Start of Year 2012/2013

Start of Year2012/2013 28th September, 2012

LEADERSHIP TRACK Course Outline • Strategy & Goals • Time Management • The Paradigm • Thinking Exercises • Leadership Essentials • Decision Making • Teamwork • Communication • COMMUNITY PROJECT

WHAT IS YOUR VISION? My Vision is 20/20 …even with my eyes closed Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset that you have …or it could be your biggest liability

Make your vision…the greatest asset that you have

EXERCISE 1 Where do you want to go? I would like to: 1 2 3 To achieve the above, this year I will: 1 How do you plan to get there? 2 3 How to do the exercise? 1. Write down what you like to be, or what would you like to accomplish – top 3 items only. While setting goals, you might consider: Allah, Parents/Family, School/Education, Health, Friends/Community, etc. 2. For each goal that you set, identify what exactly you plan to do this year to help you achieve it. Discuss it with your parents. YOU ARE HERE Name: Parent’s Signature:

EXERCISE 2 MY STORY How to do the exercise? Imagine that ten years from now there is an article written about you in the most popular daily newspaper. Close your eyes and imagine reading that article about you. What would you like to be written in that article? Write all these thoughts down and from it, extract a crisp clear statement that says what you exist in this world to do. Write the statement in the space below: Now revisit exercise 1 and make any changes to your Vision if needed. Name: Parent’s Signature:

HOME WORK 1 THE LEGACY How to do the exercise? 1. In the appendix of this handout, find the article called “The Legacy.” 2. After one of the prayers, gather the whole family. 3. Ask one of the elders to read the article out loud to all 4. Discuss “what difference do you want to make” as individuals and as a family 5. Revisit exercise 1.1 and make any changes to your Vision if needed Name: Parent’s Signature:

TIME MANAGEMENT And how do I manage time? Would you like to manage time? Then the first thing to do is to learn how to control the speed with which the earth revolves around the sun. You can’t do that? Then how can you manage time? The first lesson in managing time is to accept that time can’t be managed. People can’t manage time because they are trying to manage something over which they have no control. You can only manage what you have control over So what can you manage? You can manage how you use time. You can manage what you do with the time you have. You can manage your activities. You can manage the priority that you want to give to each activity. …Okay. How can I maximize time? Now we are talking! Let us see how we can maximize the benefit we can derive from time. Step 1: Define your purpose in life. This is the criterion by which you will judge whether the time you spend in any activity is well spent or not. And guess what? You have already done this in Section 1 – you are among the few who know where they are going! Step 2: Now, on a daily basis maintain a time log; write down the activities you did and the amount of time you spent on them. Step 3: Each day, analyze the time you spent doing something specific and see which of these activities were those that help you to achieve your purpose in life. Any time that you have spent on activities that will not contribute to your purpose in life is a waste. Advanced Tip: Analyze your activities against the Urgent and Important matrix. Effective people spend significant time in Important but not Urgent activities.

TIME MANAGEMENT

HOME WORK 2 Daily Journal Write down the activities you spent time during the day. What did you do? Where did you spend time? September 30: October 1: October 2: Name: Parent’s Signature:

HOME WORK 2 How to do the exercise? See your Daily Journal and write down the activities you spent time on last week. What did you do? Where did you spend time? • Now chart (or write) your activities on the Urgent / Important matrix • Reflect: • How can you prevent crisis from happening? • Was any time spent on Not-Important activities justified? • The time that you have spent on Not-Important and Not Urgent activities, e.g. watching TV or gossiping on FB, is a total waste. Do you agree or disagree? Why? • Ask and help elders in your family to chart their activities on this matrix as well. Discuss what you have learned with your family. Name: Parent’s Signature:

HOME WORK 3 • Manage Yourself • Make a plan of how you would like to spend your time. • End of each day, compare the time you that you actually spent (Daily Journal) with your plan above. • Try to achieve more (of your goals/purpose) the next day. Name: Parent’s Signature:

TIME MANAGEMENT If life is a Highway… I want to ride it, to heaven

APPENDIX 1 THE LEGACY Author: Mirza Yawar Baig A person is remembered not by what he or she possessed or consumed, how much power they had or whether they were charming or beautiful, but by the legacy they leave behind. This is what I want to talk to you about; leaving a Legacy. I want to start by saying two things to you which I want you to remember. The first one is: 1. “It is in the nature of extraordinary goals to inspire extraordinary effort.” The second one is: 2. “It is in the nature of the ‘dream’ to be impractical.” A practical dream is an oxymoron. I want you to remember these two things because I am going to tell you two stories about two people who believed in extraordinary goals and had impractical dreams. To tell stories is a good way to learn, no? Okay here goes. The first story is about a man who sat in a prison for 27 years. It is a prison on a rock in the middle of the ocean. A rock that is surrounded by the sea which has some of the largest sharks in the world. This man sat in that prison without any hope of ever escaping. A lot of the time in solitary confinement. And in that situation he had a dream. The dream was to set his people free from the slavery in their own land. A very impractical dream. A very extraordinary goal. The second story is about another man. This man, when he was young, had a sporting accident in which he lost the use of both his legs and his eyesight was also affected. He was, since then confined to a wheelchair. Then what did he do? He went to get an education in the first university that the world has ever known. After he became a scholar, he went back to his people, where he became a refugee in his own land because the invaders and occupiers of his land destroyed his home along with the homes of thousands of others. All his life there, he worked to help his people in their misery to bring some measure of relief to them through medical aid, social help, food, emotional support and by teaching them to fight for their rights. For this service, he was imprisoned for many years by the invaders and spent time in some of the most horrific prisons in the world. And all the while he had a dream; to set his people free and to have their land returned to them. Then finally, at the age of 67, on March 22, 2004 while he was returning home from the morning prayers in the masjid, he was murdered by the invaders.

APPENDIX 1 THE LEGACY As we stand here today, there does not seem to be any chance of his dream ever coming true. Once again an impractical dream. An extraordinary goal which inspires extraordinary effort. (Skaikh Ahmed Yasin) The first question I want to ask you after telling you these true stories is: What is your dream? What is your goal? In order to make dreams come true we need perspective. Perspective is the ability to hold two pictures in your mind: Where you are now and where you want to be. The POSITIVE tension between these two pictures will DRIVE you to reach where you need to be. We all start in the same place. We all start as idealists. I have yet to see a child who was not an idealist. We all want to make a difference to the world we live in, to do great things and to be remembered. But how many people actually achieve that? And WHY NOT? Let’s see what happens and why. We all start as Idealists. Then life happens. Things happen where people let you down. Often the very people who you counted on to support you. People deceive and lie and cheat and sacrifice long term benefits for short term gains. They are corrupt and this and that and the other. So as all these things happen, we get onto the slide and start sliding downwards. From being Idealists, we become Optimists (because idealism is tough to put down, especially when you are young and energetic) and then we become Realists, then Pessimists. Along the way we acquire ‘advisors’; people with lots of ‘education’ and ‘experience’; who take us aside and ‘talk some sense’ into us. They tell us, “Look, don’t be a fool. Get real. This is the real world. Be practical. Be realistic. Ideals are okay to talk about. They don’t work and will get you into trouble. Forget all this. Look around you. How many people do you see actually working for ‘ideals’?”

APPENDIX 1 THE LEGACY And slowly we also become like our ‘advisors’. We become Cynics. From Idealist to Optimist to Realist to Pessimist to Cynic; on the slide. Cynics are also very popular at parties as they are witty and make cynical remarks and make people laugh. But cynicism is a cancer. It eats the soul from inside. And unlike cancer, it is contagious and spreads. And in the end, at the bottom of the pile, we become Indifferent. We stop caring what happens. That is the real bottom of the pit. You know why people get angry and fight you when you say idealistic things? Because we remind them of what they were one day. The flame of idealism is possible to dampen. But it is impossible to kill. It will remain alive as long as we live. It dies when we die. The thing to do therefore, if you want to light the lamps of other's idealism, is to ensure that your own lamp never goes dim. The way to do that is never to lower your ideals. . In 1997, a man used to stand outside the White House holding a lighted candle in his hand, a silent protestor against the US sanctions against Iraq (that were killing several hundreds of children every year). He would turn up there every evening and would stand there for a few hours well into the night. One evening, it was wet, windy and very cold. As usual the man came, wearing a coat with the collar turned up against the bitter cold, and an umbrella to shelter the tiny flame of his candle from the blustery wind. As he stood there, the guard at the gate, who used to see him every day and occasionally waved to him in friendly camaraderie, came out to him and said, "Man! I know you are committed to this cause. But look at this night! It is so cold and horrible; you are one man, standing here alone, do you think you will change them?" The man looked at the guard and smiled. "I don't do this to change them," he said, "I do this so that they will not change me." Much has happened since 1997 and history has been written in words of shame by the blood of innocents. However there is one man somewhere who still believes in justice and mercy and that truth will eventually prevail over falsehood. That is his legacy. The legacy of a man whose name we don't know. But his story inspires others. We need such people more than we need those who have the power and use it only for oppression. I say to you that I am a shameless idealist. I have always been and would like to remain this way until the end of my days. And if I ever start to slip, as can happen to the strongest of us, then I want you to remind me of what I am saying to you today. So the next question I want to ask you is: What are your ideals?

APPENDIX 1 THE LEGACY Finally I want to close by telling you another true story. This one is about a little boy and the famous writer Lauren Eisely. Lauren writes that he was on holiday by the sea side when one night there was a big storm. Very early next morning as he was walking on the beach he saw that among the debris of the storm were literally hundreds of starfish which had been thrown up on the sand the previous night. As he walked along, Lauren saw someone in the distance doing what looked to him, like a dance. The person was bending down and standing up and moving along as he did this. As Lauren neared him, he saw that it was a little boy who was picking up starfish from the beach and was throwing them back into the sea. Lauren was like me. A man of the world with a lot of education and life experience. He went up to the boy and asked, “What are you doing?” The boy said, “I’m throwing these starfish back into the sea so that they don’t die. They can’t move on the sand and if the sun comes out, they will dry out and die. So I am throwing them back so that they will live.” Lauren says, he laughed at this statement. He then proceeded as an ‘advisor’ to put things in ‘perspective’ for the boy. Remember, I told you the importance of having perspective? But there’s perspective and there’s perspective. So Lauren said to him, “Look, do you realize that on this beach alone there are literally thousands of starfish? And then of course there are hundreds of beaches in the world, on which are thrown up millions of starfish in every storm. You are one kid, throwing one starfish into the sea! For God’s sake, what difference does it make?” The boy looked at Lauren; he looked at the starfish in his hand, he turned and threw it far into the waves and said to Lauren, “It made a difference to that one!” Lauren writes, “I walked away and kept walking for a long time. Then I returned to the boy who was still there, picking up and throwing the starfish into the sea. I silently picked up a starfish and threw it into the sea. And we did this together for a long time.” My final question to you is: What difference do you want to make?

Start of Year 2012/2013