Children

Losing Is Good for You

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By Ashley Merryman, the co-author of the book “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing,” and author of a recent NY Times Opinion piece “Losing is Good For You”

“In life, “you’re going to lose more often than you win, even if you’re good at something,” Ms. Twenge told me. “You’ve got to get used to that to keep going.”

“our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories. Instead, our job is to help kids overcome setbacks, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a particular win or loss”

“You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge”

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From Dr. Phil’s book titled Life Strategies …

“Get real with yourself about your life and everybody in it. Be truthful about what isn’t working in your life. Stop making excuses and start making results.

If you’re unwilling to acknowledge a thought, circumstance, problem, condition, behavior, or emotion–if you won’t take ownership of your role in a situation–then you cannot and will not change it.”

It doesn’t matter if you spend 1000 hours practicing if you’re doing it wrong, all you learned is how to do it wrong.

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From Reddit user bradlee92 …

“It doesn’t matter if you spend 1000 hours practicing if you’re doing it wrong, all you learned is how to do it wrong.”

From a tennis blog …

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. So every time you repeat an action, right or wrong, you will find it easier to repeat that same action, right or wrong.

Practicing a bad shot will give you a better bad shot, but you will never look like Roger Federer.”

“Avoiding family poverty requires three things: 1) finish high-school, 2) marry before having children and 3) marry after the age of 20”

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Former Clinton domestic policy advisor Bill Galston … “avoiding family poverty requires three things:

  1. finish high-school,
  2. marry before having children and
  3. marry after the age of 20.

Only 8 percent of families who do this are poor, while 79 percent of those who fail to do this are poor.”

Live off your parents as long as possible.

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Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. Guy’s advice …

“Remember these ten things: if just one of them helps you, this speech will have been a success:

10. Live off your parents as long as possible.
9. Pursue joy, not happiness.
8. Challenge the known and embrace the unknown.
7. Learn to speak a foreign language, play a musical instrument, and play non-contact sports.
6. Continue to learn.
5. Learn to like yourself or change yourself until you can like yourself.
4. Don’t get married too soon.
3. Play to win and win to play.
2. Obey the absolutes.
1. Enjoy your family and friends before they are gone.”

Link to speech Guy has given six times at commencements, graduations and baccalaureates.

Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear

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Post by Lisa Dungate titled Courage is Not the Absence of Fear …

“As parents, sometimes we need to call in reinforcements, ask for help ourselves, and make friends with our own fears so we can be present, brave, and our child’s own personal hero or heroine.  As parents, we are the light that can shine when our child’s world seems dark, when the monsters under the bed give fright, and no one at school seems friendly.

I remind myself each day that having courage does not necessarily end worry or disappear fear.  Courage is the catalyst by which we move beyond fear and into faith.  We may not know exactly the right words to say when our child is sad or anxious or unhappy.  But, we can decide to push aside our petty worries and pernicious fears.  We can tell stories from our own life to offer comfort and perhaps even some inspiration.  We can hold their hand and just breathe together through the pain and confusion.”

The more a person is committed to a goal … the more negative compared with positive feedback will be efficient.

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From a post titled “When Is a Negative a Positive?” on Freakonomics.com.

Ayelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago …

“The more a person is committed to a goal — and by that I mean the more someone thinks that they absolutely have to do it, they like doing it, it’s important for them to do it — the more negative compared with positive feedback will be efficient”

Heidi Grant Halvorson, associate director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia Business School …

“Look, doling out negative feedback is not fun. It’s embarrassing. We feel terrible. We feel guilty.  So we love hearing, ‘Hey, maybe I don’t have to give negative feedback,’ ‘Maybe I can just say positive things!’  ‘If I just keep saying positive things, then somehow this person will work to their fullest potential and everything will turn out fine.’ And that just turns out to not be the case.”

‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

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From a commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005 …

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.