It is almost unfathomable to think in today’s modern-day society that US schools have had 320 school shootings - by students - since the 1999 Columbine School massacre. Sadly, it’s true. And sadly, school shootings are happening more frequently too. But, is it possible to believe that we (students, teachers, administrators) can stop ALL school shootings? Yes. If we can expose and eradicate what drives, motivates students to plan, carry out the massacring, murdering, and killing of innocent souls we can stop ALL school shootings.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. Would a student who is truly happy inside, who has a purposeful life, who is compassionate to others, that is giving, caring, respecting - who has at least one great friend - shoot up a school? Absolutely Not!. On the flip side, a student that’s filled with anger, rage, hate, pain is a ticking time bomb for a school massacre. And a likely candidate for drug usage and suicide. Thus, whatever is causing the anger, rage, hate, pain is the root cause of school shootings, drug usage, suicide, bullying.
Jedi Master Yoda most eloquently stated, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Yoda’s wisdom is spot on - Fear Leads To Suffering. The sole, sinister reason for school shootings is fear. Fear leads to hate, anger, rage, depression inciting suicides, school shootings, bullying, drug usage. A Gallup survey revealed 97% of employees are fearful. If 97% of parents go to work in fear, how many students attend school every day in fear? A lot!!!
Fear doesn’t discriminate either. It destroys regardless of race, age, gender, religion, social class, nationality. Greed, wars, racism, poverty are byproducts of fear. Hospice workers interviewed hundreds of dying people and concluded that 9 out of 10 people die with regrets due to fear. Fear is the sole reason people(students) fail to reach their dreams and destinies. Martin. L. King wrote, “Fear is the biggest problem society faces.”
Fear also wreaks havoc in businesses. In the book, Creative Inc, Ed Catmull dedicates an entire chapter to fear. Mr. Catmull writes the biggest blocker to creativity and innovation is fear. Mr. Catmul is the former president of Pixar Animation Studio(Toy Story movies) and Disney Animation Studios. Google's multi-year Project Aristotle research, revealed fear is the biggest hindrance to successful teams. American Medical Association states that 75% of all the company’s medical expenses are caused by stress(fear). Without a shadow of a doubt, fear is the #1 reason for lost profits, poor innovation, unproductive employees/teams, and toxic work cultures.
The good news is fear is learned and it can be unlearned. The #IMBOLD training focuses on helping students become victorious over fear. The 14-hour training is spread over 7 weeks. Students learn that their fears were learned from their parents, siblings, friends, television, books, internet, movies. They learn to effectively understand, manage, and master their fears. Students learn the secret ancient VOF (victorious over fear) formula to apply to everything they do in life. They learn that An VoF Life = Success = Happiness = Passion = Creativity = Friends = Dreams Achieved.The #IMBOLD training has three parts; a 1-hour pep talk, 6 hr full-day workshop, and seven 1-hr experiential, interactive 360 VR/AR immersive sessions.