Who have been the people you have admired - your positive models? What did you learn from these people? How did you integrate the learning? How can you continue to find people – and projects – that you admire? Let’s explore how you can learn from such models in your life and work.

1) You can find positive models.

You will start by exploring and asking questions like: “What do I want to do in my life or work? Who else has followed this path? Where can I read about such people? What did they do to achieve success? How can I follow these paths in my own way?”

During the 60s and 70s, for example, I scoured the libraries, bookshops and magazines for people who had done pioneering work on encouragement. I still vividly remember opening Abraham Maslow’s Towards A Psychology of Being. His pyramid of human needs provided several breakthroughs. First, it outlined an inspiring approach to human development. Second, it provided pathways to other thinkers. Third, it taught me how I learn – which is by seeing or creating visual models. Maslow’s work led to studying other pioneers, such as John Dewey, Maria Montessori and Homer Lane, plus attending workshops with people like Viktor Frankl, Sydney Jourard and William Glasser. Moving on to working in therapeutic communities, I visited places like the Henderson Hospital, Finchden Manor and Peper Harow.

Looking at your own life and work, who have been your models? Depending on your interests, you may have learned from teachers, artists, dancers, writers, inventors, architects, thinkers, scientists, film makers, leaders, managers, coaches or whoever. How did you find these models? Looking to the future, what are the areas you find fascinating? How can you find people or projects who are doing fine work in these fields? Try completing the following sentences.

The specific topics I would like to
learn more about in the future are:

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The specific things I can do to find
positive models in these fields are:

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2) You can integrate the learning from positive models.

“Before you go to see somebody you admire, write down all the questions you want to ask,” advised one of my teachers. “That sounds obvious: but some ‘students’ say they ‘just want to have a conversation’ with a person. That can be okay: but it is good if you prepare properly.”

So that is what I did when visiting David Wills, a pioneer in child care. The journey was complicated, catching trains and then a slow bus to an isolated village. But it provided time to review my top questions. These were: “How can we create those moments of ‘a sense of wonder’ for young people? How can we help them to learn during those moments? How can we help them to use this learning in their lives and continue to have ‘a sense of wonder’?” (I wrote to many pioneers and some responded, saying they would be happy for me to visit. Thirty-five years later, a researcher writing about David Wills contacted me to say he had found the original correspondence.) The bus wheeled into the village and I found David’s house. He was kind, made tea and asked what I wanted to discuss. Remembering my notes, I outlined what I wanted to ask. “Interesting questions,” said David. “Shall I explain how I have explored these during my work?” Two hours later I had pages of notes to study as the bus made its way back to the nearest town.

You will learn from models in your own way. Sometimes this may follow the learning process of inspiration, implementation and integration. Great educators, for example, create an inspiring environment, provide implementation tools that work and enable people to integrate the learning in their own way. People take away practical tools they can use in their lives and work. Looking at the models you want study, try completing the following sentence.

The specific things I can do to integrate
the learning from the positive models are:

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*

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3) You can pass-on the learning from the positive models.

“To teach is to learn twice,” wrote the French philosopher, Joseph Joubert. Encouragers follow a similar path. Generous-hearted, they feel enriched by sharing what they have learned. They also simply want to help others to succeed. Looking at your own life, can you think of times when you have passed-on knowledge given to you by positive models? What did you do right to make that happen? What were the results? Sometimes people may have been grateful; sometimes you may not have known the response. How can you pass-on your learning in the future? What might be the benefits? Try completing the following sentences.

The specific things I can do to pass-on
the learning from the positive models are:

*

*

*

The benefits of passing-on this learning may be:

*

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“Children need models rather than critics,” wrote Joseph Joubert. Certainly we all learn in different ways, such as watching, listening, reading, doing and reflecting. One of the most powerful methods is studying good models. They add more options to our repertoire and, as a result, more freedom to shape our lives. We can then pass-on this knowledge to future generations.

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