Winning Mentality Feedback Letter

Mike,

I want to thank you again for the time you took with the hockey team this fall. My son, Tommy, came home with a huge smile on his face that night and my first impression was that your talk was going to leave a lasting impression. Apparently, that was an understatement. He just completed his college application to Emory University and one of the questions was, “If you could create a class, what would the class be and how would it benefit students?” Here is his response:

“Winning Strategies 101 – A course designed to teach students the keys to a winning mentality. Skills and life lessons acquired in this class could tremendously help anyone who interacts within a team on a regular basis. Whether one is an athlete, employee, or student, everyone will be trained on the importance of focusing on all the details in a team setting and the benefits that are derived from positive and winning attitudes.

I first got this idea for a class, when a professional motivational speaker visited my hockey team this past fall. It was very apparent that a positive attitude impacts groups and teams in many ways. He focused particularly on how a positive team attitude could improve our team’s ability to win. Attention to detail in sports, and all aspects of life, is also very important to achieving desired results and reaching goals. An exercise was performed where players were asked to read a sentence and count the number of F’s in a sentence. Most players recognized only the F’s in the important words in the sentence, but not in the conjunctions. It demonstrated that detail is important and often overlooked, but we were reminded that without attention to detail, results would not follow. The most successful teams work on detail. It’s the little things, such as communication, to achieve great results.

This class will teach ‘winning strategies’ that can be applied in any setting, and therefore very beneficial to college students.”
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Tommy’s paper had a word limit; otherwise he would have gone on and on. The time you spent is very much appreciated and it certainly left a life long impression on the kids.

On a related note, Tommy’s team played Hammer’s team (Solon High school) yesterday and squeaked out a victory, 1-0 in the Thanksgiving tournament.

Thanks,

Tom