Southwestern Advantage Blog

I grew up in a community where if you didn’t get along with someone, the advice we heard from our elders was, "Learn how to." If we had trouble working with someone, the teacher purposely assigned us to a group so that we would have to work together. My parents insisted that I learn to work my problems out. They didn’t call other parents to complain about our problems and how they could fix them. I was disciplined by my parents whenever I lacked self-discipline -- when I was disrespectful to others, when I didn't do my share of the chores, or when I got poor grades. Did I like it at the time? Nope; but now as an adult, I'm grateful for it. And now, as and educator, I increasingly see the opposite approach growing into a dangerous parenting trend. Every parent wants to see their children happy, safe, and successful. Teachers want the same for their students. However, the growing hurdle is the mindset that if a child gets upset, the parent(s) should step in and fix...

Recent events in the news  reinforce the notion that any child can fall prey to sexual predators. Such a horrifying notion makes most of us cringe and quickly change the subject. But the responsible parent faces this possibility squarely and takes steps to keep children safe. As a parent, here is what you must be aware of: 1. Notice that sexual predators are most often known personally by their victims. They are not “strangers.” Most predators do not snatch children off street corners. Most predators get to know their victims very well. So don’t teach your children to distrust strangers. Teach your children to distrust anyone who acts strangely. 2. Predators often are counted as family friends and are trusted members of the community. This is not an accident. Predators carefully craft their image so that adults admire and trust them. Pay attention if an adult friend seems too friendly and takes too much interest in your child. 3. Predators act like children to cover up th...

one of the best pieces of advice i’ve ever received was given by a sales manager back in my book-selling days with southwestern advantage . i was at one of our sales conferences, and we’d been listening to session after session of all of the most successful salespeople, dishing their scoop on their techniques and strategies, and how they became so successful at it. i was feeling slightly overwhelmed by all of the advice and pulled my manager aside to ask for a bit of guidance on how to figure out exactly how i should best apply all of this new advice to follow. i wanted to improve my schedule, my presentations, my referrals, my this, my that. everything! i wanted to be just like these super-successful people! and he said, “lexi, slow down. try to  emulate, not replicate . start first by   picking an attitude and an action  you could best apply to your life and your situation today .  trust that these people are indeed telling you the methods and the strate...