December 25, 2012

Fu Mingtain: Expand Your Focus to Strengths

Everyone is talking about Fu Mingtain these days in Singapore. What can she teach your kids?


Here are a few good things various people have talked about her.

1. She's tough.
2. Never say die.
3. She's a fighter, warrior.
4.“She has excellent fighting spirit and mental strength. She really deserves the gold medal,” said Singapore’s chef-de-mission, Dr Tan Eng Liang.

So, you can ask your kid to be tough, to never say die, to keep fighting against heavy odds, to be strong etc.
If your kid agrees, then you can stop reading this post right now.
If, the other hand, your kid hesitates, then please read on.

I am writing in my own words what I've read in the Straits Times.
She noticed that the home crowd cheered the other player and booed her.
Instead of taking this as intimidation, she interpreted this as more pressure piling upon her opponent.

Reframing! A more helpful point of view! A better perspective! (CBT! REBT! NLP! Don't worry about this alphabetic soup: concepts matter, terms don't.)
And therefore, more optimism, more courage.

The footballers who choke, collapse under pressure/expectations ...
Kids who get stomach upsets, emotional upsets near critical exams ...

They may not be able to toughen up in days, but they may be able to conjure up a nicer point of view in hours and get more courage in time.

Even the famous general US ("unconditional surrender") Grant overcame his fear with a spin on his perspective. More about this later.

I can't turn a chicken kid into an eagle in months. But I can help a chicken kid fly above eagles in hours. It's easy, isn't it? If I let it fly in a plane. (How about Cao Cao, Song Jiang, Mao, any under dog in history?)

A perspective is worth 80 IQ points, right?

November 23, 2011

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