Go Fast and Have Fun

Professional triathlete Jasmine Oeinck is the real deal.  She has earned amazing credentials.  She was two years in a row the top U.S. triathlete in the under 23-years-old class, and in 2009 came in first place in the U.S. National Triathlon competition.

Jasmine also co-founded Bulumu Granola, a company based on the values of sustainability and passion for life.  Bulumu is a word that Jasmine and her mom invented to sign off their emails, as Jasmine was jetting around the globe racing triathlons as a 19-year-old professional.  It stands for Buckle Up, Love You, Miss You—Bu Lu Mu.  And Jasmine’s granola is fuel for people to pursue their passion.

Last month Jasmine had a chance to talk with athletes in the Flagstaff Academy Youth Triathlon Club.  These are kids from pre-school to 8^th grade who are doing swim-bike-run training and racing.  She talked to them about training for races and other elements of triathlon.

Then she summed up her advice:

“If I had one bit of advice to give young triathletes, it would be this,” said Jasmine.

“Go as fast as you can.

“Swim as fast as you can, and bike as fast as you can and run as fast as you can.

“And have fun.”

Those are words to live by, like fuel for your passion.

Aunt v. Coach: Four Roles in Common

Compare and contrast: aunt versus coach.

Oh, let’s just compare.

Both aunts and coaches need to do four things.  This comes from a book by Robert Dilts called From Coach to Awakener.  It’s a great book.

First and foremost, both aunt and coach have to make sure that the kids in their care remain safe and healthy.  The parents aren’t around, so it’s up to you.  Their kids—for now, at least—are your kids. That means you cannot let them eat broken glass, walk tightropes six stories up or play with blowtorches.  You have to bring them back to the parents in the same functioning state in which you received them.  Except giddier. Remember, they are supposed to have fun with you, not use molten metal for crème rinse.

Second, aunt and coach need to teach kids how to play the game.  Whatever game that is, from Bananagrams to soccer, there are rules that make the game playable (hence fun) and kids need to know the rules.  It’s up to you to teach them.  Go Fish has rules.  Jump rope has rules.  Hopscotch has rules.  Games you make up with your nieces have rules.  Help them learn the rules.

Third, aunt and coach need to teach skills.  In soccer, kids need to know how to get into position, how to kick with both feet (kick the soccer ball, I mean), stop the ball without using their hands, and challenge the ball.  In hopscotch, kids need to learn the skills of …wait, I forget what hopscotch is.

Anyhow,

Fourth, both aunts and coaches take an interest in the personal development of the kids in their care.  Call it sportsmanship, sense of accomplishment, exceeding self-imposed limits, teamwork, fairness or any other wonderful human quality that kids learn through sports and group activities, this is the fourth dimension. 

Pablo Picasso said, "I am always doing things I can’t do, that is how I get to do them.”  Kids need to come up against their physical limits sometimes, so that they can exceed them.  That's a character builder—doing more than you thought was possible, in a safe environment (level one).

Perhaps you can best appreciate this by recalling times when you've seen it go wrong.  A coach loses his head, gets wrapped up in the game, and forgets about the personal development of the kids.  If you think that the most important thing in a soccer game of seven-year-olds is winning, you can stop reading right here and move along to someplace else.  Or maybe, you are exactly the one who should keep reading.

Carry on.

These four levels of care and development are hierarchal, so that each higher level contains all the functions of the lower levels.  Even when you are teaching rules, or skills, or stick-to-itiveness, you still need to ensure that your kids refrain from drinking bleach.  At least until you chuck them back over the wall to their parents.

Above all, the activities in these four levels need to be fun.

Wait, fun and rules, you ask?  Sure.  Make up a game to explain the rules.  Switch roles to make the kids the referees.  Use a little creativity.

Above all above all, bring 'em back alive.  Level one.  Ensure their personal well being and physical safety.  If you get a chance, help them learn the rules of the game.  And if you have more opportunity, teach some skills.  And if the chance pops up, instill some personal development, some character-building, such as sportsmanship or teamwork. 

But remember, aunt or coach, bring 'em back alive.

More at www.auntsandunclesguide.com

If you can’t say something nice, don't say anything at all.

If you can’t say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Maybe you have heard this phrase, long ago being spoken by someone older and wiser than you.

"If you cannot say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

It is great advice.

Remember the last time that you were saying something unkind about someone.  Even if it were true, the things you pointed out, the way you phrased them and your tone were unflattering, at best.

Then pops up that person, the object of your description, out of nowhere, having heard your whole speech, or at least enough to get the point.

Your eyes dart around for a hole to crawl into. You rifle your brain for some excuse, but frantically realize that you are caught, apprehended, trapped.   You blush and stammer and panic, then give up and get ready to take your medicine.

Your sheepish smile doesn't make anything better, but you can't help smiling it.

And in the back of your head, ever so faintly, you hear that voice of wisdom echoing around in the panicked emptiness of your skull: "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

"When oh when am I going to learn to live by this?" you ask yourself.  "How many times am I going make this mistake before I remember to live by these words?"

You smack your forehead with the flat of your hand, and mutter and shake your head.

When your nephew starts to run somebody down, as soon as he starts, just stop him.  Do not brook this behavior.  Just say, "Oh, we don't do this around here. If you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all."

Give that a moment to sink in, then...

"Would you say that if the person were here and could hear you? No? You wouldn't?

"Then let's not do it behind his back.

"Because some day, if you say bad things about others, that person will hear you.  What do you think that will feel like?

“Everybody in life is in a bit of an uphill struggle.  We should be kind to them.”

Maybe your nephew will pick up this wisdom and live by it. We can hope.

What are you going to do to finally, once and for all, live by these words?

Try this:

Make a little movie in your mind's eye of the next time you get a chance to say something bad about somebody (else).  Now right before you start in, in your own movie, have yourself say, "I wouldn't say this to the person's face, so I won't say it now." And make another short movie in your mind's eye of another time when you have the opportunity to live the magic phrase, "If you can't say anything nice..." and have the movie go just as you wish it to.

And then picture your nephew, who reveres you, and think of how shocked, shocked he would be to discover if you didn't live by your own advice.

Live by the words.  Set an example.  Be one of those people who never get caught saying unkind things about others--never caught because you never say them.  Picturing your nephew and being the stand-up person he thinks you are--that will be your ally.

www.auntsandunclesguide.com 

Tracing Paper

Do you remember tracing paper? 

Uncle Aunt Niece Nephew Uncle book auntsanduncles guide.com

Your nephew doesn’t remember tracing paper, because he’s never seen it.

Tracing paper is really fun stuff. 

If you don’t have any tracing paper lying around, go to the place where you keep your jumbles of wrapping paper.  There’s possibly some tissue wrapping in that heap, and it will work fine for the purpose.

Okay, I agree—this is probably for younger kids. But tracing is a blast.   Find a printed image that your nephew really likes, or at least is intrigued by, gather up some pencils or pens  (colored pencils are great) and trace away.  When you take up the tracing paper from the original—bang!  It’s a masterpiece.

www.auntsandunclesguide.com

Listen, Really Listen

A big part of listening is shutting up so that your niece has a chance to talk. 

But it’s hard to do.

She mentions something, which triggers a related image in your mind and then you want to talk about what just popped up in your head.

It’s normal behavior, but it doesn’t help your niece open up and keep talking.

To give her all the room she needs to keep the conversation going, try the 3:1 rule.

Your niece gets to say three things before you get to say one, then she gets three more.

Your one thing might be a question or follow on to what she just said, to give her the opportunity to expand and expound.

The 3:1 listening ratio takes a bit of practice, but it’s worth it. 

So rarely does anybody ever really listen.  Many (most) conversations aren’t really all that productive.  In turn, each listener is waiting for the speaker to finish so he can start talking.

With kids, this style is deadly.  One or two rounds of that and they get it that you really aren’t listening, but instead just awaiting to talk.  So they clam up and wander off.

Who wouldn’t?

Try the 3:1 listening ratio and see if you don’t become a hero, just for really listening.

Are You Going to Become a Scholar?

Our next door neighbor way back when was John Z. Soso.  He was a remarkable fellow.  He was an elementary school principal in San Francisco, and was perhaps the first one to have his school painted red, white and blue, back in 1976.  He also served in the U.S. Army infantry in Italy in World War II, although he never talked about that.  And he had a deep influence on the kids in the neighborhood.

But in a subtle way.

One day he spied me out in front of the house.  I was about five or six then.  He asked me, “Are you going to become a scholar?”

“What’s a scholar?”

Mr. Soso answered, “A scholar is someone who learns about a lot of things and really loves it.”

“I want to be a scholar,” I replied.

Okay, how long did this exchange take?  Ten seconds?

What six-year old wouldn’t have said “yes,” especially when the revered Mr. Soso asked?

And now, fully 50 years later, I really love to learn.

On another occasion, Mr. Soso spied me again out front.  He offered, “You know, you are going to spend about one-third of your life working, so you might as well work at something really worthwhile that you will enjoy.  Okay, gotta go.”  And off he went.

From that instant, I never considered having a job.  I decided to have a career.  Not that I didn’t have jobs along the way, washing and gassing cars to get through college and working at a pharmacy while in school.  But I never considered not having a career that provided excitement and fulfillment and learning.

There are two of the briefest of exchanges between Mr. Soso and me that shaped my life.

Finally, one day he asked, “Will, are you publishing anything?”

I was in high school by now.  With my face scrunched up as a 15-year-old boy can do, I asked, “Publishing? Publishing what?” 

Mr. Soso said, “You should think about publishing an article here and there, about things you are interested in and know something about.”

End of discussion.

Start of this blog.

Your Own Video Festival

It's a holiday, and the cousins are assembled around a couple of computers. They have their own video festival going on. 

“Okay, okay, look at this one,” says Audrey and she opens up a two-minute YouTube video of a cat dancing around.

Her cousin Irish counters with an internet video she knows about a happy penguin running around the rookery.

Gales of laughter as big as the gales of Antarctica ensue.

I boot up an old TV commercial showing cowboys herding cats across the prairie.  It goes over pretty well.

Cousin Jill tosses in her nomination, clicking on a video about a budding Jedi doing the Star Wars light saber dance.

Britney has a short video to show, too:  Marcel the Shell.

And on it goes.  Two computers, good internet connection, and some ideas about goofy, fun videos to watch.  The cousins taking turns offering their favorite short clips. 

Their own video festival.