Still curious? Story Salamanders & Lizards When I was about ten years old I spent a lot of time in the woods. I was fascinated by the wonders of nature and had a 04.19.21 Read more Tips Keeping A Positive Attitude Have you ever seen a particular meeting, event, or assignment on your schedule and started thinking of ways that you can get out 04.12.21 Read more Tips Refining Our RADAR In Mandt we talk about using our RADAR to be aware of what is going on around us. The first R in our RADAR stands for 04.05.21 Read more News Reinventing for New Times This past week was the one year anniversary of the Covid19 pandemic initial impacting on the Mandt System programme of classes 03.29.21 Read more Story Give a Smile This week marks the one-year anniversary of the start to locking things down to stop the spread of COVID-19. As I sat 03.22.21 Read more Tips Optimism for Summer… I just read that people who have received their full Covid-19 vaccinations may possibly plan small gatherings for the 03.15.21 Read more Resource Hierarchy, Status, & Aggression… Human beings rely on group cooperation extensively as a means for survival. Whenever groups form, whether formal or 03.08.21 Read more General On The Road Again… I never imagined when I started my first part time position as a direct support professional in 1993 that I would still be 03.01.21 Read more Tips Seek Out the Positives… The pandemic seems to be affecting many people negatively. Many of us are expecting the worst, whether we expect the worst 02.22.21 Read more Story Life’s Rituals, Taken Online This past week, my family and I experienced our first virtual cremation service following the death of my mother-in-law a few 02.15.21 Read more Story Tough Times, Good People… Several years ago, when we received my son Tyler’s diagnosis for fragile x syndrome, we reached out to the National Fragile X 02.08.21 Read more Story Approaching Valentines… According to history.com, Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated each year on February 14 by the exchange of cards, flowers, 02.01.21 Read more Resource Intrinsic Motivation In the Mandt System we begin our discussion of human motivation through the lens of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 01.25.21 Read more Tips Failure to Communicate Martin Luther King Jr. is quoted as saying, “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other 01.18.21 Read more Tips Healthy Values On a recent airplane ride I resumed listening to an audiobook I had started a while back. While some may find the title of the 01.11.21 Read more News New Year, New Thinking? At the Mandt System we had our last ‘All Company’ meeting the week of Thanksgiving and our theme for that meeting was 01.04.21 Read more Tips Learning Forward On Friday of this week will mark the start of 2021. It is probably fair to say many of us cannot wait to put 2020 12.28.20 Read more General Home for the Holidays I’m not sure about anybody else, but the phrase “home for the holiday’s” has taken on a whole new meaning in 12.21.20 Read more Resource Healthy Aging In 1938, George Vaillant began the Grant Study, a longitudinal study of adult development that would last more than 75 12.14.20 Read more General Shared Values The pandemic has caused many changes in the way we conduct live workshops. As I was looking for a teamwork activity that would 12.07.20 Read more Tips It’s Holiday Season… We are entering into the Holiday Season! This will be a Holiday Season like we have never seen before! We are still 11.30.20 Read more General Relationships Matter This past week Dr.Brene Brown shared the following quote and link on her LinkedIn feed and featured in one of her ‘Dare to 11.23.20 Read more Story Frustration in Communication We all at one point or another have become frustrated while communicating. It’s one of the most common human 11.16.20 Read more Tips Putting Empathy Into Action We talk a lot about being empathetic and trying to understand things from someone else’s perspective. But, that can sometimes 11.09.20 Read more Tips Filling the Gap “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our 11.02.20 Read more Resource Toxic Positivity I recently read an article about teachers and toxic positivity. It gives the following definition, “Toxic positivity is 10.26.20 Read more General Thank You Program Participants… Kudos to our trainers participating in face to face certification and/or recertification! When we resumed in person 10.19.20 Read more General Pandemic Perspectives Because the Mandt System is a virtual company, all of our employees were already working remotely out of their homes long before 10.12.20 Read more Story Aligning Passion and Purpose On October 1, 2020 I celebrated the completion of my 19th year and the beginning of my 20th year with The Mandt System. What a 10.05.20 Read more Story Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks… I did a thing. I got contacts. I’m going to admit it. I was cocky about this experience. I’ve worn contact 09.28.20 Read more Resource Maslow & Bloom A phrase that seems to be making its way around education circles is “Maslow before Bloom”. Maslow’s Hierarchy is a 09.21.20 Read more News Relationships Sustaining Us In 2017 I wrote a blog about my wife starting her 18th year of teaching in a new school system and the struggles of 09.14.20 Read more Tips Who Are You? Who Are You is an Album and its title song by The Who. It is also, however, what I would like to ask anyone reading this 09.07.20 Read more Tips Positive Acts of Trolling… Is it still ‘Trolling’ if the anonymously posted comments are positive? In the current climate of turmoil, 08.31.20 Read more General Close Enough to Count There is a statement I have heard all of my life that goes “close only counts in horseshoes and hand 08.24.20 Read more Story Community in Crisis This past week the midwest was hit hard by wind storms. Wind you ask? Yes, wind. No tornadoes. Not flash floods. Wind. The type 08.17.20 Read more Resource Investigating Behavior… Reductionist explanations are often used to rationalize why a person behaves the way that they do. “They’re just doing 08.10.20 Read more Tips A Behavior Plan for Your Staff I recently saw a meme of an individual with a disability carrying a huge stack of papers that read, “If my staff had behavior 08.03.20 Read more Story The Anxiety Bush I recently had a student in a train the trainer session who had high test anxiety. I’m sure we have all met someone with 07.27.20 Read more General Just because you can… In our world of Behavior Management approaches there is an ongoing, some would say raging debate, concerning ‘use of force’ 07.20.20 Read more General Thank You to the Worlds Calmers & Diffusers Recently I have seen a meme floating around social media that shows two law enforcement officers smirking and the meme reads 07.13.20 Read more News Doing Things Differently… We hope everyone had a chance to celebrate Independence Day 2020. Probably not in the same way you’ve celebrated in the past, 07.06.20 Read more Resource Difficult Conversations 2020 has been a strange year so far. The Covid 19 pandemic and high profile events of excessive force and systemic racism 06.29.20 Read more Resource Video Meeting Exhaustion Video meetings seem to be part of what’s being called the new normal. Next week will be the first in person workshop I’ve 06.22.20 Read more Tips Which Side Showing? Every morning we wake up we have a decision to make. Do we want to show the world a good side of ourselves or do we want 06.15.20 Read more General ALL People If you follow The Mandt System at all, you know the underlying philosophy of the program is “All people have the right to be 06.08.20 Read more News Why Mandt is not a KIA… When I say that Mandt is not a KIA, I am not referring to the South Korean Auto maker but to KIA the abbreviation of ‘Know It 06.01.20 Read more General Creative Graduations Well, here we are. I had originally planned to write about graduations and parties and being with friends and family at the 05.25.20 Read more Resource There’s No Such Thing as “Sheeple” Human beings are a social species. We are not the strongest or fastest creatures in the animal kingdom. What puts us 05.18.20 Read more Tips Unfollow, Don’t Unfriend (reprise) I have seen several friends on Facebook expressing feelings of guilt for unfriending or unfollowing family members this 05.11.20 Read more Tips Are You OK? So, many of us have been in quarantine for some time now. Are you OK? I have seen, read, and heard reports of some people 05.04.20 Read more General What can Covid-19 teach us about our relationships? At the Mandt system we have taught for 45 years that ‘Building Healthy Relationships’ has to be at the foundation of 04.27.20 Read more Tips A Deeper Empathy My guess is that you are spending a lot of time at home these days. Unless deemed essential, you, like me, are doing 04.20.20 Read more General Self Isolation Here we are. Quarantine 2020. I’ve lost count of how many days I’ve been in self isolation. Actually, I’m not really sure 04.13.20 Read more Tips Living Through Life’s Questions… “It is not the strongest species that survives, it is the most adaptable”. I’ve been thinking about this quote a bit 04.06.20 Read more Tips In this thing together… For all the bad news out there right now, I am inspired by the ways that I have seen people pull together to help their 03.30.20 Read more News Social Distance Must not Equal… Social Distance does not mean Social or Emotional Isolation. Welcome to a strange and unusual time. Hope everyone is 03.23.20 Read more General Care Virus 2020 With all the news and impact of the current Covid-19 infection it has been fascinating to observe how different countries and 03.16.20 Read more News Like-mindedness!! Last week I once again attended a conference I have now not missed for over 8 years. The Midwest Symposium for 03.09.20 Read more Tips Roll With the Punches Have you ever had one of those really challenging training events? You know the ones...the ones where everything that could go 03.02.20 Read more Tips Had an off day? Sooner or later, if you work in the training profession ,or any profession, really; you will inevitably experience an off 02.24.20 Read more General Romantic Relationships & Sexuality Writing this blog on Valentine’s Day reminded me of several recent workshops while talking about the needs of people in their 02.17.20 Read more Tips Practising De-Escaltion Hopefully everyone is getting what they want/need out of 2020! The month of January proved to be an interesting travel month 02.10.20 Read more
