Professional Development Quotes

I was raised in an era when part of respecting your elders was to call them by Mr. or Mrs. When my children were growing up, an occasional child would call me Susan. It was jarring, felt disrespectful, and I did not like it. We reached a mutual agreement and their friends began calling me Ms. Susan. Perhaps this is more prevalent in the South, however, your awareness and consideration can help prevent social missteps.

~ Susan C. Young

It is wise to use titles for people in positions of power, higher education, seniority, or maturity, unless otherwise instructed. This may sound old-fashioned, but practicing respectful traditions will earn you points and inevitably make you seem more cultured and sophisticated. This is especially true with older generations.

~ Susan C. Young

To call certain people, such as your boss, teachers, professors, doctors, your parent’s friends, etc. by their first names might be considered disrespectful. It is best to err on the side of caution until you know what is appropriate.

~ Susan C. Young

Asking permission to call someone by their first name is a gesture of gentility and consideration. And once permission is granted, the gate is open for mutual respect and mutual purpose. Simply demonstrating this courtesy before making an assumption is impressive. Once permission is granted, you have earned points on both sides.

~ Susan C. Young

Make It Fun. Have you ever been publicly acknowledged or called upon in a room filled with people? Depending on your personality type, it can be either exhilarating or mortifying. It certainly does grab your attention, as well as everyone else’s!

~ Susan C. Young

When I am working with groups of thirty or fewer people, there is a powerful name exercise that I do to break the ice, start with humor, and begin my program with positive energy. One by one, each person will introduce themselves using an adjective that describes their personality that starts with the first letter of their name. “Spontaneous Susan,” “Dependable Dave,” and “Happy Helen” are a few quick examples. The benefit for the participants is twofold: it makes each person feel good and it makes people laugh. Additionally, it enables me to learn their names so that I can integrate them into the entire presentation for full engagement and participation.

~ Susan C. Young

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

~ Susan C. Young

Financial success is only partial success.

~ Maddy Malhotra

Professional learning does not advance… through the inexorable confirmation of previous certainties, but through a systematic challenge to our present conceptions

~ Douglass B. Reeves