Drunk on Dopamine
By Tim Elmore Our kids today are growing up in a world where they can become addicted to happy chemicals. Let me explain. We live in a society that loves to “binge” on things we like. It may be addictions to drugs or alcohol, but it can also be simple pleasures like Netflix, TikTok, or even junk food. Stanford University research psychiatrist
A Lonely Generation Passionate For Relationship
By Kiera Colson Our blog today was authored by Kiera Colson. Kiera is a 19-year-old sophomore at Lee University and was an intern with us at Growing Leaders this past summer. Kiera is a brilliant young leader who is passionate about seeing her generation grow into their highest potential. A two-week surprise vacation turned into a two-year realization for the rising generations. We
Three Doable Ideas to Retain Generation Z Team Members
By Tim Elmore When I talk to managers who say they lose young team members almost as quickly as they hire them, I am troubled. Corporate managers are asking a recent graduate to join a workforce that seems impersonal, like they’re a cog in the machine. While we know it’s tough for those young team members to make the leap from
Teacher Life Hacks: Two Strategies to Increase Student Engagement
By Tim Elmore Dennis Cook was one of my teachers during my junior year of high school. He was a very effective educator. Upon reflection, I can see now that Mr. Cook focused on connections in his classroom as much as the coursework. By taking time to do this, he accelerated our learning and growth. Mr. Cook practiced valuable tenets of behavioral
How to Stop Faking Courage and Actually Practice It
By Tim Elmore I have not always been a courageous leader. I began my career as a people-pleaser, only appearing to be a leader with convictions. When it came down to making a tough call, I sometimes buckled under the pressure of appeasing others. In my twenties, I neglected to step in and confront a conflict between two team members. I didn’t
How to Bring Balance to Toxic Competition
By Tim Elmore Have you noticed? Competition rules our day, especially for kids. Students experience constant competition with peers surrounding academic grades, indoor and outdoor sports, social media followers, video gaming, college scholarships, even friends. What’s more, we rank everything. Today, everyone is either an adversary or an ally. I should acknowledge that I’m a competitive person. Growing up, I played basketball and
Leading Disengaged Young People
By Tim Elmore I know a young woman who hosted a graduation party upon finishing college. As she and her boyfriend planned the party together, they decided to create an invitation that included a suggestive photo of the two of them. While it doesn’t show anything private, they appear to be naked behind a wall and smiling as she is flipping
America: Junk or Jewel?
By Tim Elmore You’d have to be an ostrich with its head in the sand to miss what’s happened to our country over the last decade. We are polarized on many issues, but chief among them is how to even view our nation: Is America junk or a jewel? One side of this issue points out how pitifully we’ve handled civil rights,
Six Ideas for Building a Work Ethic into Generation Z
By Tim Elmore Bob Wagner is hiring for three positions at his plastics manufacturing company. In the past, he’s filled these positions with high school and college students as well as recent graduates. These days, he is interviewing older job candidates. In fact, his top candidate is 72 years old. Why? you ask. Bob would tell you he can’t find young adults (from
Guiding Kids in a Day of Hyperbole
By Tim Elmore Have you noticed everything today seems exaggerated? Life is happening at high volume and intensity. In a space crowded with noise, capturing people’s attention is the currency. In such an era, we tend to use hyperbole as we communicate. We send text messages using all CAPS, three emojis, and several exclamation points at the end of our message. Our
Helping Students to Balance Judgment and Tolerance
By Tim Elmore You may remember watching the movie, Mean Girls. It was an iconic film for Millennials back in 2004. The story was about mean-spirited high school students who required an intervention because of their judgmental attitudes toward frenemies. The movie was rightly named. For that matter, the film Top Gun: Maverick, while it contained stellar comradery, was full of
How to Simplify Students’ Lives Without Making Them Easier
By Tim Elmore Jamie teaches English Literature to high school seniors. She’s also a mother of two teens, so she sees the stress levels of young people today from both angles. She knows deep down that kids need a little stress to perform at their best, but she hates witnessing such anxiety in them. It’s a common narrative: we see students stress
The Connection Between Portable Devices and Substance Abuse in Teens
By Tim Elmore In the past few years, there has been an alarming rise in substance use among youth in the U.S. The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics reports that 2.08 million teens, ages 12 to 17, reported using drugs in the last month. They deemed this issue a public health crisis. We already know the high rates of teens and young
How to Turn Frustration into Fascination as You Lead Young People
By Tim Elmore Jason couldn’t believe what he heard from the young job candidate. She became irritated twenty minutes into the interview and exclaimed in a loud voice that the interview was taking too long. Ted, another hiring manager, told me a job candidate walked over and touched his chest to find a heartbeat so they could connect “heart to heart.”
How to Stop Imitating and Start Originating
By Tim Elmore Years ago, social researchers revealed how little the average person thinks on their own. They reminded us that the law of diffusion is constantly in effect and explains human behavior: 2.5 percent of us are innovators. 13.5 percent of us are early adopters. 34 percent of us are the early majority. 34 percent of us are the late
Creating a Game Plan for Educators and Parents on ChatGPT
By Tim Elmore If you haven’t yet heard of ChatGPT, you need to look into it. It is a new app from Open AI, a Silicon Valley tech company that’s heralding it as a game changer. Unfortunately, it may not be changing the game for the better on all fronts. ChatGPT enables you, as a user, to input information and, almost like
My Early Take on ChatGPT: What’s Amazing and What’s Alarming
By Tim Elmore My friend, Don Yeager, recently attended the National Speakers Association convention. In one of the sessions, an author stood on stage reviewing the content and writing process of his latest book. Eyebrows went up as he revealed the book had actually been written by ChatGPT. He smiled as he shared his journey using artificial intelligence that imitated his
A Conversation You Should Have about Grit with Your Teens
By Tim Elmore Max just told me about the project he completed for his Industrial Engineering class. This 19-year-old freshman at Louisiana Tech University had begun the assignment last semester. It was designed to help people in low-income communities enjoy sustainable living conditions. The project required skills in engineering, science, math, and lots of TLC. It was impressive. What I loved most
The Five Essential Soft Skills Your Students Need
By Andrew McPeak Today’s blog is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Ready for Real Life.” You can order “Ready for Real Life” by clicking here. In the summer of 2021, a young man named Norris was “caught” by local police in his Louisiana town—though “caught” means something different in Norris’ town. Several years before, the local police started a “Caught You”
Three Strategies to Help Teachers Recover Their Joy
By Andrew McPeak Today’s blog is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Ready for Real Life.” You can order “Ready for Real Life” by Andrew McPeak today by clicking here. Several months ago, I heard the story of Kiffany Cody. Cody is a special-education teacher in Gwinnett County, Georgia, near where I live, and she faced many challenges during the pandemic
How Social and Emotional Learning Can Help Kids Mature
By Tim Elmore I remember the day the story broke. Tiger Woods had cheated on his wife and family. In November 2009, tabloids reported Woods was having an affair with nightclub manager Rachel Uchitel. A few days later, he crashed his car in front of his Florida mansion at 2 a.m. Rumors suggested he was trying to flee her home. By 2010,
A Clear P.I.C.T.U.R.E. of Generation Z
By Andrew McPeak Today’s blog is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Ready for Real Life.” Be on the lookout for the upcoming pre-order of “Ready for Real Life” coming soon. For more than a decade now, we at Growing Leaders have been giving adults training and advice for how to best understand and engage their students. In this time, the gaps
What Do We Learn About Culture from TV Viewing Habits?
By Tim Elmore Every year, both the media and social media reveal to us how our culture is evolving. From the shows people watch, to the awards programs people celebrate, to the broadcasts and podcasts people tune into, we have much to learn this year, just by observing the habits of American consumers. I have three observations below based on the
What If Our Kids Could Manage Their Own Screen Time
By Andrew McPeak Today’s blog is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Ready for Real Life.” Be on the lookout for the upcoming pre-order of “Ready for Real Life” coming soon. A few years ago, I read a quote in a parenting magazine where a concerned author and parent voiced the fear that many parents have about the emergence of new technologies: “Here
How Parents Steal from Their Kids
By Tim Elmore I recently met with the faculty of a high-performing public high school. In our discussion, teachers mentioned how much parents got involved in their kids’ routines. At first, I assumed this was a positive remark, but later I recognized the type of parental engagement they referred to was not helpful at all. Every school enjoys parents who support
Assembling a Team of Voices to Reach Your Teens
By Tim Elmore Like most mothers, my wife shared a common objection when our kids were teens. She’d make requests of them, repeatedly, but get no response. To be clear, our daughter and son were not hearing impaired, nor did they have ADHD. It seemed they had selective hearing skills: They often did not hear the words clean up your room
A Fresh Strategy for Students to Beat Anxiety
By Tim Elmore The numbers keep climbing. Both adults and students are suffering from anxiety levels that are worse than any period we’ve ever seen, including the Great Depression. More than 8 in 10 students admit to struggling with anxiety or depression on a regular basis, and adults report numbers have jumped from 11 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in
The Shift Away From Instagram and Why It’s Happening
By Tim Elmore I could hardly believe my ears. Six freshmen college students participated in a conversation I hosted informally on their campus. I brought up the popularity of Instagram accounts, and they immediately smiled, as if they had a secret they were keeping from me. When I asked why they were smiling, two of them chimed in, saying, “We’re no
Two Important Social And Emotional Skills for Academic Success
By Andrew McPeak Growing up, David Aguilar was obsessed with LEGOs. Like many kids he would build creations utilizing his imagination, but unlike many kids David was building to solve a specific problem: he had been born with only one hand. David was born with a specific genetic condition called Poland Syndrome, which caused his right arm below the elbow to not
What Can Betty Robinson Teach Students about Grit?
By Tim Elmore You may have never heard the Betty Robinson story, but it’s worth knowing. It informs our work with students today. Betty was a kid who grew up a hundred years ago in Riverdale, Illinois. In high school, she had to catch a train to her campus, quite literally. One day, she found herself running on the platform as
Four Ideas to Help Today’s Kids Delay Gratification
By Tim Elmore One of the best decisions my parents made was during the summer of my eleventh year. I begged them to let me go to Bobby Leonard’s Sports Camp, one state over, and three hours away. I pestered them long enough to convince them it was a good idea. My parents dropped me off on Sunday and were expected to
How to Help Students Stop Making Excuses and Start to Grow
By Tim Elmore I was in a coaching session with a college freshman, who explained to me how she just wasn’t “a math person.” This launched a conversation about how Abby couldn’t do this or that, and that her career was likely very limited. Along with her math challenges, Abby said things like: “I don’t have a creative bone in
Would Banning Smartphones on Campus Be Helpful or Harmful?
By Time Elmore My friend, Steve Goble, has enjoyed a successful career as a business owner and civil servant. Over the last few years, he chose to be a substitute teacher in his local public high schools. He wanted to spend time investing in today’s young generations. You might not be surprised to hear the experience has been eye-opening for
Three Essentials to Leading Someone from a Different Generation
By Tim Elmore Three Essentials to Leading Someone from a Different Generation I continue to hear stories of Boomer or Gen X managers who become frustrated at the audacity of Generation Z or Millennial team members. One manager said a young job candidate told him in her interview: “I’m going to have your job in eighteen months.” Similarly, young professionals tell me
Seven Strategies to Influence a Student’s Choices
By Tim Elmore A college dean recently acknowledged to me an obvious truth. He said, “The older I get, the more different students become.” He said this, tongue firmly planted in cheek, but I knew exactly what he meant. The generation gap, a term first coined by magazine editor John Poppy back in the 1960s, is more real today than ever. This
The Difference Between Rookies and Veterans at Work
By Tim Elmore Do you see stereotypes at work today? You know what I mean, don’t you? On the one hand, Millennials and Gen Zers assume that Baby Boomers are just “out of touch with reality.” On the other, we hear Gen Xers and Boomers assuming all young people are entitled and narcissistic. = Stereotypes exist for a reason, but far too
Ditch the Niche: An Exercise to Mix with Multiple Generations
By Tim Elmore The ebb and flow of our economy has been bad news for millions of families. The recession and the inflation that followed has created uncertainty. During the pandemic, I watched several extended families locally choose to consolidate their monthly rent or a mortgage payment by living with aunts and uncles, parents or grandparents, and even great-grandparents. Emily, a neighbor,
Is It Possible to Assess Our Ability to Connect with Other Generations?
By Tim Elmore Janet experienced trouble at work just two weeks after she hired Rory. In their weekly meetings, Rory began expressing his distaste for the department’s current strategies. He described their team as a big “L” (meaning “loser”) and said he didn’t know why they weren’t implementing better ideas. Everyone glanced over at Janet, wondering how she’d respond to his audacity.
What It Means for Teens Who Are Going to Work for the First Time
By Tim Elmore What It Means for Teens Who Are Going to Work for the First Time I spoke to a Chick-fil-A owner/operator recently who told me a story I almost couldn’t believe. He said he interviewed a sixteen-year-old high school student who was so sharp, he hired her on the spot. Upon getting her uniform from this notable restaurant brand, she
Who’s Smarter These Days: The Young or the Old?
By Tim Elmore Last month, Janet called Rory into her office. She’s the department manager and Rory, a young professional, serves on her team. She did not appreciate his disrespect toward her when he questioned her authority and her decision in Monday’s meeting. Things came to a head when he walked out of her office before the issue was resolved. She
Ten Ideas to Keep Your Best Generation Z Talent
By: Tim Elmore Ten Ideas to Keep Your Best Generation Z Talent Tim Elmore / GrowingLeaders.com / TimElmore.com “Eighteen months,” declared my friend over lunch last week. “That’s about how long my young team members stay on the job. Some only last 90 days. I don’t know how to keep them.” Indeed, my friend’s experience is not isolated. Gallup released a report in 2016
How to Capitalize on the Younger Generations on Your Team
By: Tim Emlore How to Capitalize on the Younger Generations on Your Team Everyone has witnessed the culture wars. People in our society seem polarized over values and social issues. While I believe those battles are real, there’s a deeper issue at play that we have ignored. You might call it, “generational wars.” It’s happening every day in our workplaces. For years, our
How One Mom Kept Her Teen Off Social Media For Six Years
By: Tim Elmore How One Mom Kept Her Teen Off Social Media for Six Years If you watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, you know firsthand the challenges of social media platforms today. The documentary allows viewers to hear tech experts sound the alarm on the dangerous impact of social networking which Silicon Valley tech companies manipulate and influence. The film explains
Skills Today’s Graduates Need to Succeed
By: Tim Elmore I graduated from college with good grades, but not straight As. Part of the reason was, I worked two or three jobs every year of my college life. I worked as a cook in a country club, I worked part-time in the library, I worked as a part-time youth director, and I worked at a fast-food restaurant. While
Three Ingredients to Help Students Recover Following a Pandemic
By: Tim Elmore Today’s kids were already facing mental health problems. Now they feel delayed by COVID-19, and it’s added to their anxiety levels. According to Barna’s research, 82 percent of Generation Z members believe they’ve been traumatized. While it sounds extreme, many of them feel: Postponed Pushed aside Penalized. This group of teens believes part of the traditional American experience was lost
The Story of the Carrot, the Egg, and the Coffee Bean
By: Tim Elmore A young girl went to her grandmother and complained about how hard life had become for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed that, as one problem was solved, a new one arose. Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She
“Phoneliness”: A New Term Defining Reality for Generation Z
By: Tim Elmore Jared and Tabitha dated for ten months. They met on an app, and the first four months of their relationship was limited to online interactions. When they chose to MIRL (Meet In Real Life), the encounter went well. At that point, they began to see each other face to face. In month ten, however, Jared decided to move on.
How Parents Must Correct Our Overcorrections
By: Tim Elmore A mother approached me recently after I spoke at a parents’ conference. She told me how much she cared for her 13-year-old son, yet many of his teachers referred to her, not as a “helicopter parent,” but as an “Apache Helicopter.” When she acknowledged how intrusive she was in her son’s life, I had to agree. She admitted to
Candles and Brush Fires
By: Tim Elmore I lived in southern California for many years. Every year, it seemed we heard about another fire that broke out. The dry, warm weather coupled with a careless mistake can be deadly. Wildfires have been rampant, destroying miles of property as they spread. During the summer and fall of 2018, California experienced the deadliest wildfire season in its history. A
Lessons in Grit from Ernest Shackleton’s Voyages
By: Tim Elmore An incredible discovery was just made beneath the ocean’s surface. Underwater drones were used to discover Ernest Shackleton’s famous ship, Endurance, the one that set out to reach the South Pole and establish a base on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea coast 100 years ago. Both the century-old voyage and the discovery are wonders of technology. Breaking Down the Story Most of us have
