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Jim's
Message to Parents
If
you are reading this, you are among only three percent
of American adults who will search for information
to improve your life. In fact, you’re actually
part of a small percentage of that group because
you are looking for information to help improve
your child’s life. For adults with desire
and determination, the world is full of various
methods of self-help, including books, cds, seminars,
programs, and even private consultation with experts.
Adults have countless opportunities to learn effective
goal-setting techniques, increase intelligence,
gain confidence, and become thinner and healthier,
better liked, organized, richer or more communicative.
The
sobering truth, however, is that the same opportunities
are not there for your most precious asset; your
child, especially your teenager. Teens have startlingly
few resources geared just for them. What time
does your teen attend a class called “goal
setting” or a class called” leadership”
or a seminar on developing a great attitude? That’s
why I created 10 Steps to Success.
Since
1985, I have been conducting broad-based research
in this area with a goal of creating programs
for youths and teens that help them identify and
set goals, and to develop an attitude for success
and the courage to see those goals to reality.
Along
the way, I noticed that many parents who are highly
motivated and talented individuals themselves
often give up in frustration after trying to inspire
their own children to achieve. Teens can often
become unreceptive to parental guidance and seem
“lost” at home, school and the athletic
arena. Parents then despair about why their children
don’t seem to care about achievement, or
making an effort. Parents worry their children
have self esteem issues and seem to lack direction.
From
my experience, the biggest issue is the source
of inspiration. Though it often comes from the
people who love them most, advice from parents
pales in importance when compared to the influence
of a third party from outside the home, usually
a peer or coach, an entertainer or professional
athlete. A peer often doesn’t have the maturity
of experience to give good advice. And after seeing
the poor choices some athletes and entertainers
have made in recent years, that’s a very
scary thought for most parents.
The
goal for most parents is to make sure that if
they are momentarily not the dominant advisor
to their children, then they are comfortable with
the authority figures their children are looking
to for advice.
That’s
where the 10 Steps to Success program comes in.
Over twenty years ago, I played my last game as
a professional NBA basketball player. Since then,
I have dedicated my life to helping children understand
the power of attitude, courage and goal setting.
Through hundreds of hours of study and research,
including tapping the finest minds in psychology,
neurology and physiology, I have learned a great
deal about helping children and teens improve
their lives. And whether I like it or not, the
fact I was able to make it as a professional athlete
on the basis of sheer determination gives me a
natural advantage in terms of instant credibility
with children. I achieved what many of them want
at that age. The funny part is that becoming a
professional athlete is easy compared to becoming
a successful human being. That’s what I
want to teach your children.
One
key challenge at this age is not what children
and teens are told, but how they are told.
Teens
are told to study harder, try harder, practice
harder, make better choices, get better grades,
use your head, be more outgoing, etc. Each of
these descriptions is meaningless to someone who
has no frame of reference or context. Concrete
is “hard.” The wooden basketball floor
is “hard.” The messages our youth
are receiving are meaningless if they are not
taught and given examples of how to do these things.
Add
to this the complication that your children constantly
compare themselves to you, and they often find
themselves wanting. To young people, parents seem
“to have all the answers” and to be
very capable. Everything young people aren’t.
To your inexperienced and possible insecure child,
you can be a very tough act to follow.
Through
the 10 Steps to Success program, your child can
develop the attitude, leadership, courage, and
goal-setting skills to become even more successful.
How do I know? Over the past two decades, I have
mentored countless young people about these attributes
in the context of trying to improve their results.
I have witnessed and documented incredible growth
in these young people on a personal, academic,
athletic and social basis. I know they are listening,
and more importantly, they are applying what they
learn.
Don’t
you wish something came into your life to explain
the skills of success when you were a teenager?
How much better could you have been if you had
that little edge? The development of your child
is the greatest gift you can provide, and the
greatest legacy you can leave the world. Why not
take advantage of this opportunity to put these
time-tested concepts to work.
Jim
Brogan & the Team
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