Each month we at Building Leaders for Success are proud to share the story of someone or an organization that is making difference in their lives through success as well as helping others to find their own success. This month we are pleased to feature Joshua Vickery, Founder and Executive Director of Central Florida Community Arts. I graduated with a degree in music and was involved in church music for 10 years. I then started career with Walt Disney World in 2010 as a Casting Director and a Vocal Coach. 2010 was also the year that we began CFCArts - after years of making music, we realized that Central Florida did not offer many cultural platforms for EVERY performance artist to use his or her talent, so we began the journey of creating an incredible community arts program. Over the course of my entire career I have been a vocalist, producer, conductor and a workshop facilitator. I also traveled on road for 2 years in a professional singing group. What actions have you taken to create and achieve success? Surrounding myself with other strong leaders, casting a vision that people can follow, being honest and doing my best to follow through, fulfilling promises, having a hard work ethic, and finally, encouraging and treating other people as I would want to be treated. Who have been influences in your life to push you to success and achieving your goals? My parents and the Disney leadership team, My musical influences have been Dr. Reith, Dr. Robinson and Gary Miller. What are your tips for success that you would like to share for aspiring success builders? Surround yourself with other strong leaders, cast a vision that people can follow, be honest and do your best to follow through, fulfill promises, have a hard work ethic, and finally, encourage and treat other people as you would want to be treated. What are your tips for success as well as being the leader of a large organization? Don't sweat the small stuff, try to focus on the positive and create a healthy culture for people, the environment and the community. Make sure that people are more important than programs and money. Finally, don't stray from your mission, regardless of what organization you're leading. What is Central Florida Community Arts? CFCArts prides on three key terms - Connect. Serve. Perform We strive to tie everything we do into one or more of our three main purposes: connecting, serving, and performing. Connect - Connecting is about building relationships. We aim to create a family that allows people to use their talents and abilities – to be able to sing, play instruments and perform together, all while building lasting connections. Serve - Our heartbeat is serve and to give back to the community. To do this, we partner with local non profits and charities and perform at their fundraisers or for the clients they serve, at no cost. Perform - Members of our Choir, Orchestra and Children & Youth Arts programs all have the opportunity to perform in seasonal productions. We also offer music lessons, workshops and classes at our School of Performing Arts, and thereby equip local artists to do what they do, even better! Take a look at the history of CFCArts: After years of music making, the founders of Central Florida Community Arts (CFCArts), Joshua Vickery and Jonathan Cole, came to the realization that Central Florida does not offer many cultural platforms for EVERY musician to use his or her talent. Therefore, in September of 2010, they decided to begin the journey of creating an incredible community arts program. They began reaching out to influential people in the Central Florida area and every one of them responded with overwhelming support – thus, Central Florida Community Arts was born. Since then, many people have been working hard to make this dream become a reality – the organization was molded into a non-profit 501(c)(3) entity and a Board of Directors and a team of staff members were both developed. Success in the new venture came early – after a successful kick off in February 2011, CFCArts performed their inaugural concert to over 1,200 people in May of 2011, with a choir of over 130 singers and an orchestra of over 35 players. That choir has since grown into 3 separately-themed choirs with over 400 members total and their last concert reached over 5,300 patrons. CFCArts now also has a 130-piece community orchestra, 100 children and youth registered in their program for school-age performers, and a top notch vocal ensemble called Legacy!, that acts as the organization’s vocal ambassadors to the community. CFCarts gives back to the community by performing for other non-profit organizations for free, as well as hosts an annual performance summer camp program, at which underprivileged youths are enrolled for free, in order to introduce them to the arts. Most recently, CFCArts has opened a School for Performing Arts in order to offer affordable lessons and workshops in applied arts to Central Floridians of all ages. CFCArts’ success continues, they are confident about their vision and look forward to the future. For more information on Central Florida Community Arts or if you would like to get involved please visit them on the web at www.cfcarts.com. If you enjoy these tips for success, the best compliment you can give us is a like and / or share on social media or better yet, utilize our live services. Check us out on the web at www.buildingleadersforsuccess.com or on Facebook at Building Leaders for Success or email us at buildingleadersforsuccess@gmail.com
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Upon starting this blog one main goal was to provide practical, informational and educational direction for those who wish to gain more success in their lives and business. Of course we will continue on that endeavor. Since we have started covering those functional and a few idealogical purposes it dawned on me that we should spend some time on a philosophical aspect of success.
Everything that we have discussed thus far should be refreshed in your mind as you proceed with this reading. It is the choice to be successful, the value of good leadership, the value of good employees, what does it mean to be a good employee, the goal setting process, that I would like you to reflect on as we move on. What is your purpose? This is obviously a question wrought with self-reflection and a lot of hmms… From my perspective you have two possible purposes or one depending on your personal belief system. This will make sense momentarily. For those of you that practice religion or a spiritual belief system, then you probably believe that there is a higher power that has a plan or a purpose for you during your lifetime. And as part of that divine plan you have to discover what that purpose is and then move with it. The other possible purpose is the self-directed purpose. This one has two functions: 1. it can work in conjunction with your divine purpose and 2. It can be set by your personal desires that drive you to success. Starting early in my life I knew that 2 of my purposes in life were music and education. Maybe that thought process came to be because I was surrounded by it. I wasn't pressured to follow those purposes but I became intoxicated by them. They very quickly became part of my life's purpose. And even though now I am not in a classroom full time per say, I am still educating and will continue to do so. But now the world is my classroom and I am free to teach wherever and whenever without being confined to four walls in a classroom. We have talked about the success process including setting and achieving goals. Let's think about the goal setting process and incorporate that into the topic of purpose. The functional purpose serves as stepping stones for a means to an end. In order to get to point c, I must start at point a, then move to point b and then to point c. We think of the end result first so that we know our direction but how does the end result of success and our goal setting process reflect our purpose? The mind is a mysterious entity. As we formulate thoughts and develop a passion for said thoughts we start to make the conscious choice about whether we want these thoughts to become reality or exist only in the realm of imagination. What drives the thoughts that come into our minds? I would speculate that a large percentage comes from our daily observations of life happening around us but it is that smaller percentage that really matters most. It is our purpose that is generating thoughts. As we explore that purpose and move towards fulfilling it then we generate other thoughts on how to do it. What do we need to do? How are we going to do it? What resources do we need? How do we become educated in that subject? These are the practical questions that turn into goals. We now know what we want to achieve so we set up a series of goals that ultimately will lead us to that end result. Now that end result might not be our final purpose but it could be a stepping stone that will lead us to the next success that we must achieve to head towards our purpose. This is just the start of addressing the topic of purpose. As you begin to ponder your purpose in life, I would like to leave you with this thought "Success is the sense of self-worth and value that is gained from wanting what we get and getting what we want." Frank Taylor If you enjoy these tips for success, the best compliment you can give us is a like and / or share on social media or better yet, utilize our live services. Check us out on the web at www.buildingleadersforsuccess.com or on Facebook at Building Leaders for Success How many times have you heard that someone couldn't do something because they were limited by x, y, and z? We live in a world where people find it easier to make excuses than to accept responsibility for their actions or to take a risk. Lets expand on the latter part of that last statement. Have you ever caught yourself saying to yourself - if only I didn't have _______ or if I only had ________ then I would be successful? It is no secret that life will hand you challenges but it is your decision whether to let those challenges limit you or propel you towards success.
Henry Ford found himself in the midst of a functional limitation in the production of his cars. It was too time consuming and too costly to have so many workers working on a whole car at the same time. There had to be a better way to streamline the process so that he could produce more cars, faster, while keeping his payroll costs down. It was at this point the idea of having each person only be responsible for one aspect of a car's construction and they would focus only on that aspect of the construction. By dividing up the construction responsibilities of a car amongst the workers, his payroll went down, those individual workers became so specialized in their construction area that production increased and behold - the birth of the assembly line. Now if Henry Ford had not decided to tweak his production methods to get around a recognizable limitation, he probably would have gone out of business. I just recently saw that a para-olympian, who had her legs amputated was among the top three finalists on a popular prime time, dance competition show. Did Dr. Stephen Hawkings allow his physical limitations prohibit him from being such an outstanding contributor to science? Think of the limitations that Helen Keller was faced with and look at all that she achieved in her lifetime. The reality is that we are going to find ourselves face to face with some type of limitation(s). It is how you deal with them and the decisions that you make which will determine whether said limitation will hinder you or inspire you to greatness. If you enjoy this blog and the others in our archive, the greatest compliment that you can give us is a "like" or "share" on social network or better yet, utilize our live services. Visit us at www.buildingleadersforsuccess.com or on Facebook at - Building Leaders for Success. Today we are going to switch gears a bit. We are still speaking of the methods of success and leadership but let's look at it from the view of the employee. As we go down this blog journey we will bounce back and forth between viewpoints as the leader/employer and the employee. For many years before I took on those leadership roles and eventually created situations where me being a leader was absolutely required, I was the employee, the one being led.
The one thing that I always knew as an employee under the leadership of someone else was that if I wanted to keep my position I had to be held accountable for the responsibilities for which I was entrusted. If I didn't hold true to those expectations then I knew that I would lose my job. Because I have worked and learned from so many good leaders I knew that even if I made a mistake and took ownership of the mistake that my leader would give me guidance and give me another chance. I also knew realistically that those chances were numbered and the severity of the mistake would determine whether there was another chance or not. There was also the reality that when a mistake happened there were two options - I could make a change and fix the mistakes and be a better employee or my employer would simply make the change. That change could be a demotion or even termination. The true test of the character of an employee is in that decision. Someone who wants to be good at their job and wants to be successful will make the personal change to fix the mistake and be a better employee. How can one train to be a leader and gain success if they quit at every misstep or failure? You can run but you can't hide from who you are. Even if you decide that the situation you are in is not the best fit, do your best and when you decide to make a change at least make sure that when you start your new situation you are changing yourself to be a better you. Don't continue to make the same mistakes and expect a different result. Some have called that approach insanity. Be smart, show good character, learn from the people leading you and you might just be surprised in how they can help you and how you can positively help yourself. If you enjoy these blogs the best compliment you can give us is by sharing with your friends and colleagues on social media, visit our website at www.buildingleadersforsuccess.com or utilize our live services. As you move through the leadership learning process, which for the true leader is never ending, you will observe people who are authentic leaders and those who are not. Pay close attention to both and learn. The authentic leader is compassionate, self-reflective, confident and a true go getter. They are not afraid to take responsibility for their mistakes. And while they acknowledge a mistake they learn from it and fix it for the next time. With an authentic leader it is all about "we" and not "I". An authentic leader wants people to work "with" them. Many times there are great sacrifices taken by this leader that the employee will never know about. The idea that a leader would do whatever it takes to make sure that their team is taken care of is not something that they will openly admit unless absolutely necessary for the greater good of the organization.
The less than authentic leader will not always be visible at first. They will still accomplish great things and experience great success. Their teams will still experience success. The biggest difference in these types of leaders is the perception of illusion versus reality. The less than authentic will make themselves out to be more than who they really are. They will bring great ideas to the table but will expect someone else to carry them out. The attention of great successes will be drawn back to them while the failures of ideas are placed elsewhere. Less than authentic leaders will not utilize or fully utilize the skill sets and talents of the people that work "for" them. By doing this the leader will not have to worry about losing their "power." Or they might perceive that by allowing someone else to really shine that their fellow teammates will not respect them. Some of the greatest leaders recognize that they know what they know and what they don't know. By building a team of people who are skilled in what the leader doesn't know, they are creating a successfully winning situation. You have to be confident in what you do, who you are and what your goals are but it is ok to be humble. It humanizes you to your team. Most authentic leaders don't want to just be the boss. They want to be a motivator, an inspiration, someone that others want to follow. Of course in the end, you ultimately decide what type of leader you want to be. Even if upon reflection you realize you are being less than authentic, it's ok, there is still time to change and be an authentic leader. If you enjoy reading these blogs, the best compliment is a referral through sharing on social media, visiting our website - www.buildingleadersforsuccess.com and of course, utilizing our live services. |
AuthorFrank Taylor is founder and CEO of Building Leaders for Success, Inc. A musician of 25 years, educator of 15 years and a motivational speaker of 16 years, Mr. Taylor brings a wealth of knowledge that will promote success and fundamentals of leadership. Archives
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