This week we talked about leadership in the home, and I really enjoyed learning about this topic. I believe the blog post was on a tradition that our family has that we can learn from and use in our own families, and an example of shared leadership in our homes.

My favorite tradition that my family did is quite an odd one. We would always go out to this restaurant called Ross Park Drive In and get taco spaghetti and tater tots. After that, we would take whatever leftovers and little treats we had in our car and go feed the squirrels in the cemetery. From the time I was little and the squirrels would surround me so that my parents would have to come chase them off, through my teenage years, we would always make time to go feed the squirrels. I would like to have unique traditions like this in my own family.

My dad is a really good example of using shared leadership in my house. He is always fair and tries to look at my mom's point of view. He also tries to work things out reasonably with my mom and the family when one of us is unhappy. He is a good example of conflict resolution as well, which goes hand in hand with shared leadership. I hope to be able to use his example with my own spouse.

Ethical dilemmas...

One of the biggest ethical dilemmas in my life deals with something I love most: music. I guess I'm not what you would call a casual listener. I like to dig deep into the barrage of artists and explore different types of music. When I find something I like, it becomes the soundtrack to my life for a time. I use other artists' music to get new ideas and inspiration for my own music, which expands my thinking and creativity.

This is why it is such a huge temptation for me to download music illegally. I could have every unique artists' music at my fingertips, at no cost to me. This was my view in high school, and I downloaded music as I pleased. It's just taking money from the big corporations, right? It's free advertising for the bands who's music gets downloaded and they can make money from concerts. Well, maybe, but I believe at some point it's got to hurt the artists. Because I want to be an artist myself, I can't consider it ethical to steal money from artists now and expect to sell records myself later. So though it is a huge temptation for me, I try to steer clear of downloading music.

Random

Alright since this is a free topic blog I'm just going to write about what I'm learning in my book.

I'm reading How to Win Friends and Influence people. It's so interesting to me how many things you can learn about how to better your interactions with people. I thought it was basically common sense in learning how to deal with others, but there's so much to learn. The book has talked about learning not to criticize others, because it won't ever make the situation better. I've also learned that when you are in a leadership position and you want people to do things, you should help them want to do it. This means putting it into terms that relate to the person and making it important to them. I've learned a lot of techniques for bettering my relationships with others that will be helpful throughout my life.