May you create, share, and savor powerful moments
in the coming year and beyond.

While sitting in an Austin hotel room at the end of May 2010, I wrote my first post for this blog. At that time, I had three goals:

• Experience a new (for me) aspect of social media
• Develop and flesh out new ideas
• Provide something of value—not just another cyber rant.

I believe I have accomplished the first and the second. It is up to you whether I have accomplished the third. My blog posts contain videos, book recommendations and summaries, questions to ponder, and always a takeaway to apply immediately to life.  I have remained true to my commitment to publish one blog post per week. This post marks the 397^th consecutive week.  And I know that I am #alwayslearning!

Since the first post, this blog has had nearly 38,000 visits and evolved into www.thegrowthandresiliencenetwork.net. Thank you!

Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing.  I would love to hear what you find of value on this blog. And, please feel free to share any ideas you have for future posts.

Video Recommendation for the Week.

A brief thank you from me to my followers.

As has now become tradition for this blog, this last-of-the-year offering lists each of the previous week’s posts I added this year. Along with each title, you will find a teaser about each. Perhaps a nugget or two will provide inspiration. I have linked each title to the actual blog should you want to read it, re-read it, or share it. Thank you for your continued support and comments.

I also have included (1) top five blog posts (by number of views/visits) since I started this journey in 2010; and (2) the top five blog posts for 2017.

*Top Five All-Time Posts on this Blog*

1. (#194) Honor the Past. Celebrate the Present. Embrace the Future.
2. (#86) A Model for Critical Thinking
3. (#18) Crab Pot Mentality
4. (#93) SQ4R: Strategic Reading Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond
5. (#219) The First Day of Class: People Before Paper!

*Top Five 2017 Posts on this Blog* 

1. (#392) He Made Me a Better Version of Myself
2. (#351) Show Don’t Tell
3. (#379) Accommodations for My Students Made Me a Better Teacher
4. (#368) Fake, Illegitimate, or Incomplete Information 
5. (#354) What Can You Really Control?

*2017 in Review*

1. A Piece of the Puzzle * You may not even “get anything” for it. But you may carry an important piece to someone else’s puzzle.
2. Video Outtakes: Finding Humor And Moving Forward * Enjoy three-minutes-and-fifty-one-seconds of my miscues. And consider how each miscue you make can strengthen you and maybe help someone else. Don’t be ruled by fear of failure.
3. Clues At The Tip Of My Nose * The little child had returned to remind and reassure me to believe in my abilities and myself.
4. Repair The Bucket. Fill The Bucket * Who can help you? Who can you help?
5. A Tangled Mess * We could ignore the tangles and hope they go away on their own. What is the healthiest and safest manner to help us stop going in circles, loosen up, and prosper?
6. Regrets? Choices And Lessons. * A culmination of all those choices. Some small.
   Some large. All help create the person you are becoming.
7. Show Don’t Tell * Saying it doesn’t make it so…too much talking mutes the story.
8. When Islands Protect and Support * “This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”—Teddy Roosevelt
9. Change Management * We are all in the change management business.
10. What Can You Really Control? * Perhaps understanding and accepting the uncertainty will allow you to see additional choices and paths to success.
11. Go-Go or No-Go? * Do you allow people into your head who would not invite into your home?
12. Are You Listening Or Adding To The Noise? * With a world full of noise, how can we fine-tune the needed listening skill?
13. Perspective * Our attention will determine our interpretation.
14. I Don’t Want To Burnout * How can we raise our awareness, question our assumptions, and create meaningful actions for improvement?
15. Collisions And Serendipity * If managers across the company landscape remain insular, they can end up repeating redundant routines and retreating behind territorial barriers.
16. Embrace Life’s Fragility * A reminder to appreciate.
17. Where’s My Trophy? * How would you develop a meaningful and effective employee recognition program? What represents “average” and what looks like “excellent” at your workplace?
18. Small Acts Of Gratitude * “Silent gratitude is not much use to anyone.”
    
19. A Resiliency Group: Collaboration, Creativity, Caring, and Collegiality* Rather than waiting for (or blaming) “them” to do something, get creative and start a resiliency movement yourself.
20. Your Legacy * Whatever you build, destroy, hand down, create, or undo will be your legacy.
21. Listening For Stories Of Inspiration * Inspirationfrom a woman who did not let circumstance dictate her outcome.
22. Why Not You? * Speaking and writing does not belong to some elite group of individuals.
23. Understand You Goal Motivation * Create a space for transparency, authenticity, and accountability for yourself.
24. Fake, Illegitimate, Or Incomplete Information * Just because you find a lot of information does not mean you have found accurate or credible information.
25. About Kayaks And Perspective * If we focus on the possible negative, we get sucked into it.
    
    
26. What’s Your B.M.I (Bureaucratic Mass Index)? * Has your bureaucracy morphed into a soul-sucking and resilience-retarding beast?
27. Your Life. Your Choices. * What do we choose to allow into our lives? What do we dismiss from our lives?
28. Independence * Consider where you can expand beyond your comfort zone.
29. What Factors Affect Teaching Efficacy * Teaching efficacy reflects the teacher’s belief that he or she can impact student learning.
30. Can a Community be Inclusive and Like-Minded? * When dialogues devolve into collective monologues do we miss out on our shared identity?
31. Capacities for Community Growth and Resilience * A community needs to be vigilant; to continuously deepen and develop capacities for sharing, cooperating, and growing.
32. The Lesson of the Bunny and the Deer * We can walk a pathway and never see it at all.
33. Your Future Self * These strategies can help students (and, after all, aren’t we all students?) stay the course, continue their journey, and enjoy growth and resilience.
34. If Something Happens and No One Sees it, Does Anything Happen? * Quietly reaching out and forging a connection and creating change.
35. Accommodations for My Students Made Me a Better Teacher * Being a teacher is more than knowing one’s content and “covering” the material. Effective teachers do what they can to connect with each student and build a community of learners who connect with one another.
36. The Sun Rises Each Morning. Sometimes We Cannot Recognize It * The sun will shine on the thousands of people who helped thousands of others survive the catastrophe. The storm saw strangers not acting as strangers.
37. Before and After the Conversation * Conversation presupposes an interaction between two or more people. Synergy can develop with due consideration. Collaboration can result in movement for improvement.
38. We All Live Downstream * Does your community resemble a collection of isolated islands? Maybe you can be the bridge builder for a movement to unite.
39. Creating Direction * While simple dichotomies may be deceptively simplistic, they can provide a starting point for conversation and movement.
40. Without Relationships What Do You Have? * These bureaucrats failed to establish a basic, meaningful, and respectful relationship with us.
41. Don’t Let Anyone Discount Your Agenda * Your agenda is important.
    Your issues, trials, tribulations, strife, successes, collaborations, family, friends, and resilience mean something to you and to others.
42. The Paddle Out * Sometimes we have to plow through rough water to find our happy places.
43. Lessons From Elementary School * Adults, are we listening?
44. Dividers. Adopters. Resistors * We have to know who “gets it, wants it, and has the capacity for it.”
45. Create Your Own Breaking News Alerts * Start small. Start local. Do nothing.
46. A Seven Week Challenge For Purpose and Growth * May you finish 2017 with clarity, peace, and vision for your future as well as those in your life.
47. Hot dogs, Weak Signals, and Promising Practices * What signals need to be heeded for the future? How can you move “best practices” to “promising practices”?
48. He Made Me a Better Version of Myself * Charles, thank you for being there for so many of us. Thank you for reminding us of the importance of humility, hard work, personal fortitude, paying attention, listening, and mostly, being human. You made me a better version of myself. You will be missed.
49. Incompetent People Who Believe They Are Exceptional * They not only lack the ability to see superior talent and skills in others, they possess a blatant inability to recognize their own ineptitude and shortcomings.
50. Resilience: Supporting, Flourishing, Growing * Do you see resilience as springing solely from adversity? Can it build from positive interactions in times that lack trauma?
    
    
51. Anticipate. Appreciate. * Acknowledge the past. Anticipate the future. And do not forget to appreciate the present. 
52. Circle the Wagons? * Rather than circling the wagons, maybe we should let the horses run.
53. A Blogger’s Retrospective: 2017 in Review * A listing of the previous 51 blog posts for 2017 + other blog posts that have proven to be reader favorites.

Make it an inspiring week, end of the year, and New Year–and H.T.R.B. as needed!

For information about and to order my new book, Stories About Teaching, Learning, and Resilience: No Need to be an Island, click here.

My podcasts: The Growth and Resilience Network™ (http://stevepiscitelli.com/media-broadcast/podcast).

My programs and webinars: website  (http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/what-i-do) and (http://stevepiscitelli.com/programs/webinars).

Pearson Education publishes my student textbooks for life success—Choices for College Success (3^rd edition) and Study Skills: Do I Really Need This Stuff? (3^rd edition).

(c) 2017. Steve Piscitelli. All rights reserved.