It’s Guaranteed!
There are few guarantees in life. One of these safeguards is that each one of our students will face adversity. Difficulties can manifest in minor ways such as missing the bus, oversleeping, or forgetting to do homework. However, it is also possible for obstacles to show up in more impactful forms such as losing a gym, a house fire, or even worse, losing a loved one. And this is why our CULTURE is more important than the vision.
Our students will face enormous forms of adversity throughout their lives, and EMA is here to help prepare them to deal with each adversity.
Can be used as FUEL
Most children are taught at a young age that failure is something that we should avoid and prevent. However, this mentality hinders the development of our youth. This line of thinking is part of a “Fixed Mindset” as defined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck (Carol Dweck Revisits the ‘Growth Mindset’). While most people view adversity as negative, it is the opposite: mistakes fuel change, development, and growth. Some of the most successful people have made mistakes and have encountered setbacks: notable names include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney, in addition to countless more like me.
WE are in Control
When encountering misfortune, we are faced with two choices: adversity can overcome us or we can overcome adversity. The decision that we make reveals our real character and defines who we are as individuals. Although we are not able to control what happens in our lives, two things that we can control are our attitude and effort.
Parents, help us continue to teach our students to get out of their comfort zone, embrace their mistakes, and learn from their failures so that they are adequately prepared.
Reach Higher Levels!
Developing a growth mindset is invaluable for the students because it molds their behaviors and attitude about life as a whole. Someone with a growth mindset is more likely to embrace challenges, persevere through mistakes, value effort, learn from criticism, and find inspiration in the success of others. As a result, individuals with a growth mindset can reach higher levels of achievement on the basketball court, in the classrooms, in relationships with friends and family, and eventually, in their professional lives.
This is one of the main reasons why EMA was created: to impact the students positively and to empower them to become confident leaders in the future.
When students are faced with adversity and are making mistakes, we encourage them to keep putting forth effort until they figure out a way to be successful.
This is why we use the mantra “find a way” when we are teaching. We want our students to learn how to persevere and how to be resilient.
Progression, Not perfection!
While many coaches and people refer to this idea that “practice makes perfect,” we prefer the mantra “progress over perfection.” There is no such thing as a perfect individual or basketball player, so perfection is an unattainable goal. Instead, we teach our students to get better each time they do something and learn from any previous mistakes. If our students can learn to improve and grow, they are ultimately working towards being the best possible version of themselves.
As adults, our job is to ensure that we are preparing children for the future by teaching them how to handle both failure and success!
It is important to have these types of conversations with our students to raise their awareness and to provide them with the tools to become as successful as possible. Emphasizing the importance of being process-oriented (instead of result-oriented) will lead to higher success rates for our students. In doing so, our students will develop an appreciation for the inevitable mistakes they will make, which will help them overcome the adversity they will face. And this is why EMA’s culture is more important than its vision, drills and everything else.
Gift Now