distract us from the things we like doing. That’s because they’re kids. And being a parent is hard work.