Tom Holmoe, the athletic director of all BYU sports, came and spoke to my leadership development class. He is a super cool person (he has 4 super bowl rings btw), and a great example of a leader.
First, he encouraged us to have goals for everything. He said that goals are a sure way to improve in this life, so we should all have them. He specifically talked about setting goals for relationships because in order to improve your relationships with people, you have make an effort and be assertive.
He highlighted John Maxwell's principle that there are 2 kinds of people in the world.
1. Firelighters: people who will go out of their way to help you keep your fire hot
2. Firefighters: people who will throw cold water on the fire of passion that burns within you.
Firefighters would be the people that say things like:
"You're not {smart/talented/experienced} enough"
"That's not the way we do things around here"
"Yeah, but..."
"We tried that before and it didn't work"
He said that there is no reason to be a firefighter, and I agree. I couldn't think of one at least.
However, we are all going to deal with firefighters in our lives, and it is important to have the attitude that they won't get me down.
He then talked about an experiment that was conducted to see the influences, if any, of encouragement.
Researchers measured the capacity to endure pain by having subjects stand in a bucket of ice cold water. They found that when someone else is present, the average person can tolerate pain twice as long than when they are alone.
He then showed this video from Facing the Giants:
Researchers measured the capacity to endure pain by having subjects stand in a bucket of ice cold water. They found that when someone else is present, the average person can tolerate pain twice as long than when they are alone.
He then showed this video from Facing the Giants:
John Maxwell has 5 stages of Relationships in his book Talent is Never Enough (p. 221)
1. Surface: requires no commitment from either person (ex. store clerk, waiter)
2. Structure: develop around common interest or activity (ex. people you know from school or work)
3. Secure: people want to spend time togehter
4. Solid: develop complete trust and absolute confidence
5. Significant: people give beyond reason and they lift you up to a level you could not achieve without them
1. Think of three relationships that you wish were at the significant stage, but currently are not there. For each relationship you want to improve write one goal about how you will improve that relationship. Make sure the goals are specific. Each goal should include what relationship you want to improve and a specific action you want to take to improve that relationship.
a. my best friend Kylee: I want to help her to succeed academically at BYU because that would help her be less stressed and more confident in why she is here. To do this, I can compliment her more and encourage her to do homework/succeed instead of distracting her and pushing her to do more fun things.
b. my sister Haley: I want to help Haley to feel loved and included by me and the rest of her siblings. I can do this by complimenting her, including her in discussions, and not picking on her. I can also encourage my siblings to do the same by really considering her feelings and being kind.
c. my Mom: I want to help my mom enjoy this holiday season. I can do that by encouraging my siblings to not bring up her family, and to not stress her out by pestering her about decorating or gifts all the time.
2. What can you do to remind yourself to achieve the goals you made in question 1?
I can remind myself by putting these goals in my scriptures as a bookmark and read over them everyday when I do my scripture study. I can pray to find ways in my scriptures on how to do these things and to be able to be strengthened as I do them. I think that this will really help to put my relationships in perspective, and I think that the scriptures are a good place because they are private and they are one of the few places that I go to daily.
3. Tom Holmoe shared many different ideas about developing relationships. Share one of your favorite ideas from his lecture. Why did you like this?
My favorite idea from his lecture was being able to help people by just being there and encouraging them/pushing them to succeed. I loved the video that he shared about Brock Kelly who needed an attitude change and how his coach pushed him to succeed. I could tell how much the coach loved Brock because he stayed by his side through the entire death crawl and never wavered in his encouragement. I think that true leaders have these significant relationships with people because they persist in building them up instead of thinking about themselves and quitting on the person when it is not convenient or easy for them anymore. I think that it is an act of charity to walk with someone through their trials and do everything that they possibly can to build the person up to a level that they were not before.
