What's Your Red Rubber Ball?

I was very exciting to kick off our Friday morning with our Red Rubber Ball project. Today I shared the story of the The Red Rubber Ball, sharing the rules which we will be internalizing throughout the year.

7 Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll

Everyone needs to have a red rubber ball. This is our passion, what we are chasing after day after day.

1. Commit to it. You should have a great desire from deep within to chase your red rubber ball every day of the year. It should be your motivating force to chase your passion, it should bubble up from your inner soul.
2. Seek out encouragers. You can't do life alone successfully! You must build relationships with other people who have a real and genuine interest in your pursuit of the red rubber ball.
3. Work out your creative muscle. Creativity will be a needed tool for you to develop and use due to the fact that life does not always go as planned. Our path will not always be obvious or easy to follow, therefore creative solutions will be needed to compensate during these times so that we can continue to pursue our red rubber ball.
4. Prepare to shine. You must practice and prepare during the quiet moments off stage so that when your opportunity to shine presents itself you are prepared to shine. You must believe your hard work will one day repay you. You must first do the hard work in order to reap benefits and rewards. You have an opportunity each day to live out your life's passion and work in pursuit of your red rubber ball.
5. Speak up. You must never accept the boundaries placed upon you by others, instead you must alter course in pursuit of your red rubber ball when needed. Leaders need to demonstrate courage. Leaders are needed who believe they can get others to buy-in to their red rubber ball. Leaders need to be able to inspire. Leaders need to be good storytellers.
6. Expect the Unexpected. Planning is an imperfect science, events and circumstances will occur that are outside your control and that impact your plans in a negative way. You can't predict these events, but you can prepare yourself for them by expecting the unexpected. This will better enable you to keep true to your pursuit of your red rubber ball.
7. Maximize the day. Everyone one of your days is made up of 86,400 seconds or 86,400 opportunities to chase, kick catch and run after your red rubber ball.  Play is serious business, and play is serious in business. There are opportunities that arise for purposeful play in business settings. You need to harness such opportunities, show them to your people and take advantage of them yourself.

Chasing Your Red Rubber Ball

• Block out some time in your schedule for play next week. Devote some time to your favorite hobby.
• Seek out ways to incorporate play into the workplace in a productive way that enhances the atmosphere and lifts your team up to a higher level.

Students will be deciding what their red rubber ball is. What gets them up in the morning? What are they passionate about? What dreams do they chase? I cannot wait to see what they come up with during our unit this year which requires some deep reflective thinking! Last year I realized my red rubber ball was learning, and I started off thinking it would be teaching. This year after some self-reflection I believe it is innovation. What is your red rubber ball?

Check out the Nike commercial he inspired from the words community and play: