Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The 25 Traits of a Warrior

mr jaime richards is a teacher and life coach from my high school. a very wise and seasoned one. a buncha people look up to him for guidance on happiness and success. he writes a column in our local newspaper called "what it takes". i really like his dec 3rd column describing the characters of his best students.

For years, I had been studying my most successful students. I had a powerful motive. I wanted to learn what made my best kids my best kids, then use that wisdom to better raise my two daughters.

What I learned is that the most successful kids live their lives with a warrior mindset. They aren’t fighting people, though. They’re struggling with enemies common to us all: addiction, apathy, fear, greed, ignorance, jealousy, laziness, mediocrity and peer pressure.

The best, happiest, most successful students wrestle all that evil stuff. They don’t always win, but they
battle longer and more bravely than their less successful peers. They fight with “weapons” they were either born with or had instilled into them.


Hard work - Patience - Willingness to do more than expected - Tenacity - Balance - Courage to make tough choices - Confidence - Personal Responsibility - Risk - Creativity with Action - Self discipline - Manners - Activity - Proactivity - Sense of humor - Ambition - Selective Fraternization - Service - Humility - Resilience - Motivation - Social skills - Leadership

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tenacity - to keep fighting
courage to make tough choices - the easy choice is usually wrong
risk - facing your greatest fear, even if it's failure
resilience - get back up after getting knocked down
motivation - goal driven

Do I possess any of these skills? What do I need to work on?
This is who I want to become.