We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Stephenson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary below.
Mary, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
The saying ‘Life is a journey’ is so very true. You are constantly growing and learning about yourself, and that learning will never stop. I believe my resilience stems from just trying not to fear uncertainties, failure, unknown, rejection, and other thoughts or feelings that may challenge us from our feeling of security or out of our comfort zone. Because these are things that we will come across on our life’s journey and will help us evolve and transform. Easier said than done.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am Mary Stephenson, Head instructor of the Kumon Math and Reading Center of Jacksonville – Regency. As an extensively trained and certified professional instructor, I serve as a mentor who guides your children through their work while also providing direction, support and encouragement.
The Kumon Method is one of its kind. It recognizes that each student is unique, therefore the Kumon learning journey is personalized for each child. Throughout your child’s learning journey, Kumon hopes to instill valuable traits such as a positive attitude towards learning,
good study and work habits, patience, self discipline, accountability, self motivation, and perseverance.
I create an at-home study plan in addition to monitoring classroom assignments, and I emphasize the importance of accurately completing each assignment within a designated time frame. This has helped many of my students increase self-confidence, thus becoming more self-reliant. Like all Kumon Instructors, I have a true passion for education and an earnest desire to help children succeed.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Three skills I feel were most impactful for my journey are patience, expect failure, and persevere.
Patience because you can’t always things to go according to your timeline, that’s just not how it works. You’ll just end up being constantly frustrated. I had to shift my mindset to saying to myself “Don’t worry we are going to get it done.” or “Little steps, but it is still progress.”
Expect Failure, so failing is not really a negative thing. You gain more insight, and you start to see that failing is actually an opportunity to try again but even better. It’s a great teacher.
Persevere you just got to keep going, I say to myself even if they are small steps just keep putting one-foot in front of the other.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas & Auguste Maquet
I have a lot of books that I love but this is one of the stories that stood out to me. I love how the main character over comes many obstacles.
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