brainstorming & helping others

A had a dilema in school. A classmate, not really a friend, asked him to be his teamate for a science project. The kid is one of the worst students in the class and A didn't particularly looked forward to working with him. But he felt maybe he should do it to help him...

So today I wanted to talk about how to determine how much of one's time and resources to devote to helping others, vs helping ourselves. I started the conversation asking for ideas. P suggested devoting 2/3 of one's money to helping others. A immediately jumped in saying that was way too much. I took advantage of this to talk about how to brainstorm. To my suprise, they knew what brainstorming was. But they didn't know one of its most important rules: all ideas should be considered. Don't put others' ideas down, instead, simply propose your own ideas.

After the "brainstorm 101" discussion there wasn't much time left for our original discussion. P said that Bill Gates gave away most of his money, hence his 2/3 suggestion. A explained that since Bill Gates is so reach, he can give a much higher percentage of his money away than most other people.

We'll have to revisit this conversation next week...

Saving Face

This morning P couldn't find his allowance. He thought N had taken it from where P left it and acused N of doing so. That got quite a fight going...

In the car we calmly discussed this. It became clear that there was a small chance that N might have taken P's money by mistake. I told P that, regardlesss of whether N had taken the money or not, or regardless of whether he had done it accidentaly or on purpose, P would be much better off if he took a non-confrontational approach. He could ask N, for example, if there was a chance that N took the money by mistake. That approach was more likely to generate N's cooperation rather than to put him in a defensive position (which an aggresive acusation obviously did). And, if it turned out that N didn't take the money, but that something else happened to it, P wouldn't have uneceseraily and unjustly offended N.

I told them how even when they were certain someone else had done something wrong (and done so intentionaly), they stood a much better chance of resolving the situation by giving the offender a "face saving" exit. For example, by saying "Bob, do you think you might have inadvertently taken my ball" instead of saying "Bob, I know you took my ball. Where is it?". Besides, even when we are "sure" someone did something, we are sometimes wrong...

Rude drivers & strangers

Today I told the kids about the time I was driving to the office when a rude driver cut me off. Half an hour later, to my astonishment, the rude driver walked into my office for a job interview. He didn't get the job. But the story gets better: he got a job with one of my most important clients and was put in charge of working with my company! Fortunately, I had not been rude with him (which had taken a lot of self-control). So we kept his company as a client. This is a true story...

So, when a stranger does something bad to you, think twice before insulting him or punching him in the face. First of all, you shouldn't match the bad behavior of others. And, as my story shows, you don't always know who they are or who they might become.

cars

Today we spoke about cars. N thinks they are so cool. A doesn't: all that polution simply to get to where you are going faster than if you walked. I mentioned that most people simply couldn't get to where they normally go by foot, but sure enough it would be better if they used some non poluting public transportation.

N suggested electric cars were the answer, but A pointed out that generating the electricity to charge the cars generated polution (I was impressed!). I told them about a recent article I read about some huge batteries that are being tested to store energy from wind turbines and solar cells.

I suggested we all start walking to school every day but they were not convinced...

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Last night C & I saw a great movie: Bigger, Stronger, Faster. It is about the use of "performance enhancing drugs". I discussed some of the "lighter" points with the kids this morning. Spoke about how some athletes use special drugs to enhance their performance and how most are banned. But things are not as Black and White as one would like. For example, Tiger Woods had eye surgery to improve his vision. Obviously, vision is key for a golfer, so couldn't this be considered cheating? Could a weight lifter undergo surgery to enlarge his muscles? Probably not...

And what about the athletes who sleep in altitude chambers to increase their Red blood cells. That is legal, but a drug that has the same effect is not...

Difficult issues... The movie showed a genetically engineered cow that looked like a weight lifter. A mentioned he once saw the picture of a genetically eginered dog that look like that. The kids will probably have to deal with issues such as genetic enginering and other things that don't yet exist when they grow up...

No Surprises

We found out yesterday that one of the kids, who shall remain nameless, was keeping some bad news from us. So today I "lectured" them about the importance of communicating bad news as soon as possible to the "relevant parties".

I told them how I always tell the entrepreneurs that I work with never to surprise their boards (of directors). Convey the bad news right away. I don't know if the following is a true statistic, but it seems like the majority of people (politicians, businessmen, athletes, you name it) who "get in trouble" do so for covering up their mistakes, not for the mistakes themselves.

Remembering names

No blogging last week as the kids were on their October break...

I told them this morning about my challenge remembering people's names. I am terrible at it! Whenever I am at an event with C, I ask her to introduce herself to people that we meet "Hi, I am C". This forces the other person to say "Hello, I am so and so" before it becomes obvious that I didn't remember their name...

The truth is many times I do remember people's names, but I am not 100% certain I have it right. And I am afraid I'll call them by a different name...

Anyway, the kids thought this was very amusing.