Look Dad: I took a bath all by myself.

One of the things in life that really bothers me is our expectations for teenagers. Actually, there are no expectations for teenagers. Most of us probably have two requirements for our teens: 1) Don’t do anything to embarrass me 2) Don’t do anything to cause me any inconvenience. So, basically, if you get out of bed, bathe yourself, and stay out of trouble, we’re good.

I also think the period of adolescence has been extended through the college years now. You are not expected to engage your community, to really contribute or take on serious responsibilities until you are ready—maybe about the time you hit 30 years old.

Last month my son Chris (who is 17) and I went to the “Do Hard Things” Conference in Gaithersburg, MD at Covenant Life Church. There were 3,200 people there, both teens and some parents. The theme is to rebel… rebel against low expectations and start doing something with your life now. I was encouraged that so many came out to join this new national movement. You can read more here.

 

Who has your loyalty?

From Andy Stanley:

 

We give our loyalty the most to those who give us loyalty the least (our employers). Most of us are two or three major mistakes away from a pink slip. Then, we will go home, to those people who we gave our least loyalty to, because they are the most loyal to us.

Community Colleges — Anyone can learn here

I work for a community college that served 54,000 people last year. The genius of this place is that anyone of any age and background can learn here. If you cannot read and have always wanted to read your Bible, you can come here and we will teach you. If you have a Ph.D. and your organization just switched to Office 2007 you can come here, and we will teach you. If you are 50 years old and just lost the job you had for 25 years, we can help you. We will provide counseling, we will help you with your resume, and we will even help prepare you for an interview. If you are 18 and want to do your first two years at a college that is affordable with small classes, come on in.

Some colleges are for the elite of society. Some colleges are for everyone. I like being at the place for everyone.

The Worst Conference I Ever Attended

In my line of work I have been at a lot of conferences, either as a speaker, or just attending. Last week I had the worst experience I have ever had at a conference.

 

The first thing is that I am getting tired of sitting in awards luncheons for organizations where current and former board member give other current and former board members awards. I would love to have one honest speech like this: “He was nice and never caused any problems for the rest of us, so Bill is getting the go-along to get-along award. He was mentally checked out for most of the meetings, and we can’t really remember anything he ever did, but we have seven awards to give out and figured he might as well get one.” I would feel like I was getting my money’s worth if we had those kind of speeches.

 

The major problem is that the convention hotel we were in was under construction. While a workshop was going on, people were outside in the hallway or in the room next door building walls, tearing out wires, etc. It is really hard to concentrate in those settings. One workshop I tried to go to had ten chairs in it for attendees. I think it was a storage room that was “converted” to a workshop room. Most of the rooms were dark, too, or had strange colored lights that gave you a headache.

 

To get from one part of the hotel to another you went through a narrow temporary hallway made up of planks, curtains, and plastic. I have visited a submarine that had more room to move around. At the end of the day, I just wanted to run as far away from this organization and its conference as I could.

I have no doubt that a lot of money was saved by having it in this “under construction” setting. The savings was not passed on the attendees, however. In an economy where conference planners are about as optimistic as mortgage brokers, I think it is time to do more to keep people coming back, not less.

Stuck in Neutral

I spent some time today with the director of a great program here on campus called Second Act, which is all about new beginnings for displaced homemakers. These women suddenly find themselves responsible for providing the income for themselves and their family. Usually this is because of the death of a spouse or divorce.

In the latest Second Act newsletter, they discuss a book by William Bridges called “Transitions.” He describes the steps involved in making changes, in creating new beginnings. Bridges states that the first step is to declare an ending. If you are still giving energy to an event, condition, person, relationship, or situation, then you have not really ended it. Stop giving the person, relationship, problem, career, event or circumstance your time, energy, thoughts, or consciousness. Stop letting it control your “now” moments.

I think too often we are tortured by the idea of what could have been, might have been, or should have been, that we are missing the joys of the life we have in front of us right now. We are to learn from the past, not live our lives there.

Double Cheeseburgers and Accessibility

I was at the School of Business at George Washington University today for a meeting hosted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together leaders from business, education, government and non-profit organizations. It was very well done, and to top it all off… free breakfast.

One of the presentations at the meeting was provided by McDonald’s. McDonald’s is actually doing a lot to make their restaurants more accessible. They are working on a consistent basis to train their managers and their front line employees. McDonald’s even trains architectural and construction firms on making structural changes for better accessibility.

As part of the presentation, a new video for McDonald’s employees was shown. It was a well done video and covered a wide range of topics from service dogs, to people with mobility issues, to people with communication problems. An underlying theme was that employees should not be afraid to ask if they can help, or what they need to do to help. In other words, do not be afraid of people with disabilities, just be willing to do whatever you can to make their experience a good one.

The only problem with the video on accessibility was that it was not captioned. The only captioning occurred when twin sisters were signing to each other. Now, there is a certain irony that a training video on accessibility is not itself accessible. It reminded me of a meeting I once went to on disability access that was held on the second floor of a building without elevators.

After the meeting, I went to speak to the United States Director of Training for McDonald’s. I complimented him on the efforts that McDonald’s was making, and that the video was very well done. I explained that training videos should be captioned all the time. I told him that a person with hearing loss sitting in a training session would probably miss half the video, and he would never know. He was very nice, apologized and said that the new DVD of this video was captioned, but he was forced to use his backup VHS tape.

I think there are two lessons here. First of all, when we see that there is no accessibility when it could be easily provided, or should be provided, then we should say something. Secondly, we need to be advocates in a way that does not burn bridges. This is especially true for the people who are leading their companies efforts to be more accessible to customers and employees.

In order to celebrate McDonald’s efforts, I went right out and had two double cheeseburgers. We do need to support those companies who are working to be accessible!

The Personal Side of Hearing Loss

I am really looking forward to the Hearing Loss Association international convention in June. One of the highlights for me will be the research symposium, which takes place on the very last day. This year’s three hour session will focus on quality of life issues such as depression, anxiety, relationships, self-esteem, and loneliness. These important issues which are so important to a person’s life often get overlooked, or not thought about. I am glad we can take a look at them. Stay tuned to www.hearingloss.org for more information.