Mitten Shaped Flights

Who's Got A Mentor If you've played sports, you have undoubtedly had a coach. But, what about not in sports? Have you had someone give you great advice not just from time to time, but for years? Well guess what? You had a mentor! If you caught my blog about coaching last week, you'll know exactly where I'm going with this. Let's talk about how someone you value has been helping you and much more than just a coach.  My Pops This might sound familiar, but my dad has always been my mentor. If you have kids, you'll get the idea pretty quickly. The relationship between a father and a son or a mother and a daughter, or really any parental figure and the child is different than any other relationship. Some might even say it isn't mentoring when the people are that close to each other, but I disagree.  While most children live with their parents until they're around 18 years old, there comes a time when the children become adults and move away. You m...

The Coach Have you ever had a person in your life who helped you achieve something that might have been out of your reach? Or maybe, this person helped you achieve an important goal faster than you might have achieved it without the help. We all know people that we look up to that can bring out the best in us. To better help you think of the person that best describes your coach, let me quickly tell you about a person that recently pushed me to excel in my professional life. My Coach Have people ever asked you how you could possibly work for a boss that has an abrasive demeanor? Yet, this might not paint the total picture of who that person is. If someone ever asked me those questions or thought that about my coach, I'd say they were wrong. My coach has almost all the degrees, such as his undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as many certifications. He is intelligent, has a passion for measuring and improving processes using Lean and Six Sigma techniques, but has...

My Current Reflection It has been close to two decades since I picked up my critical thinking hat and put it on. Until the start of this course, this is the furthest I have been from critical thinking in my life. Now reacquainted, I believe in my abilities to pick back up where I left off in the year 2000, but not without first needing some serious practice.   When I start to think about my competencies in becoming a critical thinker, I want to first look at a definition of critical thinking so that I can baseline my skillset. Critical Thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it (Paul & Elder, 2014). It is not simply enough to think about my thinking, but to think to improve my thinking. How far have I come? When I started this course, my understanding of critical thinking was very small and narrow. I did not see critical thinking as an objective or a necessity, but instead understood it to be a concept for intellectual peop...