Just finished reading a book ” Talent is Overrated ” I added a section of the book that I thought meant alot to me as a father, a coach and now as an inmate.
We celebrate acheivement, we worship celebrities, we praise athletes with trophies and we give awards to business accomplishments but we virtually ignore where it all comes from.
It comes down to hard work in each and everyone of these cases. Its something I have tried to teach my kids and hopefully Ive laid that foundation so they continue to succeed while im gone. I can not do it by myself whether im in here or not which is why great coaches are so important. Stellas has Margo to train her in horse back riding, she has the Davis family who coaches her in softball. Sawyer has Steve Brown, Marcus Haupt and the whole N. Knights family for football, In baseball he has coach Nelson, coach Kelly and Donny O. These coaches all know where accomplishments come from.
I feel as though I have taken similair leadership role here in prison and have the ability to help others. Often I find myself explaining where success starts. I think a majority of the time that is not understood. Self discpline and hard work are so important to acheive anything. This book is a good resource because it does not highlight accomplishments but rather the work it took for those people to get there. Many of these guys only know one life style and its unfortunately what has got them here. We have started with a simple plan right now to make sure we are taking the right steps to a career when they get out. Specifically we drafted a couple resumes and even included skill sets they dont have yet but will by the time we are done. We plan to celebrate when the hard work of improving ourselves lands us our next job.
If your a parent and dont want to read the entire book start with page 183 about our youth. One of the parts I liked ” The reason kids dont know what hard work is, is no mystery. Top perfromance makes good t.v.. Deliberate practice that leadsto top performance, highly repetitive and full of mistakes does not.
This book should also be given out from any coach to parents in youth sports. This is also a phenomenal book for business. Lots of good case studies.