What 21 Teenagers Taught Me This Week

[Zachary McDonough]

Hey everyone, I am trying to give regular updates on the market, SoMD happenings, news, and personal updates via weekly email/forum posts. Last week I skipped my weekly email, because my wife and I (along with other youth leaders) took 21 teens to an overnight camp for five days. Yup… I know what you are thinking. Yes! It was exhausting but extremely fulfilling. It was amazing to watch the kids worship, learn, grow, and serve throughout the week.

What impressed me was how much the kids taught me about me…

Every day, the leaders and I hung out with these kids, some we knew very well and some not at all. As we got further along in the week, it became so obvious to me that our environment is directly related to our behavior.

Let me explain: known kids who were exceptionally shy and reserved became very outgoing and open at camp. This is a single focal point that I will use to illustrate how our environment changes us. In my opinion, these camps are specifically designed to manufacture an environment for growth in youths. Kids love fun. So that’s a major element to camp that leads to kids being open to expressing themselves freely. Certain kids from our youth group who hardly ever speak were talking my ears off. HAHA. During “large group” (definition: resembling a church service, takes place in an auditorium), music would set the scene, where the band would play 2-4 songs and all would sing along. Afterwards, the speaker would give a keynote of sorts, and the band would come back out. This large group structure remained the same all week, once in the AM and in the PM. However, it was clear that the music-message-music moved everyone in a way that the most reserved students or leaders would share about their experiences and struggles in their present condition.

So, why do I share all of this with you? How does any of this matter?

Camp is the ideal environment for the student’s growth, what’s your ideal growth environment? Where are you your best self?

I used to have no idea, too…

First, I looked up the definition for “environment”

In their real world, some of our environment we’ve created and some we haven’t. My mom always taught me that we control about 5% of our environment and life but the way we take care of the 5% affects the 95% of our “uncontrolled” environment.

For the last two years, I’ve been working on ways to build a better environment for me to operate in. I’ve learned a very basic, flexible structure that alters my environment for my body, mind, and spirit.

To give credit where it’s due, I learned this from Hal Elrod, author of the Miracle Morning. It’s called SAVERS.

S - silence

A - affirmations

V - visualization

E - exercise

R - reading

S - scripting

SAVERS paralleled with the teen camps, it’s easy to identify the similarities.

Silence is a brief time free of distractions. For me, this is typically prayer and meditation. For others, it might be a quiet carride. In my experience, closed-eyes yield the best ROI on calming your mind and preparing for daily challenges.

Affirmations are ways to build your environment in ways that they do or do not currently exist. For example, depending on my physical environment, I state outloud or to myself positive statements. Change your environment, change you. Tell yourself that you are good at real estate till you become good at real estate (or whatever that interests). Now before we move on, I want to be clear that affirmations will not make you good at your “real estate” but align your attitude with someone who can be good at your thing.

Visualization is being clear about a specific overarching goal. My people would call it their WHY. So visualization is solemnly thinking/picturing your WHY. It’s important to be specific. Imagining the specific details engages your mind deeper.

Simply stated, Exercise is about getting your body moving daily.

Like Camp, Reading is your daily message. What are you filling your brain with? Things that help or hurt you. Read 10 pages a day for 90 days and tell me if it does not impact you. It does. Trust me.

My Scripting is super simple: 3 things that I am grateful for and one thing that would make my day great if I completed it (never put more than 3 things on this or your day will suck!!).

Can you see how things can improve the way you view the world? You can take ownership over your environment. You can become more self-aware. You can slowly grow yourself, one day at a time.

There’s a solid majority of you reading this (if you made it this far) who believe this message does not apply to you. Your brain has already marked it “N/A”. But you’re wrong.

Change your environment, change you.

Your real estate friend,

Zack