Yes! The Arts Are for YOU Too (Even If You Can’t Draw a Stick Figure)
Arts Integration | Brain Capital | Creativity | Educational Travel | Lyrics 'N Leadership | Personal Development | Posted on October 20, 2024 at 4:19 pm by geneinletford
Let’s get this out of the way: not being able to paint like Picasso or play piano like Chopin does not mean you aren’t creative. Too many people believe that unless they’re holding a paintbrush or pirouetting across a stage, creativity just isn’t their thing. This, friends, is a tragic (and frankly, very costly) misconception—and [...]
5 Tips on How to Foster Psychological Safety on Your Teams
Creativity | Personal Development | Posted on February 23, 2022 at 10:41 am by geneinletford
Intercultural Creativity is all about understanding how cultural competence intersects with creative thinking. Creative thinking is highly affected by the level of psychological safety within the environment. My podcast with the author of the 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, Dr. Tim Clark, shares more on why this is so. Developed by Professor Amy Edmondson, it […]
Guest Appearance on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income Podcast
Entrepreneurship | My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on June 10, 2020 at 9:37 pm by geneinletford
I had the opportunity to share my journey as a black entrepreneur trying to make a positive change in communities and within systems on Pat Flynn's podcast, Smart Passive Income. With over 60 million downloads for this SPI podcast, this was an amazing opportunity to share with the world why financial and creative empowerment within [...]
Bringing Creativity Back Into Education
Creativity | Personal Development | Posted on May 10, 2020 at 2:19 pm by geneinletford
Yesterday my husband Shayne and my 26-month-old son, Shawn became engineers and used Lakeshore Fort Builder poles to build structures. As they were building, Shawn kept identifying the shapes he was using, mostly on his own but sometimes prompted by his father. It was cute ... then it struck me. He’s moving through the stages [...]
How To Find Your Diamonds of Opportunity
Creativity | My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on January 19, 2020 at 7:49 am by geneinletford
She gave me life. Therefore the least I could do was give her the stars. This was the thought that ran through my mind as I watched my mother lounging back under a blanket of twinkling lights at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. Following her gaze I stared above the cliffs. It looked like [...]
Creative Abuse: Protecting The Creative Ability of Our Children
Creativity | My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on November 22, 2019 at 9:20 am by geneinletford
Recently, I have had several people ask me to write a dynamic curriculum that deals with financial literacy but also addresses creative abuse recovery. This opened my eyes that many adults are in need of recovering from being creatively abused as children. They were told to follow directions and color the sky blue and [...]
I Have Only 40 Summers Left
My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on June 14, 2019 at 1:04 pm by geneinletford
Births. Weddings. Funerals. These are the events that force us to stop, reflect and evaluate exactly what we are doing with our lives. Sadly, I had a funeral of a dear colleague I attended at the end of June. I saw her on the last day of school two weeks before, happy and healthy. She [...]
The Unseen Financial Cost of Laziness
Debt Free Living | Financial Literacy | My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on November 1, 2018 at 7:32 am by geneinletford
When we think of someone who is lazy, an image of a person slouching on the couch at noon, eating cereal comes to mind. That’s an easy call. But lazy comes in many different forms. No matter how it looks, after reading this proverb, I discovered there is a hidden cost of being lazy. A [...]Yes You Have Privilege! Now What?
Mentorship | My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on March 25, 2018 at 11:26 pm by geneinletford
“I acknowledge my white privilege,” said Sarah Chadwick, a Florida Parkland student. Sarah and her Parkland peers were meeting with the Peace Warriors, a Chicago based student group that teaches students how to resolve conflicts peacefully. The Peace Warriors have been working on eradicating gun violence in their Chicago community for years but have not [...]
We Don’t Value Our Teachers: Here’s Why
My Thoughts | Personal Development | Posted on March 20, 2018 at 10:40 am by geneinletford
“Teaching is like being stuck in a bad marriage. You’re only in it because of the kids.” The first time I heard this quote, I chuckled. It was funny (though there’s nothing inherently funny about being trapped in a failing marriage or comparing the profession of education to it). But still, I laughed. […]
