KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS Test Links:

• http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
• If you liked that test, this link (scroll past the ads to "Finding Free tests") has a few more tests to takehttp://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Free_Career_Aptitude_Test
• Multiple intelligences test: http://literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

Career Info

• When you take the ACT they'll tell you where you fall on this career wheel

http://www.act.org/wwm/student.html

• I like the way they put careers into categories

http://www.act.org/wwm/overview.html

There are lots of kinds of leaders.

Some young people are born leaders. You probably already know if that is you. People tend to listen to you, to do what you say. YOu are probably good in a crisis.
Some people lead with bravery. They 
These skills can be developed if you don't have them but I want to share with you my advice for leadership if you don't have it already.

I use a backward method of leadership that is based on my own knowledge of what is my greatest gift and strength in myself and committment to what I am passionate about. I am who I am and in being me I inspire others to be the best in themselves and to stop hiding.

I used to do that with my students. I would recognize, name and develop their strengths as a way to minimize their weaknesses.

Now I will try to give it to you via this post. Here's what to do:

Ask yourself:

• What are your unique strengths that set you apart and let you shine?  Compare your strengths to Animals. Instead of beating yourself up about what you can't do, think about what you can do. Would we ask a tiger to swim all day when his gift is running? Would we ask a duck to climb a tree when he can fly instead? How are you getting to the top of that tree? Are you sure getting to the tree top is even a goal for  you? Maybe you should be an ocean diver instead.
  
• What issues/causes/problems do you care about? What injustices burn you most? How can you lead

• ( or be a first follower http://youtu.be/hO8MwBZl-Vc to help that cause ? 

Now act on those answers. Be awake and aware looking for ways to help others because the best way to know yourself is to forget yourself and act.

Servant Leadership is this new buzzword. You have to know what you are good at in order to serve.

Do not fear failure. Part of being a leader is being willing to fail and knowing that all great leaders have failed many times before success even at their greatest strengths:

advice from me:

1. Find Your Gift and practice it as much as you can. Don't neglect it to learn what you aren't good at but be willing to "step outside your comfort zone" 

2. Realize that we all need each other. Others, even people you don't like, have a gift, too. Use theirs because we are all in this together. How to do this:

3.Save Your Marshmallow.

Details  from a blog...

The Stanford marshmallow experiment: Kids who resist eating marshmallows grow up to be more successful

The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on deferred gratification conducted in 1972 by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University. A marshmallow was offered to each child. If the child could resist eating the marshmallow, he was promised two instead of one. The scientists analyzed how long each child resisted the temptation of eating the marshmallow, and whether or not doing so was correlated with future success. Although the experiment has been repeated many times since, the original study at Stanford has been considered "one of the most successful behavioural experiments". The first follow-up study, in 1988, showed that "preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly more competent". A second follow-up study, in 1990, showed that the ability to delay gratification also correlated with higher SAT scores.

4. When you are safe, happiness comes from thinking and doing, not being. Success is more than cognition.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/09/13/the-key-to-success-it-may-not-be-what-you-think-it-is/

5. Be kind to others. Every one of us has something we are deeply ashamed of and something we are struggling with. Even that perfect kid. Even that annoying kid.
How to be Kind:

• Follow the Platinum Rule (better than the Golden Rule):

Treat others as you THEY wish to be treated! When in doubt, Ask! Don't Bully and speak up when you see it.
Don't let ANY bullying go, delete it if you can and never spread it. Be the Person you wish others would be.

• More Info for "kids"http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/
• Info for "adults"http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adults/default.aspx
•  Anti-Bullying and Character Ed resources
https://www.evernote.com/pub/msgurthie/antibullying

• Anti Bullying PPT Made by RRHS StudentsWhat happens when you get bullied.pptx
  
  • Details
  • Download
  
  
• Anti Bullying Flashmob:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYyAa0VnyY&feature=youtu.be

Vince Favila offers Great advice that i am posting here under How to Be awesome 

1. Be true to yourself and stop worrying other people.
2. Set measurable and incremental goals.
3. Don't expect money or external success to make you happy.
4. Stop talking, and take action.

5 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Your Writing

College essays have done more damage to our collective writing style than we realize.Think about it: in college, professors required us to write a paper a certain length. We also felt compelled to use big, fancy words from a thesaurus to sound as smart as possible.So what did we routinely turn in for a grade? Bloated 8-10 pagers full of words we barely knew and sentences that never once came out of our mouths.Basically, we stopped being ourselves.Continue reading to learn the five things we can do right now to make us stronger, more competent and more natural writers.

Personal Development
Stop making yourself miserable by comparing yourself unfavorably to others
Many of us regularly fall into the bleak, bottomless pit of the comparison trap. Maybe you even compare yourself to others in a whole lot of areas: profession, school performance, parenthood, money, looks.It’s hard not to. Making comparisons is often how we gauge our progress. It’s how we figure out the bar in the first place.“Without others, we have no way of knowing how we ‘measure up,’” according to Christina G. Hibbert, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and expert in postpartum mental health.Click here to find out how we can break out of comparing ourselves to others.(Even I'm guilty of doing this—it's a hard habit to break but it's something you need to stop doing.)

How to Know If You're Boring Someone — 7 tips

In a movie I love, a quirky documentary called Sherman's March, the documentary maker’s former high school teacher tells him, “As people get older, they get more like themselves. And you’re getting more boring.” I’ve never forgotten that.Like most people, probably, I have several pet subjects that I love to talk about – subjects that are sometimes interesting to other people, and sometimes not. Don’t get me started on happiness, or the screening procedures in airports and buildings, or children’s literature, or Winston Churchill, unless you really want to talk about it. (I do manage to be very disciplined about not talking about my children too much, except with grandparents.)I made a list of signs to look for, as indicators that I might be boring someone. Just because a person isn’t actually walking away or changing the subject doesn’t mean that that person is genuinely engaged in a conversation. One challenge is that the more socially adept a person is, the better he or she is at hiding boredom. It’s a rare person, however, who can truly look fascinated while stifling a yawn.

Retrain Your Brain to Reduce Worry
Worrying can be helpful. It propels us into action and prevents procrastination. Even more importantly, it protects us from potential perils. But, of course, too much worrying is problematic. Too much worrying boosts stress and leads to anxiety.But you’re not powerless over your worry-filled mind. There are many ways you can retrain your brain to reduce your worrying ways.

Expressing your emotions can reduce your fear
"That giant tarantula is terrifying, but I'll touch it."Can simply describing your feelings at stressful times make you less afraid and less anxious?A new UCLA psychology study suggests that labeling your emotions at the precise moment you are confronting what you fear can indeed have that effect.
7 Simple Ways to Break Your Bad Mood
Some days it seems like everything is going wrong. On these days the world looks gray, bleak and barrenOther days, maybe everything is going right. But you’re still miserable.
You don’t always have to understand why you’re in a bad mood in order to change it. Read this to discover seven strategies that can help.

Having Heart: Can We Rethink Life's Stresses?

Imagine that you are at the top of a ski slope, about to make a run. It's a challenging slope, black diamond--steep and narrow, lots of trees. Plus it's windy, and there's that treacherous drop-off on the right. You're an inexperienced skier, not a novice but not at all confident that you belong in such extreme terrain. Your heart is pounding and your gut is tight.


Now imagine that you're on top of the very same slope, but you are a skilled downhill racer, an Olympic contender. You're sure you know how to attack this slope--you've done it many times before--but even so, your heart is pounding and butterflies are fluttering in your gut.


Both of these hypothetical skiers are under stress, and feeling the arousal that comes with stress. But one is experiencing good stress, the other bad stress. They are both looking at the same slope, but one sees it as a threat, the other as a challenge. The expert knows that his skills are more than sufficient for the situation. The nervous learner has no such confidence.