Creating 21st Century Youth Leadership Through Sharing
Leadership is inspiring others to be better than they ever knew they could be, to achieve more than they ever knew they could achieve, and to experience more fulfillment than they ever knew they could. What is The Responsibility of a leader
o to help others potentate
o to facilitate their growth
o to make them feel important
o to build on small successes
o to reward any aspect of good behavior
o to make the person aware of his unique contribution to life
When Life Was Simpler
I was born in the woods of Southeast Arkansas from a Native American mother and an AfroHeritage Father. When I was three years old they divorced and my Indian mother left me with the Indian family. I never saw my AfroHeritage father again, and was raised completely in the Native American culture. Life was quite simple then. We had no electricity but we did have a battery radio. Every Saturday morning I listened to "Let's Pretend", a very special radio program. I lived on a farm so each day I did chores. I woke up before 5 am to go on horseback to collect the cows from open range and brought them to be fed and milked. I milked them, then fed the hogs, chickens and other animals. I ate breakfast, then back on horseback to take the cattle back. Then I walked to the one room schoolhouse where my cousin taught all eight grades in a one room schoolhouse. My life centered around school, church, family and chores. I enjoyed fishing, horseback riding and reading. As a child I did not play much with other children. I was very intelligent and skipped two grades ahead which put me with children much older. So I never bonded to the group of children around me. As a result I was quite insular, and very much involved with my inner life. I loved listening to the stories of the "elders" of both cultures. I never heard the word drug, cocaine, heroin or marijuana as a child.
I Was Taught To Give At An Early Age
We raised vegetables, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, hogs, cows and horses on our small farm. Every Saturday and Sunday my grandparents and I went on our food route. We fed about 20 families. When I was very young we went in a horse drawn wagon with our gifts of vegetables, meat, milk and eggs to poor families. Later my grandfather purchased an old red Chevrolet truck. We started it with a crank in the front. We would go to the poor families and give our food. That is where I learned the joy of giving. I have tried the rest of my life to live the same kind of giving life. That is why I have traveled to Honduras after Hurricane Mitch.
I saw the need to give and share resources after I saw children playing with sticks after Hurricane Mitch. I discovered the same generosity I lived with as a child with my grandparents in the people in the soccer world. They have shared their soccer gear and continue to share it with the poor children of Honduras. It was a joy to me as a child to see the faces of the people we took the food to. And it is equally joyous to share the soccer gear through Soccer for Life.
Life Is Not So Simple For My Grandson
I tell you all this to contrast this with the life of my grandson who now lives we me. He is confronted with drugs, porno online, spam online, popups, explicit ads, videos, and the availability of all kinds of literature that never enter my life. On the positive size, he started using his computer when 3 years old playing "Boulder Dash" on his Commodore on my lap. He has grown up with computers and now has a more powerful one than I do. Right now his new project is to build a computer that is equivalent to "Alienware" whatever that is. And he works side by side with me in as an "all around helper". There was no AIDS when I was a child, now every person is a threat. There were only the AfroHeritage and Native American people in my life. I think in one town near me there was a Chinese person who had a restaurant. But the cultures we encountered were those of family members.
There was no terrorism, There was a "Jap Camp" where it was planned to keep Japanese prisoners but the war ended. Our lives were centered around church, the Baptist Church to be exact. There were only Christians no other faiths flourished in this little town. Schools and life were segregated into AfroHeritage and white. My Native American relative with their white skins and straight hair called themselves Black because they didn't want people to think they were "Dirty Indians". The army was just beginning to integrate. The economy was based on cotton.
The World Is Now A Multicultural Whirlwind
Now my grandson lives in a world of multicultural dizziness. How many refugees from how many countries now are found in any school just about anywhere? We seem to be fighting a war against Islamic terrorists, a concept unheard of in my childhood. I did know about the Crusades, however. Now the subject might be 9-11, Darfur, Kabul, Baghdad, Tamil, Colombian guerrillas, narcotrafic. A whole new set of words have been added to the English language. Indeed our USA has truly become the melting pot. Now in the community where I grew up, Hispanics are pouring in by the dozens. Cotton has been replaced by logging as cotton has moved east to the Delta.
It Was Easy In Lead in Simpler Times
Leadership in those simple days was easy. The people were of one group, one religion, one lifestyle, one history, and one shared childhood background. But the children of today who we need to develop as leaders have much more challenges to face. How do we lead people who have different values than we do? How can we talk about our religious heritage which was once the underpinning of who we were, if some of our followers have completely different ideas of what is right and what is wrong? Now Europe is facing becoming an Islamic world. The Muslims are demanding to wear their veils everywhere. That to many is just a way to cover up terrorists who want to infiltrate areas.
The New Multicultural World That Faces Our Children Requires Leaders Who Can Find The One Point Of Mutual Agreement
It's time to recognize the importance of sharing. We accept that soccer is the most important game in the world. It affects more lives than any other force. Soccer is a language understood by a young member of an elite soccer team in Simi Valley California as well as a child playing with a homemade soccer ball in the mountains of Intibuca. And this flow of love for the beautiful game between all who play this wonderful sport is our key to developing a more peaceful world. We know that some people are born with more than others, whether it be more soccer talent, more money, more educational opportunities, more family security, more personal freedom and more opportunities to reach our personal potentials. If we want peace, if we the ability to travel freely between places on our world, if we want not to have any more 9-11s, then we who have more must find a way to share with those who do not have enough.
It's time to Unite Two Soccer Worlds
Those who have more are being offered more and more opportunities to share through soccer. One way to attack the problem involves an exchange. Let's fight global warming through tree planting as well as other environmental values. There are Two Soccer Worlds, that of those who have and that of those who need. Many soccer players are standing in the center of these two worlds and serves as a conduit for the flow of resources. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our world and our planet.
One Of Our Goals Is An International Soccer Passport
Soccer is an excellenat to bring world peace and to develop leadership skills through soccer programs. One thing needed is ab International Soccer Passport which will enable soccer players who belong to a recognized league to travel freely everywhere in the world to play soccer.
It's time for a new kind of leadership. A leadership based on teaching and sharing. Not based on who is right and who is wrong. It is a leadership based on finding "One Point Of Mutual Agreement" and working from that basis. In this multicultural world being developed, Americans are going to have to develop a new leadership style. We are going to have to become the teachers and sharers of the world instead of the controllers. That means we are going to become true leaders by actually understanding other cultures. We have to develop means of developing rapprochement between ourselves in our open, giving, volunteer oriented culture with others who see things quite differently. We will have to learn to interface with others in developing and other countries who have not yet moved to give and take.
The Key To People Development Is To Teach People To Be Grateful
It is vital to teach recipients the power of gratefulness. Now you may say everyone is grateful when you give them things. In many places the children do not use the words thank you or thanks. They see things differently than we do. In the USA we tell our children, "don't beg". In other place, they teach their children to beg and to steal. We tell our children say thank you. Here the children snatch the gifts and run. Many children and adults steal when they do not have to because they feel empty and are afraid things will never come their way again. Developing an organization of volunteers is difficult.
Our American, European and Japanese children are inheriting a world with an ever growing population of those who want to "get and take" instead of those who want to "receive and be grateful".
How will our young people learn to lead in such a world? And lead they must if the world is to not become a dog eat dog, steal and take what you can world. If we do not take leadership through teaching and sharing, the world will become a much more dangerous place in which to live.
How To Lead In The 21st Century
There Has Never Been A Time Like This In History
1. There are No More Barriers Of Air, Land Or Sea
2. We Are All Coming Together In Real Time
3. The Airplane Has Made Every Place On The World Accessible
4. The Television Has Brought The World Into Everyone's Living Room
5. The Internet Has Made It Possible For All of Us To Communicate
6.. Global Warming Has Threatened Our Species With Truly Having a Water Planet
7. The Global Production Conduit Has Eliminated The Concept Of Job Security
8.. American English Has Become The World Interface Language
9. Those Who Have Much Have Discovered There Is Greater Joy In Giving Than Having
10. Immigrants Walk The World Changing the Population Mix Of Countries
10. We As A Species Are Dividing Into Those Who Seek A New Spirituality And Those Who Want to Keep Us In The Pleistocene
11. All Our Old Mind Clonish Ideas Have Become Obsolete And We Must Seek To Move To A New Equilibrium Point- Rapprochement If We Are To Survive.
12. We Need To Learn How To Preserve The Species That We Have Left, Protect Our Environment and Replant Our Forests
What Do Our Children Have To Know To Lead In This New World?
o We need to understand Mind Clones
o We Need To Learn To Build Self Esteem
o We Need To Learn How To Share
o We Need To Know How To Build Groups Into Communities
o We Need To know How To Share Meaning
o We Need To Know How To Provide Structure
o We Need To Develop and Teach Others How To Have A Superordinate Goal
o We Need To Learn How To Lead Others In Moving To A New Equilibrium Point With Our Planet By Replanting Our World Forests And Developing Sustainable Development Methods
o We Need To Develop Expanded Permitteds Leadership
o We Need To Develop Ways Of Communication
o We Need To Develop Ways To Provide Recognition
WHAT ARE THE CORNERSTONES FOR CREATING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN ALL GROUPS INVOLVED
We will need to establish a few ground rules at the beginning. This has to begin in our homes, in our soccer clubs, in our sports activities, in our churches, and schools. We need to accept these facts at the beginning to enable us to teach them to others:
o There is a commons, a place where everyone can work together.
o There is a common ground for agreement, a place to stand where peace can begin.
o I learn more from those who disagree with me. Those who think as I do don't jar my thinking as much.
o We learn by creating a bond, strengthening that bond into a link, creating more and more links so we can see we are all one. Even as the EarthHome is one, so we all are one.
o Always there is SOME ground for agreement. Go into a meeting with the "I know, no matter what, there is some grounds for agreement" mind set. Then we can find it.
A KEY TO ACHIEVING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN DISPARATE GROUPS - UNDERSTANDING CORE AND PERIPHERAL VALUES
Any time you have two or more people discussing an idea or project or how to do something, each person is carrying two sets of values. Some values are negotiable and others non-negotiable.
A. Central Core Values are non-negotiable
B. Peripheral Values are negotiable
A.1 Central core values are inflexible and define who we are
B.1 Peripheral values are where flexibility occurs. We define how we could change and who we could become or what we could become
EXAMPLE: USING PAPER is a core value. Civilization demands paper; they want hard copy even off the Internet.
Non-Wood paper is a peripheral value; it is how you make it, which is different than saying you can't have paper at all.
A.2 Some Central Core value examples:
* meet the basic criteria of maintaining sustainability of world forest reserves
* fighting the greenhouse effect
* creating a working environment for continued interactions between consortium members
* developing waste free and environmentally sound systems
* the validity of each group and its right to exist
* making systems profitable that provide a reasonable return on investment
* serving as a source of employment and foreign exchange procurement
* learn from every one and each other
* more trees should be planted
B.2 Peripheral values examples
* how many trees to plant
* how many trees to cut
* what will we use the trees for
The reason we need to know about the core and peripheral values is that when we pull together a consortium, the first thing we need to find out is what the core and peripheral values are of each person. We have to find a place of rapprochement of the peripheral values and not impinge upon the core values. The peripheral values are the negotiables which can be worked with so projects can proceed.
To Lead In This World - Our Youth Must Learn To Work In Groups
We accept the fact that no group, no industry, no organization, nor no individual can regenerate and create a sustainable EarthHome alone. It involves moving all of us to a mind set in which only sustainable development will be acceptable and the Herculean task of moving all EarthHumans' core values to include sustainability as a basic definer of EarthHuman life. Therefore, we postulate that every group must be drawn into many separate consortiums and ultimately into one consortium of consortiums through the Internet so that communication will be facilitated and effective.
We Need To Begin Bringing Together Youth From Developed Countries And Youth From Developing Countries Through Soccer And Tree Planting.
Teaching children from developed countries is vital to peace in the world.
Dr. Cross support youth soccer programs worldwide. We are need of an activity in the world that creates openness, develops community across racial and ethnic barriers. The most important thing to many people in the world is soccer. Soccer is the world interface language. In a world increasingly polarized by race, tribal warfare, ethnic rivalry, attempts at ethnic cleansing and religious terror there is a need for a way for all of us to connect. We cannot operate on the basis of religions since religious wars abound. Nor can we use race in our countries with so many open boundaries and so much immigration everywhere. Soccer is the world's most important game. But soccer is more than just a game. It is a way of life. It is a spiritual experience. International soccer tournaments, camps, tours and training stints. Sharing the love of the game, forming community. It is a culture based on shared flow experiences, the enjoyment of music, cheering, supporting your teams and belonging to a soccer culture.
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