Tag: curious george

5 Leadership Lessons Curious George Teaches us

My son loves when we read Curious George to him.  It’s one of his favorites!  But I read everything with a critical eye.  And while I don’t always appreciate that part of me, I just can’t turn that switch off and just completely read for fun.  I wish I could.

Image via MyDorchester

Yesterday, I told you about the bad parenting lessons I’ve learned from Curious George. (you can read that HERE)

But I’d be remiss to say there aren’t some great jewels of life wisdom here, too!  Even wisdom that leaders can glean.  To be honest with you, I never thought I’d be learning leadership lessons from a cartoon monkey.  But, alas…the life of a dad…

5 Leadership Lessons Curious George Teaches us

Enjoying life is infectious.

When you enjoy life, you help others to do the same.  At the end of every book, the entire cast of characters is smiling.  Not to say that life’s easy or fluffy or always happy, but looking for ways to enjoy the gifts and opportunities God’s giving you is infectious for everyone around you.

Helping people is messy work.

George’s goal throughout the series is to help people.  But in helping people, he often gets into big messes.  Before it’s all said and done, many people are frustrated with George.  Even those who love him the most (the man with the yellow hat).  Which is what you’ll sometimes, unfortunately, find in life.  Helping people change, grow, and deal with life is often messy and frustrating.  But I can’t even begin to tell you how it’s worth the frustrations.

Creativity is messy and chaotic, but at the end of the day, it’s worth it.

If you pursue creativity in life, things will get messy and chaotic.  Rarely will you find yourself in the middle of creativity and in the middle of order.  Just know, going in, that you’re going to have to put up with a bit of chaos in the creative process.  But at the end of the day, it’s worth it.  The insights, new directions, and “art” you’ll create through the process make it worth the effort.

Curiosity will get you in lots of trouble.

The more you poke around, question systems, and look for new ways of doing things, the more you will frustrate some people.  Because, often, it’s easier to leave the status quo untouched.  To assume you can “arrive” and be done growing and changing.  And the more you push for those out-of-the-box changes, the more you’ll frustrate those who are satisfied with keeping things the way they are.

Curiosity will lead you to lots of fun.

Children naturally gravitate towards creativity and fun.  But life has a tendency of breaking many of us of that.  Curiosity is a beautiful thing.  It leads to new discoveries and new adventures, as long as you’re willing to pursue it.  Don’t get so tangled up in details, systems, and processes that you forget to have a little fun along the way.  There’s an adventure around every corner if you’re willing to look.

Question:

Have you seen any of these lessons come true in your life?

 

Bad Parenting Lessons from Curious George

Ever read a book from the series, Curious George?

image via Zap 2 It

I’ve got a 2 year old son, and we read a lot to him. Curious George is one of those books he likes. “Monkey book!” he says.

And I’m a critic. I read and listen to things with a critical eye. Sometimes, that’s really helpful. But many times, it’s just annoying.   I wish I could just read and flip that little switch off in my brain…because I’m sure that the author producer wasn’t trying to communicate the strange things that are now running through my head about his book…but I can’t help myself.

Curious George is a great children’s series…but when I read it, here’s what I see.

5 Bad Parenting Lessons from Curious George

  • Don’t worry about listening to your Dad. Everything will be okay. Even if you do what he would never want you to do, within 20 minutes, he’ll be laughing with you.
  • Don’t worry about listening to your Dad.  You’ll have more fun that way.  Especially if ice cream is involved.  And at the end of the day, the disaster you caused means everybody wins…except the ice cream shop.
  • Don’t worry about listening to your Dad. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Everybody will love you more.  The more trouble you cause, the more people will end up liking you.  Ignore the rules!
  • Don’t worry about listening to your Dad.  You won’t ever get punished. (The man in the yellow hat never dolls out any consequences).  That chocolate factory that you nearly destroyed…ahh…don’t worry about it, little guy!  Just laugh about them losing thousands of dollars of chocolate!
  • Your poor decisions don’t ever cause any real trouble. You may wreck the local library, let all of the animals out of the zoo, and ruin everything of value in your friend’s new restaurant, but just give it a few minutes…everything will be even better because of your mischief.  In fact, thank you for your bad decisions.

Question:

Ever read Curious George?  Am I the only one who sees these things?

 

 

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