Response from Student
On Saturday, we held a motivational presentation provided by Admiral June Ryan at Excel Soccer Skills. I received the below reflections from one of my students. I love the powerful message written below and wanted to share with you all.
Dear Coach Tibi,
Thank you for inviting me and other youth to Excel Soccer Skills to hear Admiral June Ryan. I enjoyed the program a lot! Admiral June shared an inspiring, engaging presentation about how to empower one’s dreams. Admiral June used EMPOWER as an acronym to convey her message – a message that should be shared with all of your students.
As you know, I’ve played sports for years. I’ve heard my coaches talk about the mental aspect of the game, but Admiral June helped me understand in more depth what that means. The mental aspect brings positive energy and actions to help to achieve success. Understanding the mental aspect of the game will not only help me in games but more importantly in life. Admiral June gave me positive ideas of how to retrain my brain to have positive energy.
I learned a lot of lessons yesterday but would like to share just two. First, I learned that your brain can’t process a negative. Just think about it. How often has someone said don’t get into trouble and yet you do. Or someone says don’t drop the glass. But with the negative reminder, you are more susceptible to drop the glass.
Secondly, I also learned that will power and determination will enable you to go a lot farther in your brain than your muscles can. Will power and determination can make the difference between a win and a loss.
At the end of her presentation, Admiral June gave us fake diamonds. Diamonds are buried away and surrounded by rocks and dirt. But once you uncover diamonds, you find a beautiful gem. This was a powerful message to all of us. I’m going to keep a diamond as a reminder that with hard work – you can find the beautiful within yourself. I will also give a diamonds to a few of my friends to remind them to shine bright and be a diamond from the inside out.
I share these reflections and learnings because I want you to know how important this presentation was to me. I have set my own goal to learn more about positive ways to support the mental aspect of my game. With positive energy and focus, we can all inspire our own team – to take on new tasks and challenges. Thank you for inviting me to hear such a powerful speaker and for this awesome experience.
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