Term 1

Week 1

"The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become."
      - H G Wells

In a book called, Your Roadmap to Success, John Maxwell defined success as a journey. Success is not a destination. It is ‘knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others’.

When disaster strikes it does not matter what your L1R5 is, what school you are from, who your parents are and where you live. What matters is that you have lived and made a difference or that you are alive and are able to make a difference.

Some of us have been on a cruise to nowhere. You get on board a ship, it goes out to sea and travel in circles a couple of days. You dine on sumptuous meals, lounge around the pool, enjoy the shows and participate in organised activities A cruise to nowhere may be a fun way to occupy a few days of vacation time, but it’s no way to spend your life. How can you hope to fulfil your purpose and grow toward your potential if you don’t know what direction you should be going? To be a successful person, you need to identify a destination and sail toward it. It may not be a smooth ride, but at least you will get there, in good time.

Unsuccessful people can always find reasons for why they are not doing well. But successful people don’t make excuses, even when they can justify them. No matter what the circumstances, they make the best of things and keep moving forward.

This is the start of a new year. Let’s:

1. concentrate on one main goal
2. forget the past
3. focus on the future and
4. sow seeds that benefit others.

Week 2

Jackson Brown, author of Life’s Little Instruction Book said:

• You pay a price for getting stronger,
• You pay a price for getting faster,
• You pay a price for jumping higher,
• (But also) you pay a price for staying just the same.

John Maxwell recalls a story told by a friend who grew up near the Atlantic Ocean where people catch blue crabs for dinner. When you catch crabs, you toss them into a bucket or basket. If you have only one crab in the basket, you need a lid to keep it from crawling out, but if you’ve got two or more, you don’t. This is because they will drag one another down so that none of them can get away.

On your road to doing something you set out to do, you may want to avoid crabs, that is, people who try to keep others from getting ahead by promoting mediocrity, or by being disparaging and negative. Stay out of the basket by refusing to be a crab yourself. Raise yourself up and raise others with you. This is the only way you can get on with your journey towards success.

Week 3

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
      - Francklin D Roosevelt

The two greatest detours in our success journey are definitely fear and failure.

All of us have fears: a US survey showed that nine out of ten people feared speaking in public. Some of us fear heights, ageing, loneliness, water. Most of us fear failure.

Take a look at the pattern fear can create in a person’s life:

• Fear breeds inaction;
• Inaction leads to lack of experience;
• Lack of experience fosters ignorance; and
• Ignorance breeds fear. (John Maxwell)

We wore red on Monday to celebrate the triumph of the Lions over the Indonesian defending champions in the Tiger Cup and we applaud both teams’ fighting spirit. After seven years of seeming failure to reach anywhere near the finals, disparaging remarks from critics who lament the death of Singapore Soccer after the 70s, the team persisted and put in 110% to emerge the kings of South East Asian Soccer. Skipper Aide Iskandar, one of only two players in the squad who had previously tasted Tiger Cup victory in 1998, was quoted as saying: "It feels good, as a captain, to be able to lead the team to victory. This is for the fans who believed in us and also for the coaches who have put so much effort into this."

Seven long years - but Aide Iskandar did not pack up and switch careers. He kept his dream going and the desire burning and he, together with the believers, experienced success.

Week 4

"To me, success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success only represents 1 percent of your work that results from 90 percent of that which is called failure."
      - Soichiro Honda

Soichiro Honda, the man who built Honda Motors Co. into one of the world’s most innovative auto companies was born in a little village southwest of Tokyo. He had little formal education, left school at 15 to seek work as an auto mechanic. Whilst attempting to build engines for racing, he became a professional race-car driver and suffered a crash that nearly killed him. That sent him back to work as a mechanic. Persevering and living simply, he started a company in 1937 but World War 2 started. His factory was bombed when the Allies forced an airstrike to end the war. For more than a year, he made a living brewing alcohol with a homemade still. In 1948, he started a new company, took on a partner and came up with a motorized bicycle. His dream though, was to come up with something bigger – build a car that would leave Toyota’s and Nissan’s models in the dust. He came close to that before his death from liver failure in 1991 at the age of 85. Today, Honda stands as the largest motorcycle manufacturer and the 9th largest automobile manufacturer in the world.

As Soichiro Honda would advise us, don’t take failure personally. Unsuccessful people are often so afraid of failure and rejection they spend their whole lives avoiding risks or decisions that could lead to failure. They don’t realize that success is based on their ability to fail and continue trying. When you have the right attitude, failure is neither fatal nor final. It can be a springboard to success.

Week 5

The JC 1s heard Dr William Tan, neurologist and Olympic wheelchair marathonist on 13 Jan, telling us that he was going to complete seven marathons in seven continents in seventy days, to raise funds for a local charity to help teens with cancer. He left that evening for Africa, his first stop. We look forward to his return in seventy days’ time.

Here’s a story as told by John Maxwell:

      "On an Oct evening in 1968, a group of spectators remained in Mexico City’s Olympic Stadium to see the last finishers of the Olympic marathon. More than an hour before, Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia had won the race to the exuberant cheers of onlookers. But as the crowd watched and waited for the last participants, it was getting cool and dark. It looked as if the last ruuners were finished, so the remaining spectators were breaking up and leaving when they heard the sounds of sirens and police whistles coming from the gates. As everyone watched, the last runner made his way onto the track for the last lap of the twenty-six mile race. It was John Stephen Akhwari from Tanzania. As he ran the 400-metre circuit, people could see that his leg was bandaged and bleeding. He had fallen and injured it during the race, but he hadn’t let it stop him. The people in the stadium rose and applauded until he reached the finish line. As he hobbled away, he was asked why he had not quit, injured as he was and having no chance of winning a medal. “My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race”, he answered. “They sent me to finish the race.” "

What a wonderful show of spirit and purpose. Akhwari looked beyond the pain of the moment. He kept his eye on his purpose and that drove him to finish the race – to do the best that he was capable of doing. You were created for a purpose. Make your decisions and plan your efforts accordingly.

Week 6

The TJC Annual Road Run is on. As you take on the 3.6 or 4.2 km run, here’s a story I want you to carry with you:

      " As a teenager, Terry Fox was involved in many sports. In 1977, when he was about your age, he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 cm above the knee. While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. His journey was named the Marathon of Hope.

Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 km a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario. However, on 1 September, after 143 days and 5,373 km, Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age of twenty two.

The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning. To date, more than $360 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world. "

If you think scaling Lucky Heights is tough, think of the goal that you have set for yourself and keep your eyes focused and your legs moving till you reach the end point.

Week 7

Pit bulls are apparently friendly and mild-mannered dogs unless they are threatened or attacked. They were originally bred in England in the 1800s to fight other dogs in an arena or “pit”. Even though they were small dogs of eighteen to twenty-one inches high and forty to fifty pounds, they rarely lost fights against much larger and more ferocious breeds. Why do you think this is so?

First, pit bulls are so tenacious that the only time they lose a fight is when they are killed. They would never give up and run away. Also, they usually win by finding a vital area on their opponent and then, when their teeth find their target, they would lock their jaws in place and not let go until the fight is over. They have more muscle strength per pound than any other breed of dog. What they are showing us is the power of persistence.

If you want to achieve, you have to have the discipline of persistence. Dreams are never found lying on the floor of a valley; they are never reached by coasting downhill. Dreams are always perched on the rocks at the top of the highest mountains. The pathways can be steep and treacherous, filled with obstacles. They cannot be reached without persistence. If you hope to achieve any of your dreams, practise the basics of persistence and you will begin to enjoy increased levels of success, along the journey.

Week 8

If ever there was anyone whose life can be said to be the personification of persistence, it was Thomas Edison. By the time Edison died, he had invented the phonograph, the electric light and the motion picture projector. He had been awarded 1,094 patents, more than any man or group of men in history. For him, true genius was a lot more about persistence than a high IQ.

During his three-year pursuit of the electric light, Edison was reportedly asked, “Why do you keep trying to create an electric light when you’ve already failed ten thousand times?” He said, “I have not failed ten thousand times; rather, I have successfully discovered ten thousand alternatives that don’t work, and with each one of those discoveries, I am that much closer to finding the one discovery that will work. He is said to have tested five hundred filaments before finding one that worked. Had he given up after testing number four hundred, we might still by reading by candlelight or kerosene lamps.

This is one of the greatest secrets of Edison’s success – whenever he got discouraged by the failures that preceded the birth of an invention, he would return to his broad vision, with all of its long-term and global ramifications. And without fail, this broad vision would re-energise him and his commitment to persist.

True persistence is hitting a brick wall, getting up, dusting yourself and realizing that you’re not going to get through it; so you have to figure out a way to get over it, under it, around it, or to blow it up.

Week 9

And at my back I alwaies hear, Time’s winged chariot hurrying near
And yonder all before us lie, desarts of vast Eternity
- Andrew Marvell

If you have a watch or clock in front of you, take a moment to look at the angle or space between the minute marks on the dial. That tiny little angle is three degrees. When the Apollo spacecrafts were launched from Cape Canaveral, if their course was off by that same tiny angle (one minute or three degrees), they would have missed the centre of the moon, not by that same tiny fraction of an inch but rather by a distance of thirteen thousand miles. In other words, if you stacked five more moons on top of our moon, the rocket would have missed the entire stack. The same is true in pursuit of dreams. If you get off course even by a tiny little bit, you can miss your dream by miles. Hence, having a clear sense of purpose and priority planning are important because they keep you on course, and on schedule, hour by hour, day by day.

We all have a limited amount of time. If you hope to achieve your most important dreams, you must be ever conscious that the twenty four hours you spend every day cannot be replaced. Time keeps us moving closer and closer to our ultimate end. Keep track of how you spend your waking hours so that the precious resource is not wasted away.

Week 10

At 21, he saw his first business fail.
At 23, he ran for a state political office and lost.
At 24, he saw his second business fail.
At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.
At 29, he ran for Congress and lost.
At 31, he ran for Congress again, and lost again.
At 37, he ran for Congress, and won.
At 46, he ran for vice presidency, and lost.
At 49, he ran for the Senate and lost.

But at the age of 51, Abraham Lincoln became the sixteenth president of the United States of America, and he went on to overcome the greatest challenge ever faced by an American president – the abolition of slavery.

One of the greatest enemies of persistence is impatience, the desire to chase your dreams at a sprinter’s pace. Unfortunately, worthwhile dreams are never only a hundred yards away. Instead, they are usually miles away. Most people gain a vision or a dream and then run as fast and as hard as they can to attain it. Think back to the last time you saw a hundred-metre dash. You will realize the runners would be gasping for air after that spurt of energy. As foolish as it would be for even the fastest sprinter in the world to compete seriously in a marathon, it’s even more foolish for you to expect to catch your dreams at a sprinter’s pace.