Respect and Appreciation

Respect and Appreciation.

By John Leonard, Head Coach, SwimFast

    Nothing is more important to the Coaching Staff at SwimFast, than teaching Life Skills to young people. Swimming well, swimming fast, is nothing compared to the importance of fulfilling our societal obligation to help parents raise good people.

    In my professional life, I am blessed to spend enormous amounts of time with highly successful people in the worlds of athletics, business, academics, media, and science and medicine. One of my most profound observations is that accomplished people share one trait in common and that is APPRECIATION for the gifts and the opportunities they have been “given”. Many writers throughout history have noted the same, this is surely not my unique observation.

   Appreciation is a deep understanding of how difficult and challenging life is, and how hard it is to achieve….and it is expressed every time we say please, thank you, and “I appreciate what you do for me and for others.”

The guys picking up garbage from in front of your house in the hot Florida sun, have a HARD job and without them, we’d be lost. I call them SIR when I say thank  you when I see them.  Our children, our friends and out colleagues all need to gain the perspective of appreciation.

And Appreciation comes from basic respect. Basic respect is saying PLEASE, saying THANK YOU, and from recognizing how hard a child’s parents work to raise them, feed them, educate them, and give them opportunities. And how hard one’s grandparents worked to do those same things for the child’s parents and for their grandchildren.

RESPECT for parents, grandparents, peers, and coaches is Fundamental to our thinking at SwimFast. Respect leads to appreciation, which leads to success.

Conversely, a child who is allowed to express disrespect, will never learn to appreciate all the things done for them by parents, family, friends, coaches, and others, and thus will lack appreciation and will eventually FAIL regularly and consistently…..Only appreciation brings success.

And incidentally, if you think about it, none of us goes out of our way (and shouldn’t) to help anyone who is unappreciative of our assistance. Thus, the “failure syndrome” begins when one is not respectful, not appreciative.

Our coaches will insist on respectful behavior to parents, family, peers, coaches, and colleagues by our athletes. It’s a life skill we can’t succeed without.

I expect parents to support this. If you have any questions about it, call me at 954-684-3024.  or if you can’t support it, please consider (respectfully) that we may not be the best place for your child.

We’re in the life skills business, and it all begins with respect and appreciation.

All the Best, John Leonard