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Developing Mindfulness in the Leader Self

10/27/2017

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Close your eyes.

Sit in your favorite meditation pose. 
 
Take a deep breath. What do you experience?
 
Darkness? An onslaught of worries? Fast-paced thoughts that lead you here and there; everywhere but to the place that you are in and the time that is now? 
 
Or do you experience light? Increased inner peace? Reduced stress. A pathway to high values and your best self that you can use again and again, and deepen over time.
 
What if you could draw from a universal source of internal energy that amplified without limit? What if you could connect to inner purpose that supports the people in your community, takes you out of your self-focus, and into a place of high values? 
 
Welcome to the practice of mindfulness.

The ancient practices of meditation, which have empowered gurus and seers for millennia, are now becoming an increasingly prominent focus in leadership, education, business, and people’s personal lives around the globe. 
 
Broad research now suggests that meditation and mindfulness enhance creativity and intelligence, counteract health issues from arthritis to infertility, improve emotional regulation, reduce stress and improve attention and sensory processing. 
 
So what’s not to like?
 
First, like any new skill, it’s hard. Mindfulness and meditation require a leap of faith, like kayaking down a river, painting a picture, or developing software. These disciplines move you out of your comfort zone. You need to develop skills and capacity.
 
Some people report having a difficult time developing mindfulness, so they stop—as do people learning to play the violin or to speak French, so don't stop if you are motivated to develop mindfulness!

Mindfulness is a skill and a set of inner muscles that need developing. It is hard. But seers have reported for millennia that the inner journey through mindfulness can bring wellsprings of joy and energy that the human race is just beginning to understand and to tap.
 
Hope Collaborative believes that mindfulness is an essential part of developing leaders.
 
And we are pleased to report that our new Mindfulness module is ready to deploy. We look forward to working with our partners to bring it alive for kids and young adults in a variety of settings facing different opportunities and challenges. We will let you know how it goes.

There are table setting questions we will be asking participants to get them oriented: 
 
  • How often in your everyday life do you feel fully present in the moment? 
  • How often are you able to withhold judgment—especially about yourself—in order to accept the present with curiosity and compassion? ​
Mindfulness—the ability to be present, non-judgmental and aware of both your internal feelings and your surroundings—is a skill and a lifelong practice. It is a key competency in leadership, as mindful leaders learn how their presence, energy, thoughts (or lack thereof), and capacity for empathy, love, and compassion affect the people they lead.
 
As leaders, mindfulness helps ground us, keep us focused, and stay connected to ourselves and the rest of the world. If we can identify our thoughts and emotions as they arise, we are better able to respond to difficult circumstances and make good decisions. Mindful focus can help us develop patience, kindness, courage, and other qualities necessary for positive relationships. 
 
One traditional method of developing mindfulness is meditation. We are illustrating this in the classroom with a famous scene from The Karate Kid: Part II where the wise Mr. Miyagi teaches his young student Danny the value of focus and emotional calm before action. Take a look:
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You will see in this scene that Danny's emotional distress has real physical effects on his body, leading to the difficulty he has in hammering in a nail. Mindful breathing not only calms Danny's emotions, but actually helps to realign his body as well, so that he can work to his full potential.
 
For a wider lens on the benefits of mindfulness, and a different cultural perspective on the same concepts, Hope is featuring this Happify animation narrated by meditation instructor Sharon Salzburg, which provides a great summary for viewers of all ages:

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In the parable, thoughts and feelings are represented as wolves at war within a human being. One wolf stands for negative or destructive thoughts and emotions, while the other stands for the positive. The act of feeding the positive wolf—consciously choosing to strive for good—is an act of mindfulness. 
 
It is also important to recognize that the destructive wolf, who is just as much a part of us as the constructive, is shown compassion rather than getting attacked. Mindfulness teaches us to embrace and accept the totality of our experience in order to make skillful decisions about how to act. 
 
It is a practice and a lifelong journey.
 
It can be as fun and joyous as skiing or sculpting, but it’s hard too. As with self-awareness, we believe that no one starts too early—or too late! 
 
Keep mindfulness in mind, and let’s Hope!
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Are Youth Leaders Made or Born?

10/5/2017

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There is a question that has been at the forefront of leadership development studies from the outset: Are leaders made or are they born?

From our vantage, the answer is both.
 
Human beings have the capacity to achieve and thrive. The brain develops neurologically via challenges, and it is committing to the right challenges and points of focus that make us who we are.
 
Our collective capacity to imagine and deliver increasingly capable human development programming and skill-building technologies for youth can then allow us to evolve at high speed.

That said, different young people are born with different capacities. Their journeys to authentic leadership and high impact lives are necessarily different. In Hope’s work providing the curricula and tools to develop youth leaders, we assume at every step that inquiry-based learning approaches—which bring out the capacities and leadership elements in participants from the inside—are the keys to help them become the powerful contributors they can be.

Hope’s ability to develop leaders globally with our partners in youth advocacy requires approaches that are scalable, cost effective, and high touch.  
 
If you've been following our growth and work via photographs, video clips, and interviews with students and staff, you have seen the transformative arc that kids, teens, and young adults experience. Our evaluation data of the participants' progress is equally powerful.
 
Participating youth show substantial improvement in leadership skills, self-confidence, and their abilities to manage stress, conflict, and complicated life circumstances. In addition, they consistently became better team builders, communicators, and friends to one another. It takes time.

So how does Hope deliver on the promise?


Hope is differentiated by four key elements.
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  • Our 12-module leadership curriculum is a cornerstone asset that we developed in collaboration with our partners at The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at MGH. Learning module topics include key leadership competencies such as Conflict Resolution, Self-Awareness, Relationship Skills, Team Building, Mindfulness, and Values & Community.
  • Our digital gateway provides scaled, cost-efficient delivery to sites around the United State and now internationally. With educational partners in sites as diverse as New York City and as distant as India and Sierra Leone, we provide individualized and culturally-tailored support to ensure a high level of success.
  • Our partnering model creates a foundation for reliability, quality, and expansive growth. Our program is unique in that it supports best-in-class youth advocacy organizations that already have relationships with young people from low-income neighborhoods to build meaningful and lasting programs that develop leaders of character—and counteract the effects of toxic stress.
  • Ground-up learning elements, such as our leadership video library created by community and youth participants, bring a highly-tailored and meaningful approach that resonates with students. Each learning module is infused with youth-centric storytelling, art, and creative media that galvanize youth in new ways and support auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. As youth progress through the 12 modules, they earn certificates of achievement that can help distinguish them on school and job applications, and are able to take more prominent leadership roles within the learning modules and act as formal mentors to younger students.
Most significant, participants in Hope Collaborative programs build supportive and motivational relationships with each other and their facilitators, providing them with the positive community influence they need to grow and thrive.

Are youth leaders made or born?
 
We are excited to continue to answer that question with you, as our partners build and grow to develop exciting cohorts of young talent who want to have a powerful impact on their communities.
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                    About Us

Hope Collaborative is a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) non profit organization with a  mission to make outstanding leadership development a  standard for kids and teens living in poverty.  Our program is  arts-integrated, student-driven and team-focused.  We provide our partner sites--both school and after-school programs--with expert facilitators, curriculum, technology access and support they need to implement world-class programs.
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Hope Collaborative Office
14 Clark Street
Belmont, Massachusetts

02478

Info@hopecollaborative.com
617-826-9703 
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