Habitudes are images that form leadership habits and attitudes. They represent a fundamentally different way to learn timeless life and leadership truths. Each image represents a universal principle, designed to ignite conversation and application, regardless of the age of the student. Each Habitude book or DVD contains a set of images that enables an instructor to guide the leader development process.

Habitudes have helped thousands of schools, organizations, businesses and churches. The image-rich content serves as a tool to: enable kids to stand out, not just blend in; reduce bullying, cultivate an environment for higher grades and graduation rates, and develop critical thinking skills that produce better life choices, such as choosing healthy friends, improving study habits, and setting meaningful goals. In short, Habitudes were created to start conversations that build young leaders.

Habitudes provide a unique method to teach life and leadership. They represent a right-brain approach to instruction, using images, conversations and experiences. We believe the emerging generation of students prefers to learn this way, as opposed to what many schools continue to do: lecture, drill, test. By introducing an image, we engage in conversation. (After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.) Once the conversation begins, ideas surface on how to apply the principle each image embodies. Everyone, regardless of age or background, can find an application to the truth each image represents. Experiences follow the conversations, which leads to life change. Each chapter includes an image, summary, stories, supporting material, discussion questions, a personal evaluation, and an exercise to apply the Habitude.

We recommend you take no less than 30 minutes to discuss each Habitude. Most groups find that about an hour is a good time frame to teach one image. During that segment of time, the instructor introduces a problem, unveils the image that addresses the problem, summarizes the principle and then launches a conversation about it. In the end, the students should talk as much as the instructor, who should see his or her role as the opener and closer of the discussion.

We suggest you cover one Habitude a week, to give students time to think about and digest the principle. Some schools will introduce it on Monday, then take a day or two later in the week to continue the conversation, adding movie clips, interviews with leaders in the community, panel discussions, journaling, small group time, etc. If you cover one Habitude a week, it will take thirteen (13) weeks to finish a book.

The biggest mistakes instructors make when teaching Habitudes revolves around reverting back to an old-fashioned way of teaching: the lecture. Habitudes were not designed to be used for a talk or speech. Our leadership curriculum is designed to spark discussion and discovery of a truth or principle. A second mistake occurs when Habitudes are taught to a large audience, and there is no opportunity to allow the audience to weigh in and respond. In other words—they are taught in a big group with no small group interaction. Finally, a third mistake occurs when the instructor attempts to cover too many at one time. Habitudes are best learned when one image is introduced and digested over a week. They work like eating food. We can’t eat one meal in January and hope it will hold us over the entire year. We eat on a daily basis, and digest food.

No. Because of copyright laws and the intellectual property each image represents, we ask that the brand quality be maintained by keeping the uniform feel and look. Growing Leaders has spent tens of thousands of dollars to purchase the rights to these images, and each chapter contains trademarked and copyrighted intellectual property owned by Growing Leaders. Thank you for maintaining this integrity.

For a complete answer to this question, see the list called: “How are they used?” However, a short summary of how this material is used includes: student leader training, first-year student orientation, resident advisors, campus clubs, student athletes, SGA, character-education, student council, senior capstone courses, college leadership classes, and faith-based groups.

The target audience we had in mind when we created Habitudes was students in high school and college. Our target is ages 12 to 24, although it is safe to say, the bulls-eye of our target would be ages 16-24 years old. That’s when most students are mature enough to talk about life, purpose and choices. However, we have had students in elementary schools go through the Habitudes, as well as corporate executives in business, military, retail, education, healthcare and government.

Yes. When we created Habitudes, we intended for every student to have their own book, to serve as a guide, a journal and an assessment tool for their personal growth.

We offer books, videos, posters, power point slides, and more through our online platform HabitudesOnline.

It is optimal when you can launch Habitudes with a catalytic event, where you introduce one to three Habitudes, then follow up with mentoring communities, where audience members agree to discuss them in smaller groups. This is why we are committed to helping you create great EVENTS and a great PROCESS following the event. The mentoring communities can last from six to sixteen weeks.