So, I delivered the following as a talk at a school assembly on 20th May 2013 (St. Andrews School Turi). The main aim of the talk was to motivate the (mostly youthful) audience into becoming resilient people in achieving their dreams. I've taken out some names for confidentiality reasons and replaced with their respective roles but the rest is all there. Here goes-
Heart of a Champion
Beethoven was told by his music
teacher that as a composer, he was hopeless.
Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper
because he had “no good ideas”.
Thomas Edison was told by his teacher
that he was too stupid to learn anything.
Albert Einstein was four years old before
he spoke. He stuttered until he was nine. He was advised to drop out of high
school and was told by his teachers that he would never amount to much.
Henry Ford’s first 2 automobile
businesses failed.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high
school basketball team!
Stephen Spielburg dropped out of high
school. He was persuaded to come back and was placed in a learning disabled
class.
Ray Krok (who is that?) he failed
as a real estate salesperson before discovering the idea for McDonald’s.
These may not be new stories to you but they
form the basis of what I would like to speak about this morning- THE HEART OF A
CHAMPION. These are just but a few examples of champions in their various
fields. So when Winston Churchill commented that “Success is not final, failure
is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” his words reflected
the champion’s spirit.
So maybe you have not mastered the courage to
ask (the Headmaster) to give you a sample of his personal, embarrassing and hidden
setbacks, but I am sure if he were to list some of his setbacks in life, many
of us here would be very encouraged (at his expense of course).
But while we may entertain the thought of (the Headmaster) falling flat on his face, we need to take with us the one fact that he
has moved on from those setbacks to become the person he is today- a
Headmaster. A leader. “Comebacks”
or “underdog” stories are my favourite- that’s why I support Chelsea FC. To see
how people overcome various challenges through struggle and perseverance then
later emerge as heroes or heroines or celebrities of their time. I am sure we
all have, at one point or the other, admired something in such people and even
imagined ourselves living that glorious life of a champion. But what does it
take to become this champion…to achieve greatness? I would like to suggest to
you THREE things this morning that, in my opinion, form the backbone of a
champion.
First, is the ability to dream. We have heard
the old adage “A journey of a thousand miles, begins with…” (wait for
responses). Well I suggest to you that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with
a dream”. Orville and Wilbur Wright, otherwise known as the Wright brothers,
knew this quite well. Their journey was initiated by a dream. A dream common to
little boys, and myself. The desire to fly. Wilbur Wright described the birth
of their dream this way.
“Our personal interest in
it (aviation) dates from our childhood days. Late in the autumn of 1878, our
father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his
hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air.
Instead of falling to the
floor, as we expected, it flew across the room until it struck the ceiling,
where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy,
known to scientists as a ‘helicoptere’, but which we, with sublime disregard
for science, at once dubbed a ‘bat’.”[1]
Dreaming sometimes means being able to see
things just as the Wright brothers saw a bat. Also dreaming can be quite an
exciting experience and it is the time we go wild in our imagination, believing
that anything is possible. The only limit is ourselves.
Dreaming is easy; in fact I see some of you
doing it in my LAMDA lessons, yet some people do manage to lack the courage to
dream.
(The Headboy) here pointed out on Speech Day
that, and I quote “Aerodynamically speaking, a bumble bee should not fly, but
it does not know this, so it flies anyway”. This does not mean that in our
capability to dream, we should go jump off a cliff. “Besides, the bumble bee
does it, so why shouldn’t I try?”
“Because of gravity- that’s why.”
To me this quote means that we should be able
to SEE IT in our minds and then SEIZE IT with commitment, which leads me to my
next point.
“The sluggard
craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.”[2]
Many of the people in the list I mentioned earlier, made a decision to act on
the desire or dream that they had. The average person will do nothing about
their dreams, but a champion will almost always take action. However, sometimes
misfortune visits us even after dreaming and working really hard, and this is
the point where many abandon their hopes of achieving their dreams. This leads
to the final thing that makes a champion- the ability to bounce back from challenges.
The ability to
bounce back, otherwise known as determination, is what I suspect the scientist,
Professor Utonium, in ‘The Power Puff Girls’ later found to be Chemical X. Or maybe not.
In the words of Napolion Hill, ‘Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet
with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a
man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly
what the majority of men do.’ We need the humility to admit that
we may not win every time, maybe because we were wrong to begin with. Failure
or disappointments are bound to come your way, sooner or later, and it will be
the determination to see your dream fulfilled that will keep you going again.
The odds are usually against you in many instances.
So, I will ask
you some questions. Do you have a dream? (No pun intended) Can you act on your
dream? And finally, will you fight for your dream? Did Beethoven give up when
he was told he was hopeless? Did Walt Disney’s lack of a job, keep him from
building one of the most successful showbiz careers? Did two prior business
failures keep Henry Ford from building an automobile empire, known to this day?
Did missing a spot in the basketball team keep Michael Jordan from becoming one
of the greatest sportsmen of all time? You may have the dream, and you may have
the ability to act. But at the heart of every champion is a determination to
succeed against all odds.
I’d like to
close this assembly with a poem titled-
I WONT QUIT,
I’LL FIGHT by Kundan Panday
Fighting with my every
breath,
Knowing not when will it
end,
Neither submissions nor
escapism,
It’s all going to the end,
Desolated, deserted and
shattered,
Down to dust,
Kissing the ground
I won’t quit
I’ll fight
I can see thee, my cherished goal,
Quite a distance apart,
With hope as my friend,
I would conquer thee,
You may go far away,
You may increase the gap,
Still, I’ll chase you, for you are my destiny,
Down and out,
Frightened and alone,
Still, I won’t quit
I will fight
In achieving you I may be worse hit,
Break my ribs, punch me down,
Break the body, how will you break the spirit?
With every pain and punch, it will steadily grow,
Difficulties can only cut the wings,
How will they destroy my desire to fly?
I’ll fly to my sky,
I won’t quit,
I’ll fight
Illusions, distractions and obstacles,
Only remind me of thee,
Sailing to you,
With all my might,
Rowing the boat against
winds of time,
Searching the shore,
looking for light,
Burning all bridges,
Nowhere to return,
Nowhere to hide,
It’s all going till the
end,
I won’t quit,
I’ll fight
You are the journey,
You are the destination,
Just wait for me, I’ll be
there,
Living once and last,
And only for you,
At the end it doesn’t
matter,
I get you or not,
But one thing I’m sure
about,
I won’t quit,
I’ll fight
Thank you!
