Culture and Honor...

I recently got the chance to attend the Southern Nebraska Conference Sportsmanship Summit with my boss. It was an incredible experience. This year, the main presenter was Josh Ericsson from Kearney. His goal was to focus on teamwork. He wanted everyone to work together. He also touches on performance anxiety. Ericsson told us a little about his family first. He has five children, four girls and one boy. He told us a great story about his son wanting to be like him. He had some other cute stories that fit in with what he was speaking about. He asked us if anxiety decreases performance, the answer, no. Anxiety reduces blood flow and oxygen, it shuts down your extremities. He used this as a segue into his discussion on culture. Culture, to him, consists of out thoughts and behaviors. Your culture has to be a culture of honor. You need to grow your culture with promotion of success. What we allow to happen, will. What we don't allow, won't. "The world celebrates failure more," Ericsson said. Dishonor is a popular culture. Honor, to honor is to be elevated in stature or status. To honor someone, you need to get underneath them, and push them up. Use out energy to make someone else appear better than us. Knowing and helping other people get the best out of their lives. How we define success is what we allow in our culture. Will you choose a culture of honor? I hope so. His other main point, was "love is the only true motivator." I had to let that sink in a little bit. It saddens me that the world truly does celebrate failure more. If only all of our cultures were made and grown from honor. It was a great speech, told to a room full of competitors. You had members from some of the biggest rivals working together and conversing in the same room. What a lesson we could all learn from this. It can be fairly easy for me to sit back and say why don't we all get along? Let's put aside the rivalry we may have had years ago as parents, when we played these sports. I, of course, am not from here, so it's easy for me. This is a small rural area and we tend to boast about how communities will come together to help people when it is needed. This is a great thing, but do we extend that beyond just our "local" community? Do we set out each day to honor all these rural areas that surround us? Do we get underneath them and push them up, make them appear better than us? No, I don't do this on a daily basis either. I realize this, and hope to change it. When did our past rivals dictate how our children's lives will play out? I hope I can truly let these words sink in when I am making decisions that will affect future generations. If we, as parents, grow our cultures with honor and therefore success, I'm guessing our children will follow suit. Our small towns are getting smaller. Rural areas are becoming more rural. They don't have the appeal they used to. Perhaps, if we give these towns successful, honorable cultures, they can thrive again. There are tough decisions in our own everyday lives. There are also some very big, very tough decisions coming up for some of our real schools. These decisions are big, and not to be taken lightly. As an "outsider", I hope I am looking at things from that perspective. I didn't grow up here, I don't have long ago rivals. I want what is best for my children and their education. I want them to have the opportunities kids in the big cities have. When you live in the city, the hardest choice is where to send your kids, which school is the best? They have endless options. In these rural areas, you don't have a lot of choice. You have your own voice to advocate for change. Let's all sit back, throw everything aside, and truly read and think about our decisions. Choose what is best for our kids, let go of things from the past. Let's give them every opportunity we possibly can, with the perks of living in a small close community. Your culture is what you allow it to be. Make love the only true motivator.