សម្រែកកម្មលោកីយ ច្រៀងឡើងវិញដោយ ធីតាមនោសញ្ចេតនាសម្លេងមាស អ៊ុក សុវណ្ណារី

ធីតាមនោសញ្ចេតនា អ៊ុក​សុវណ្ណារី VS រាជនីម្ចាស់កោះអន្លុងស្នេហ៍ រស់សិរីសុទ្ធា

ពេលមេឃស្រទុំ ច្រៀងឡើងវិញ ធីតាមនោសញ្ចេតនាសម្លេងមាស អ៊ុក សុវណ្ណារី

In the Hot Seat: The 'Short' One In The Relationship

How do you feel about your height? More specifically, how do you feel about your height when you’re in a relationship? You may be a small lady with a much taller partner, or a short man with a towering other half. You may have a preference to height when it comes to choosing a partner and it can all be down to how we feel about our own height whether consciously or subconsciously.

Not everyone feels comfortable being the shorter or taller person in a relationship especially if it goes against the stereotype that men should be taller than women. So for those people that don’t conform to the height stereotype in a relationship, how does it feel? Specifically, how does it feel to be the ‘short’ person? Do they own their shortness with pride or do some struggle with their lack of height?

Lifehack: How do you feel about the height stereotypes in relationships?

“Being short myself I firmly believe that the whole concept “men must be taller than women” should go. There may be evolutionary and social reasons why women usually look for the taller partners, but in the modern world height doesn’t necessarily translate into better personal qualities or any increased benefits. So it would be much better if the social stigma of reversed height couples will go away.”

Lifehack: How does it feel as a woman dating a shorter man?

“I’m 5’7 and I was with a man an inch or two shorter than me once and I never even realised until he pointed it out. But I do tend to prefer men around my height whereas I have friends taller than me who would feel awkward with a man shorter. My advice would be not to do what my bloke did and point it out. Even though he said it in a jokey way it was obvious that he had an issue with it which then made me feel awkward about it.”

“It doesn’t bother me although I tend to avoid wearing high heels more when I’m dating a shorter man maybe because sometimes it’s nice to not tower over your partner!”

Lifehack: How does it feel as a man dating a taller woman?

“My girlfriend is 9″ taller than me. She was the one that asked me out. I was actually shocked that she was interested in me. We’ve been dating for about 6 months now. The height difference is not a big deal. You just have to be confident about it.”

“My girlfriend is a good 1-2″ taller than me. Admittedly it was a bit weird when she would grab something from my cupboard that I couldn’t quite reach, and standing face to face I have to raise up a bit to kiss her. Other than that it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care, and according to her, it’s cute. Everyone is different and if she makes a fuss over height, she isn’t worth it.”

“As a shorter man, I always believed I’d struggle with women or only be able to date women shorter than me. I used to feel a kind of lack and end up acting with more bravado and flashiness but I soon learned many women don’t care about height. At the end of the day, height isn’t an issue when love is involved.”

Lifehack: As a woman, have you always dated taller men?

“Yes mainly because I’d amassed a collection of subconscious prejudices connected with height. Was he going to have a Napoleon Complex? Would he be less confident, less at ease with himself and less successful than a man who stood up at six foot? Looking back, I think my problems were mainly to do with my own insecurities.”

Lifehack: Does being a ‘short’ man affect your self-confidence?

“As a 5″2 man, I rarely meet an adult male who is my height or shorter, although quite a few women are my height or slightly shorter. It is not a big deal. My wife is the same height as I am. And I have a successful enough career. I haven’t noticed my height being a restriction in these areas.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

So, maybe it’s time to ditch the height stereotypes when it comes to dating. Our height isn’t something we can overly control and we all have preferences to being attracted to tall or short people. But society has a lot to answer for in terms of shaping the way we believe the height stereotype should be. After all, it’s more about the person than how they look. So if you’re on the shorter (or taller) side, own it and feel confident because it’s your confidence that will shine through in the end.

Fill Up Your 10 Minutes Free Time With Over 2400+ Free Short Stories in This App

Reading is one of the most popular of all activities that people partake in when they are trying to fill up time in their day. Whether it is waiting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or other professional office or taking a short break at work. Many of the mobile reading options require you to use a special device or download the content before you are able to read it.

Unfortunately, having to download books may not always be possible and that makes most e-reader options difficult. This is where the Colossal Short Stories Collection App really comes in handy.

You Can Get A Small But Powerful Library On Your Phone Now

The Colossal Short Stories Collection App is designed for the reader who especially likes to read short stories. Whether your favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens or one of many classical authors, you will find them packed inside the database of the Colossal Short Story App. You can search through the extremely extensive database by author, genre and a number of other categories in order to find your favorite stories to read. No need to download a bunch of new content when you want to read something new.

Install and Read, Just That Simple

No additional downloads necessary. Unlike other reading options like e-readers that require you to download the books in order to be able to read them, the app has all of the short stories built in.

Contains thousands of classic short stories. There are literally tens of thousands of short stories that have been written by some of the most famous writers of our time. Whether you are a fan of Poe, Wilde, Dickens and so many more, you will find much of their work included in the app.

The unique bookmarking system included. The app was designed for people who might only have a short time to read. It has an easy to use page bookmarking system that allows you to stop and pick back up where you left off.

Personal Thoughts on the Colossal Short Stories Collection app

I am not what you call an avid reader, but when I have some time on my hands I sometimes feel like reading. Since I do not read that much I really would not prefer to have to buy an e-reader and carry it around everywhere, so when I found the Colossal Short Stories Collection app I was thrilled. It is really easy to use and I can find a number of different short stories that like to read. I will give it a 5 star out of 5-star rating.

If you are an avid reader and really like short stories you will really like the Colossal Short Stories Collection app. To find out more about it and to find where to get it, just click here

How I Pick the Right Books to Read to Learn 10X Faster

According to a study conducted in 2016 ¹, it was found that most people read around 12 books a year. This may or may not sound like a lot to you depending on how much you like to read.

To the average person one book a month is pretty impressive. But unfortunately, many of these books aren’t exactly intellectually stimulating. Fan-fiction books such as 50 Shades of Grey might be entertaining, but they’re not going to improve your life or make you smarter.

To get the most out of books, you’ll need to choose them carefully

There are around 134,021,533 books in the world², and the number is only growing. So many genres, so many writing styles. It’s like any other external element that represents you. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, it’s all a matter of preference and taste.

With all of this nearly overwhelming choice, it makes sense that choosing the right book for you could be difficult.

Best-sellers are not necessarily the best for you

Many people refer to the best sellers list to get an idea of what they should be reading. Or sometimes they’ll just choose something at random, pick up a book and hope for the best. That’s fine for entertainment purposes, but not so much for your development.

It would better benefit us if we took the time to consciously choose what to read based on the skills we want to improve, or the mindset that we want to hone. If we don’t make that choice for ourselves, then the best sellers list will make the choice for us.

The real issue here is that while we’re wasting our time reading mediocre books, we’re missing out on ones that could really benefit us or even change our lives.

Never judge a book by its cover

The book cover and the content hiding inside are two separate entities. An author could have created great content, but their book will get overlooked if the title & cover are not eye catching. On the other hand, a book might have a great cover, but the contents are just full of fillers and empty statements. The plot is weak and you might even feel drained from reading such an atrocious piece of garbage.

Do You Work More When You're Happy but Less When You're Sad? 10X Winners Don't

Nearly 100 years ago, two legendary explorers, two great rivals Robert Falcon Scott, and Roald Amundsen and their teams, raced to be the first to reach the South Pole.¹ As they marched, neither knew the other’s progress, but marched on with incredible strength and tenacity. The two men were very different, Scott a military man, traditional and professional; Amundesen, a stone cold arctic explorer who sought to be the first to reach the pole at any cost.

In the end, it was Amundsen who got there first, Scott arriving a couple of days after. Amundsen turned and headed back, his journey home was largely without incident. Scott and his men, tragically, perished on the return.²

Scott was an experienced navigator and explorer long before the south pole expedition. So why did Amundsen arrive days before Scott? What made Amundsen arrived first was his determination, tenacity, and his superior planning.

It is a story I have long been fascinated by. The sheer drama and heroism of it is incredible. Yet, thinking about it now, I realize that there is so much that can be learned by it, not just about exploration, or history, but in any great undertaking, no matter what it is.

The story is proof of the success of consistent progress, and something the writer Jim Collins calls the 20 Mile March. Where, he says, the key to success in something doesn’t lie in some natural ability or an individual’s personality, but consistent progress at all times.

The 20 Mile March

On the south pole exhibition, Scott intended to do two things: 1) reach the South Pole before anyone else and 2) conduct research and study the South Pole

Whereas Amundsen intended to only reach the South Pole before anyone else.

While Scott and his team were researching and studying, Amundsen was constantly on the move, constantly heading towards the pole. Sure, there may have been days where Scott and his men moved many miles further than Amundsen and his team had that day. But Amundsen’s perseverance kept him moving ever onward.

The story is proof of the success of progressive, consistent progress — marching for 20 miles no matter what condition.

Make the most of the 20 Mile March

Breaking down the 20 mile march idea, it is possible to see seven steps that you must undertake in order to benefit the most. These are:

We Are All Flawed By Our Perceptions Of Reality

The story is stand-alone yet linked. The Life to come by Michelle de Kretser offers meditations on intimacy, loneliness, and our flawed perception of reality. Enormously moving, gorgeously observant of physical detail, and often very funny, this new novel by Michelle de Kretser reveals how a shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform and pose the current.

Vibrancy, vividness, depth and quality acting

Occurring in Australia, France, and Ceylon, The Life to Appear is about the reports we tell, nor explain to ourselves as individuals, as societies, and as countries. Driven by a vibrant cast of characters, it explores necessary emigration, the art of fiction, and ethnic and class discord. As Hilary Mantel has written, “I so enjoy Michelle de Kretser’s powerful technique–her characters feel in existence, and she can create a sweeping narrative that encompasses a number of yet still retain the sharp, almost hallucinatory detail.”

Astoundingly real, mentally stimulating

This extraordinary book by a long way Franklin-winning creator Michelle de Kretser will punch to your spirit and make you feel the characters come alive in such a way that their complete biopsy will be presented to you in a matter of sentences. Her writing is very witty, but it additionally goes deep, prepared at every point by the harmless and far-reaching intellect that is clearly reflected in her writing; nothing is simple, yet it’s presented in such a way that the reader will have no trouble comprehending it. Michelle is a dazzlingly attained author who orders all the strokes. Her repertoire extends from a hallucinatory sense of location to a mastery of suspense, superior verbal artistry and a formidable skill in navigating those twisty pathways where record and mindset entwine.

A standout book full of witty humor

The life to come is an absolutely amazing book. It’s an honest, funny and moving portrait of modern life. de Kretser’s characters are often unlikable, but because she’s so unsparing in her pictures of them – every flaw goes under the microscope. It took me a while to settle into the structure, which leaps around with time a little bit and shifts focus quite all of a sudden, but this really is an impressive achievement. The characters act as individuals and feel alive; her writing can a sweeping narrative which includes years, yet still withhold the pointed. The whole book is depicted in an almost hallucinatory and vivid way. Michelle de Kretser is aware how to create a gripping report. She creates quickly and softly of wonderful and horrendous things which makes her book the life to come even more tantalizing for the readers.

Learn To Master A Skill Successfully With This

The Practicing Mind is a bestselling book written by a piano technician who used to work at a performance venue for guest concert pianists. The author, Thomas M. Sterner, held a very demanding job, preparing pianos and thus in the everyday challenges of his job managed to gain the inspiration to write the book. And by packaging his experiences in a 150-page, easy-to-read book, he has helped countless students and adult alike.

The Practicing Mind isn’t just an ordinary book. It offers invaluable tips and strategies for someone practicing to master a skill, whether it is golfing, music or just anything that is skill-based. During those times when you are tirelessly struggling to acquire a talent to help you defeat a formidable challenge, it is only patience, focus and disciple that would dictate your success. And in this bestseller, Thomas Sterner shows precisely how to gain the skills, learn from failures and eventually be a success.

Learn through practice

Every skill in life is learned through trial-and-error practices and never giving up in the face of failure. In the study, the author notes the principles of training, the procedure of picking an objective and working towards achieving it. He teaches that procedure done right isn’t slavery, but rather a technique of mastering a fulfilling process that will inevitably build discipline, perfection, and success.

Finding joy in your pursuit of success

The highlight of the book is what the author advocates for – finding joy in your pursuit of success instead of having a notion that happiness would only arrive at the finishing line. He says that a lot of stresses we usually encounter is as a result of failing to relish the moment and worrying about other goals, tasks, and commitments that belong to the future.

By reading the book, some of the information you will find helpful includes:

• Practicing towards a goal is better than merely having it.
• Life is all about practice, and good practice is enjoyable – it isn’t hectic and stressful.
• Active practicing differs from passive learning.
• The Japanese plate story and why you need someone to ensure you do the job right.
• Goals are like a rudder on a boat and offer direction.
• Judging your work doesn’t get the job done.
• Your goal is a compass – not a buried treasure.
• The most important part of entrepreneurship is subdividing your limiting beliefs – not money.
• The Zen concept of a beginner’s mind.
• Habits are second nature – practice your skill, and it will soon be a habit.
• Make time to sit and relax.

The Practicing Mind is accessible to all passionate readers of whatever philosophical backgrounds and offers helpful tips and strategies for anyone wishing to learn a skill or expertise. Irrespective of your perspective, you will not go wrong with this book’s insightful and compelling tips. It is available online for purchase.

Reading With Purpose Can Change Your Life

As a person working in the advancing, quickly moving online industry, I always try to take the time to slow down and get lost in a book. Yes, there are many resources where I can get information instantly. But these little tid-bits of information filter through, and get lost in the abyss of the subconscious. It leaves me feeling empty, because regardless of the constant flow of information, it’s hard to have a firm grasp on any of it.

There is so much out there distracting us between entertainment, media, and social networks. Our attention is constantly getting interrupted. We tend to choose these little crumbs of instant gratification over the true gratification of indulging yourself in a fine piece of literature.

But when I read, I give myself fully to the book. Whether it’s a story, autobiography, or informative piece, I still allow it to take me elsewhere. I put myself in a frame of mind where I am involved with the processes being described, and am able to get a firmer grasp of the information being shared.

If your brain does not have to process the information presented, then the information will be lost. So actually reading that small excerpt will ultimately be a waste of time. But if you focus your attention and take an interest in the fact or scenario at hand, such as when you are reading a book, it is likely you won’t forget it.

Reading is the only way you can travel without leaving

Search engines are my best friend. I consult Google countless times a day, and I will bet that you do too. But these tools are designed to help you to solve the most common or shallow issues. When it comes to issues such as life decisions or interpersonal problems, a search engine cannot provide you with a solution that is solid and useful. It can direct you to some archives from people who may have similar experiences, but even those answers are typically shallow and just convey that someone else has the same issue.

How to Guarantee a Bad Team?

When a team fails – are team members responsible?

Cristiano Ronaldo is known as one of the best soccer players in the world. However, following his team’s (Real Madrid) disappointing performance in the 2015/16 season, he famously said during an interview,¹

“If everyone else was at my level maybe we would be top of the table.”

Realizing that this probably sounded a little arrogant, he later explained that he didn’t mean to blame his teammates.

Even if Ronaldo didn’t intend to blame his teammates, lots of people, including team leaders do say something like that and think that team members are the ones responsible for failures. But is it really so?

Here’s another example. This time from the world of basketball. The Los Angeles Lakers won three straight NBA championships from 2000–2002, but their fortunes faded shortly after that. The reason? Well, it certainly wasn’t the lack of talented players and coaches. Instead, it was the fact that the team suffered from poor leadership, which led to the players becoming frustrated and conflicted.²

As I’ll soon show, when harmony is missing from a team, failure is usually not far around the corner.

The True Reason Why a Team Fails

There are several common reasons why teams fail.

Lack of a clear purpose or goal. 

When a team does not know what to accomplish or what is expected, the team members will be unmotivated to move forward. And worse still, many of the team members will find the uncertainty scary and unsettling. Clearly, this is not the atmosphere needed to take a team to the top.

For example, imagine if a team leader told his team members not to worry about achieving any goals. While day-to-day work might continue, it’s highly unlikely that the team will achieve anything groundbreaking or worthwhile.

Lack of clear guidelines or instructions.

Having a goal to aim for is essential, but equally, it’s vital that team members have definite guidelines or instructions to follow. Without these, the team won’t know how to work together – or what to do to improve.

Think of a production line in a factory. If the production line workers don’t understand what they need to do, then the line will soon break down.

Lack of planning.

Without specific action plans and deadlines that are possible to achieve, a team may be unable to stretch to their full potential.

For instance, a successful marketing team will follow a strict marketing plan. This will include specific dates for things such as social media campaigns and press releases. A marketing team that has no plan, will be weak and ineffectual.

Lack of encouragement.

Encouragement is the vital energy that keeps teams enthusiastic and continuously moving forward. I’m sure you can think of times when you’ve had a negative, criticizing manager. No doubt, you just wanted to leave your job. And I bet you certainly weren’t motivated.

The Best Way to Success Is to Be Severely Tested

Want to know the best way to get to success in life? You must be severely tested.

What if I were to tell you that the essential skills of successful leaders are the same as the skills that allow a person to find the meaning of an adverse experience? Would you believe me?

In Crucibles of Leadership, Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas argue that strong leaders are those who overcome adversity. In interviewing more than 40 top leaders in the world, they uncovered a surprising conclusion. They found that all of the leaders interviewed, both young and old, were able to point to intense, often traumatic, always unplanned experiences that had transformed them.

Bennis and Thomas call these experiences crucibles. So, what is a crucible?

What Is a Crucible?

A crucible is literally a container that can withstand extremely high temperatures. Think of a metal container in which metals are melted. This is the container you would use to fill a mold with liquid metal.

A crucible can also be that of a severe trial, in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new. A metaphor for this is – a relationship was forged in the “crucible” of war.

For our purposes here, a crucible is a transformative event involving a severe test or trial – where the crucibles are intense, often traumatic, and always unplanned.

Crucible Experience

For the leaders interviewed by Bennis and Thomas, the crucible experience was even more than a trial or test, it was a point of deep self-reflection that forced a leader to question who they were and what mattered to them.

They found leaders were transformed from the experience and came away with an altered sense of identity. These experiences required each leader to question their perceptions of reality. In turn, they emerged from their crucible experience stronger and with a sense of purpose. Bennis and Thomas concluded that they were all significantly changed in some fundamental way.

The crucible stories discussed were similar to my own. As a child growing up in a destructive life and in the foster care system, I immediately related to these stories. Some crucible experiences illuminate a hidden and suppressed area of the soul. I found that some of my own personal stories were hidden deep within my own soul.

I have previously discussed some of my experiences in my book Succeeding as a Foster Child, yet I have not previously thought of them as crucibles until now. My crucible experiences, at times, were among the harshest a person should experience. They took the form of roughly my entire early life as a child and into early adulthood. My parents brought forth the majority of these experiences.

My father committed suicide when I was 18 years old. He seemed to have spent his life in and out of darkness. He was an alcoholic – yet, in the end – drugs, depression, and a rifle in his own hands took his life. My mother is still living; however, in a shell of the person she could have been. She is an alcoholic, yet her vice is drugs. Growing up with my mother was a dangerous experience. She was severely beaten by different men and would expose her children to nightmarish experiences. One such experience at the age of ten, found me walking through a drug-infested mobile home trying to avoid stepping on used needles just to go to the bathroom.

Darkness Will Not Win

Kensington

Around the age of 12, I was placed into foster care – where surprisingly, my transformation started to begin. I was placed into a foster home in a small town in Kansas – Kensington, Kansas. ¹

The people in this town shared with me the power of building relationships. I now understand how relationships provide purpose and meaning in my life. I came to believe that when people feel strong about something, most of the time they will succeed.

I would do extremely well for a while in foster care, yet I could not continue moving forward as I would return to my biological parents. Essentially, I began to move back into their darkness. However, I would always find my way back to Kensington. Every time I found my way back to this small town, my consciousness would be raised to a higher level. One foster parent in particular (Robert Bearley) helped me raise my consciousness.

I found that every time I left my mother and father that I was able to understand my environment better. By better understanding my environment, I was then able to start to understand that I was in control of my own reality. However, it took a while and some additional crucible experiences for me to truly grasp this.

Developing Future Leaders Through Crucible Experiences

I specifically remember a couple key events during my teenage years that established the foundation for my life as a leader in today’s military. One such moment established the foundation for what would become a career in leadership and lifelong learning. Robert Bearley helped me establish a set of values. He demonstrated to me one of the same points described by Bennis and Thomas – that life is not about rewards or results, but it’s about what you do and how you go about achieving those results. Essentially, he showed me the importance of the process in achieving something and how great leaders care about the process just as much as the result.

Moreover, at the age of 16, I remember picking up my mother from a hotel room, where she was staying with an unknown man. She was both drunk and high at the same time. I pulled her out of the hotel room and took her on a long road trip to my grandparent’s. I was living with my father at the time and I remember wanting to get back to the Kensington community. I was no longer in foster care, yet I wanted to live with my grandparents who lived near the community. They told me the only way I would be allowed to live with them is if I could bring my mother home. I remember the experience vividly, yet previous crucible experiences allowed me to carry out this task as if it was a normal occurrence.

Looking back, I wonder if I could have done this without living the previous 16 years in hell. Imagine pulling a prostitute out of a hotel room, one who is both drunk and high. Now imagine that prostitute is your mother.

The Best Way to Get There Is to Be Tested

It took quite a few failures and horrible situations throughout my life, but each one of these experiences or crucibles created who I am today. These crucibles established a lifelong enjoyment for reading, writing, thinking, and the pursuit of knowledge. These experiences developed a specific mindset to live by. They created a maverick mindset and a no fear approach to questioning everything.

I emerged from these crucibles knowing that nothing can break me. Each test or each crucible changed me fundamentally as a person. Where others, to include my younger brother, found despair, I found opportunity from each crucible.

Essentials of Leadership

Bennis and Thomas asked one key question in their research. Let’s take a look at the question and what they found to be the answer.²

Question: So, what allowed these people to not only cope with these difficult situations but also learn from them?

Answer: We believe that great leaders possess four essential skills, and we were surprised to learn that these happen to be the same skills that allow a person to find meaning in what could be a debilitating experience.

So, what are those essential skills of successful leaders and those that allow a person to find meaning from an adverse experience? Just don’t forget that they are the same.

Four Essential Skills

1. The ability to engage others in shared meaning. Think of my discussion of relationships in foster care. When we feel strongly enough about something, we increase our likelihood of success.
2. A distinctive and compelling voice. Think of examples throughout history of people who used the power of words to bring about change. Here, I think of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., and even leaders from my time in foster care.
3. Sense of integrity. Think of the discussion about establishing a strong set of values in foster care.
4. Adaptive capacity. Bennis and Thomas inform us that this is by far the most critical skill of the four. They explain that this is applied creativity and is a magical ability to transcend adversity, with all its attendant stress – to emerge stronger than before.

Learn to Be a Chameleon

Bennis and Thomas explain that adaptive capacity is composed of a combination of two primary qualities.

1. Ability to grasp context. This is our ability to see multiple perspectives of a situation and connect with people. For me, this was my ability to see past insults and the stigma associated with being a foster child.
2. Hardiness. This is perseverance and toughness enabling people to emerge from a traumatic event without losing hope. For me personally, this was my ability to remain healthy despite living a difficult life. I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs because of what I witnessed. Yet, my younger brother took the opposite route and has developed similar health and addiction problems to that of my parents.

Adaptive capacity allows a person to not just survive a horrible or traumatic event, but to learn from it, and to emerge stronger and more committed than ever before. Essentially, this is what turns the situation into a crucible or transformative event.

Post-traumatic Growth (PTG)

I do not disagree with anything provided in Crucibles of Leadership, but something is missing. The missing component is Post-traumatic Growth (PTG) and should be added as a skill within or after adaptive capacity. We can all persevere and become stronger (think hardiness), yet PTG better explains growth from the crucible experience.

PTG is a positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and other challenges in order to rise to a higher level of functioning.³ Furthermore, PTG is not about returning to the same life as before, but to become better after the life-changing event. Here, the life-changing event is the crucible. This contributes to an intimate process of personal change, providing a purpose that is deeply meaningful.

One key point contrasting PTG from hardiness, perseverance, or resilience is that PTG refers to a change in a person that goes far beyond the ability to resist. Essentially, not to be damaged by the traumatic event. Moreover, there are certain characteristics of PTG. Let’s take a look at each and how they apply to my story.

Characteristics of PTG:

• Greater appreciation of life. It would have been easy for me to give up and follow in my parent’s footsteps.
• Changed sense of priorities. As a leader in the military, my experiences as a foster child established the importance of setting the right priorities in my life. If I have the wrong priorities, my soldiers and family will have the wrong priorities.
• Warmer, more intimate relationships. I now have an unbelievably great relationship with two beautiful girls – my wife and young daughter.
• Greater sense of personal strength. The crucibles of my life as a young child have provided me a powerful maverick mindset.
• Recognition of new possibilities of paths for life and spiritual development. The small community I lived in during my time in foster care provided me an awareness of what could be possible. Spiritual development played a huge role during this time in my life and saved my life.

Crucibles Create Strong Leaders

My personal experience through each crucible has made a profound impact on my role as an organization-level leader in the U.S. Army. Bennis and Thomas explain that the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is our ability to find meaning from negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances. In my career field, failing to possess this mindset can literally get you killed – either by an enemy or by your own hand.

The skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leaders. Leaders who recognize this will develop and lead organizations with a positive organizational climate.

My crucible experiences developed a person who is perfect for the military. By this I mean, if I see a dangerous situation or if I notice someone is in danger, I will not hesitate to leap into action. I will not hesitate to help someone in physical and life-threatening danger.

Each crucible experience changed me for the better. After each crucible, I did not return to the same life as before, but became better after the life-changing event – even if I did not realize it at the time.

Finally, let me share with you one last personal example. If you ask my wife, I love cloudy weather and enjoy the rain. One of my crucible experiences took place during a storm. Every time it rains I remind myself that nothing can kill me – not my parents and not the storm. The rain is my reminder that I will never fear a person or the storm again.