The Art of Excellence: Success with High Standards

Quality and high standards lead to excellence

In the eyes of the average person, there’s something snobby in striving for excellence. For some people, possibly for most, excellence is pure luck, almost a luxurious state of living that you’re either born with or not. It is no coincidence that those who think this way don’t excel at many things in life.

There’s a paradox in the search for excellence, because it is the result of an attitude, a habit you need to have in the first place in order to achieve it. There’s something frustrating in understating what T. Alan Armstrong said, “Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship act”. It’s frustrating, because it makes you think that excelling is hard work.

Excellence goes together with extraordinary success that is higher than all standards. It’s frustrating because you cannot reach excellence without succeeding big time.

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Beautiful Kids vs. Brutal Honesty

Last week, I ran 3 parenting workshops and there was one topic that came up over and over again – the truth about your kids. While I was describing research, education methods, philosophy and personal development techniques to raise happy and successful kids, some people were very concerned about telling kids the truth.

I find the concept of “the truth” very problematic and the seed of many difficulties in life. Every small problem in life just makes this seed grow poisonous roots of inadequacy, self-doubt and fear.

At the workshop, I talked about the importance of raising kids to think they are capable, talented, smart, friendly, flexible, courageous, wise, trustworthy, etc (the list can be adapted to each parent’s needs) so they will have good beliefs about themselves, their skills and their abilities. I always say that overcoming kids’ learning difficulties is easier than overcoming their belief that something is wrong with them and that therefore, it is parents’ job to make sure their kids have positive, empowered beliefs about themselves.

The parents and I examined beliefs that are very good for kids to have. Let me ask you, if your son thinks he is smart, is that good for him or not? If your daughter thinks she is friendly, is it good for her or not? If your kids think they are good siblings, is it good for them or not?

Is it good for the parents too?

Well, apparently, for some people it is not good. To them, the truth is more important.

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Kids Speaking a Second Language

At university this year, I started studying a “second” language. In actual fact, this is my third language, because I already speak two – one at home and one with everyone else.

The language I chose to study is Spanish. The reason I picked it was probably that when I was in primary school, I studied with a wonderful teacher we called “Señor Carlos”, who made it so much fun that I will forever associate Spanish with fun times. One day, I am determined to visit Spain or some Latin American country so I can show off my amazing Spanish skills.

Actually, the more I study, the more I realize there are quite a few languages I would like to learn, none of which are anything like any of the languages I already speak. I am particularly captivated by Arabic and Russian and my latest addition is AUSLAN (AUstralian Sign LANguage).

What I want to talk to you about is the benefit of speaking a second and even a third language. Being the devil’s advocate that I am, I want to share with you a few things that may not be so great. Then, I want you to tell me what you think. If you spoke (or if you already speak) a different language (other than English, that is), would you teach it to your kids?

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Handy Family Tip: Early is on time

Last week, I wrote how important it is not to confuse being on time with doing things at the last minute and how you can lose opportunities by doing things at the last minute (“on time”) without taking spares or considering unplanned events, mistakes and accidents.

This second chapter will give you ideas of how to change it.

How to win in the game of life
Here is a story I tell my life coaching clients:

Every week for 20 years, an old man goes to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and puts a note in the cracks of the wall asking God the same thing, “God, please let me win the lottery”. Thousands of people come every day to pray to God and put notes with wishes for God. The tradition says that every night, God sends his angel Gabriel to bring him the notes. This old man put the same request every week, but nothing happened.

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Handy Family Tips: On time is late

Many times, the concept of “on time” is translated to “at the last minute”. Running a family is very similar. When your “on time” means “at the last minute”, you are going to have lots of problems, stress and heartache, not to mention raising kids with that philosophy who grow up to miss opportunities and fail in situations that otherwise could be very successful.

My son Tsoof is studying composition at Griffith University’s Young Conservatorium with Ralph Hultgren, who is a very inspiring person. Ralph is a very talented musician, composer and probably an excellent teacher, because he has managed to build one of the best music schools for young people in Australia.

One expression Ralph has used with his students and stuck with Tsoof was:

“On time is late and early is on time”

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How to Study for Tests: Teachers’ Clues

In 2008, I wrote the post How to study for tests, which contained important tips and advice on preparing and taking exams at school. That post covered 11 tips. Since then, I have had a chance to talk to many teachers about tip number 3 – highlight the important things – and I want to give some ideas on how to get the teacher to help you (your kids) do that.

Generally speaking, teachers really want their students to succeed. I know there are still teachers out there who consider teaching as some form of competition with their students, but they are the minority and we do not want to give them a stage here, so let’s just ignore them. I still believe teachers want their students to succeed, because after all, students’ success is proof the teacher has done a good job.

Teaching kids to notice the clues is very easy. You tell them that a class is like a challenging puzzle and they must solve the puzzle during exams. The challenge during the whole term is to find the pieces needed for the exam. Every test question is a piece of the puzzle. We need kids to listen carefully to the teachers, because they give clues about the pieces.

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Five Minutes Past the End of Your Nose

Nowadays, I am faced with deadlines almost on a daily basis for my university studies and at my job. This brings on considerations such as what to do first and when to get started. I also have many opportunities to go out and forget about all the things I have to do. There are great things on TV, lots of friends to chat to, parties to attend and books to read. I could really forget about assignments and deadlines and just go out. Going on from Dad’s earlier post Do it NOW, I want to chat to you about the value of planning ahead, of thinking five minutes down the track and the importance of this for children (and teens and young adults).

There was a wonderful saying in the classic 60s movie Mary Poppins. It goes something like this:

“Sometimes a person, through no fault of his own, can’t see past the end of his nose”

Of course, Mary Poppins was referring to the fact that people sometimes don’t accept things that aren’t part of their world. But this saying is always associated in my mind with the fact that sometimes children can’t fathom that while they get what they want right now, there are consequences to their decision.

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Raising Grownups

Parents often see themselves as “raising children”.

Not true.

Parents are actually raising future grownups and this is an important distinction, because grownups are independent, hopefully self-sufficient humans, whereas children are rather dependent and undeveloped beings who need continuous care and attention.

So in essence, no matter what we do today, we should do it with the final creation in mind – our future son or daughter when they are ready to say goodbye and beyond.

Will they be healthy and able to care for themselves so they can stay healthy?

Will they have the knowledge they need to not only survive in the world but also succeed?

Will they have the strength of character to do well and be happy?

But daily life is quite different for most parents. In most homes, parents are busy people and when they interact with their kids, it is often to do with housekeeping, cleaning up their messy rooms, getting off the computer or getting ready to go somewhere in a hurry. Most of the communication between parents and their children is aimed at right now (“Come here”, “Stop making noise”, “Clean your room” or “Let’s go”) and sometimes at the recent past (“Why did you…”, “If only you had…” or “You should have…”).

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Dedicated kids

As a coach who works with parents, I usually meet with those who think kids need to be managed better. Coming from a family where saying good things about your own kids is bragging, it took me a while to get over that and use my kids as inspiration for others, just like they are an inspiration for me.

You see, as a kid, I lacked something that was very important for success in life and only when I found it at the age of 16, my life changed course. My kids have grown up with it. It is called “dedication”.

Dedication is the act of giving yourself totally to a course of action. An oath you give yourself to do something, a commitment or a promise that people make to themselves and/or to others to be true to a course.

This is the story of some great kids who are dedicated and therefore win awards and prizes. In ten years, they will probably not remember all these wins (there are so many of them), but they will still posses that trait so essential to winning in the game of life – dedication.

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Do it NOW

My son Tsoof (bless his soul) is a really great kid. For a teenager, someone who generally listens, does well at school and cares for his family is rare and I definitely consider myself lucky to have him for a son.

But sometimes, he can leave things for the last minute.

From time to time, it is time to go to bed and all seems quiet, and then we hear this, “Oh, $^%&, I need to do X for tomorrow!”

“When did you get this?”

“A couple of weeks ago”.

“Why haven’t you done it until today?”

“I was going to, but then I forgot”.

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