Handling the Pressure

If you are a football fan this week you have probably been discussing the decision by referee Howard Webb to give Man United a penalty on the weekend, the Champions League or your teams battle for promotion or to avoid relegation as we near the end of the season.

The matches between now and the end of the season are a real test of players, managers and referees. This is where we get to see if they can justify their huge wages and if they can handle the pressure. It’s alright being the best player, the best team, the best coach or the best ref but if you can’t handle the pressure you’re not going to win anything regardless of how good you are. This next month is where seasons are made or broken.

In our own lives it’s our ability to handle pressure which will help get us to where we need or want to be. To get a job you will have to either go to an interview, audition or trial where you will have one chance to impress your prospective employers enough to give you the job. In life you will also always been under pressure to make the right decisions and do the right thing which when your growing up can be even harder because of peer pressure.

It is our ability to not be affected in a negative way by pressure that will help us lead a happy and fulfilled life. If you can react to pressure by trying harder and doing better then you can achieve great things. Its like over the next month in football there will be players who crack under the pressure and then there will be some that grab the headlines and score the important goals. So be the one scoring the goals and not the one cracking under pressure.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Following a path or blazing a trail

A discussion the other day got me thinking this week. I was chatting to somebody who had been reading a lot of books on people that had succeeded in business to try and get some pointers for what he should do to be successful. This got me thinking, to achieve success should we be looking to copy others or should we be going out blazing a trail of our own.

I think it is wise to learn from the successes and failures of others but to succeed we need to be ourselves and we need to be unique. Sometimes it is very easy to lose yourself and to become somebody else when you spend your day emerged in research on successful people. People see success and they are attracted towards but just because something worked for someone it doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Even when you do find some info on someone who has been successful and how they have done this still not be the best path to follow as there may be an even better route than that person took which could lead you on to even greater success. An idea might have worked for somebody as they were the right person at the right time to use it but if you tried to recreate it now it may not have the same success. People always want something different or something new not just an old idea reinvented.

People need to be sure in themselves and not always be looking for advice and guidance, to be successful you can’t always refer to a book or somebody else for advice. I heard a great quote the other day which was “Chase the dream not the competition.” Which I think is bang on as it is so easy to be come consumed with your competition and to just follow them when if you had just been concentrating on your dream then you would have spent more time trying to achieve that dream.

I think it is wise to be knowledgeable on the dream you are chasing and to learn where others have failed and succeeded but it is important not to get bogged down with it all and use the information not to follow in others footsteps but to blaze your own trail with. Don’t lose yourself and be the one that people are writing about in years to come as someone who shook things up, somebody that innovated and somebody who blazed a trail as not many people are going to write about you if they have already written the same story about somebody else.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

Britain’s Got Talent came bursting back on to our screens last weekend with a bang attracting over 11 million viewers. Last season the country sat in amazement as a whole host of young talented people stole the show. Last years winner George Sampson told the story of the underdog coming from a disadvantaged background doing everything it took to win so that he could pay for his mum to have a house.

If the first episode was anything to go by this year is going to be the year of “Not Judging a Book by its Cover.” 48 year old Church worker Susan Boyle took to the stage to the audition and proclaimed that she was going to sing for the judges. All three judges on the panel sniggered and smiled when she said that, as based on her appearance they thought they were about to hear the most terrible audition ever and that she was kidding herself if she thought she could be a singer. Then to the amazement of the judges she belted out an outstanding rendition of a song from Les Miserables.

Susan is now already one of the favourites to win and her performance has been viewed millions of times over on YouTube. After the performance she got an apology from all three judges for the way they treated her before she sang which is very rare indeed and I hope it has taught them a lesson. With shows like this and X-Factor in the audition stages its like we as a country want to laugh at people more than we want to see some talented performers which I think is part of what is wrong with today’s society.

So many times in life we are quick to make judgements and assumptions about people based on what’s on the outside but I think it’s time we started taking more of an interest on what’s on the inside. I think Susan is just one of many people out there who haven’t been given the chance to live their dream or been taken seriously because of their appearance, the way they speak or the way they act. I hope Susan inspires more people to go for their dreams no matter what their situation or no matter how much they think people will laugh at them. Its society today and peoples attitudes which is stopping talent like this being discovered and I think it’s about time that we the people gave these people the chance to shine.

We here at Talented Young People want to know if you find yourself falling in to this trap or if you have ever been judged unfairly and you can share your views by clicking on the link below:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=700


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Test of a Champion

As many of you will be aware the Formula 1 season started a couple of weeks ago and with all the hype surrounding British driver and last years World Champion Lewis Hamilton it has been fellow Brit Jenson Button who has been leading the way with two wins out of two yet it is still Lewis getting all the headlines but for all the wrong reasons.

Last year Lewis became the youngest ever Formula 1 World Champion aged 23 after only three seasons in the sport and for this he was awarded an MBE. Now defending a championship is always said to be winning it for the first time and already that has been proving true for Lewis. Not only have things been going wrong in his performances and the car but off the track as well Lewis has been brought in to question. We have had Lewis starting from the back of the grid, Lewis failing to make it through to the final stages of qualifying in the qualification stages, having points taken off him, and to cap it all off was hauled in front of the F1 panel in lying and cover up scandal involving him and his team.

Now everyone goes through bad seasons and yes his quality as a driver and the quality of the car was being brought in to question but it is the scandal that threatens to derail his season and possibly his career. With Lewis being the posterchild for F1 and him having more sponsorship endorsements than you can shake a stick at he can ill afford any scandal. With such a quick rise to fame with little time to adapt Lewis could be brought down to ground just as fast.

What all the Lewis scandal is doing is taking away the limelight from Jenson Button who is not getting the column inches that Lewis was when he was on top. Jenson when he started his career had a bit of a reputation off the track but has since seemed to mended his ways and for the last few years has been loyal to a team where the car hasn’t delivered. Jenson is now reaping the reward from his loyalty as the buy out of his old team has left him with a car that can compete at the top level.

The recent weeks really bring in to question things like when should an MBE awarded to someone and what should it be awarded for and it has really shown how no matter how good you are and no matter what is going wrong on the track you need to always make sure that you aren’t doing anything stupid or anything that can be perceived in a negative light as one bad incident can jeapordise years worth of hard work. I still think that Lewis can recover from this and hope he does but I hope this makes him wiser. Is it worth trying to cheat the system for a few extra points if it costs you your image and brings you character in to question? What is more important, your performance on the track or how you are perceived off of it? As a racer should you be brave and speak out when you see wrong doing in your team? Hard questions but the questions I think Lewis and other drivers need to ask themselves.


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

School Grading Systems

Ever since I started TYP I have been very outspoken on school league tables. In my opinion you can’t judge the successfulness of a school based on exam results because it means some schools will never have the chance t finish top. Should schools be judge more on the progress of their students rather than the final grade they get? And shouldn’t schools be judge on the number of their students that go on to gain skilled jobs as surely school is just suppose to be a building block to make a pupil a well rounded member of society who can get a job doing something they love doing.

In the news this week has been a new school grading system which has been implemented in America which sees schools getting graded from A – E which is measured not just against exam results but behaviour and progress as well. This gives the chance for schools from deprived areas a chance of being a top school which they probably wouldn’t have under our league table system.

Now no system is perfect and this has its floors as well because if you are a top school with pupils consistently getting a high grade you aren’t going to get top marks for progress. However I do feel for pupils to behave better in schools they have to have a sense of pride in their school and this system lets the pupils who go to schools in run down areas the chance to be proud of their school.

The news is now that they are heading our way to the UK which has been met with positive and negative feedback. Myself personally I think grades speak form themselves so parents that would have sent to their kids to a school that achieve top exam grades are going to continue to send their children there but this system can bring the feel good factor to some schools and give them something achievable to work towards. Most schools know that they will never be top of the league table so may think why bother but with this system every school has the chance to earn an A.

Like I said at the top I can’t wait until the day we see league tables based on pupils life outside of school but I think this is a step in the right direction. I think schools need to start putting more emphasis on the characters they are developing in their pupils and what contribution they will make to society, not just worry about grades. I think both systems can and should be used in the UK as I think it help parents make informed choices of where their children go to school and the parents will be able to ascertain quicker the sort of standard at their child’s school.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com