THE DIFFERENCE IS ATTITUDE!

After a Summer where we all marveled at the athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic I was thinking about the difference between ordinary and extraordinary human beings. When you hear the word ordinary, when you are talking about a child, a colleague, a friend, an athlete, a dancer, a school, a place or anything else, what do you think?

When you hear the word ordinary, when you are talking about a child, a colleague, a friend, an athlete, a dancer, a school, a place or anything else, what do you think? Do you think of words such as average, dull, boring, plain, common, and every day. You're probably not thinking of examples because ordinary people and ordinary places don't stand out and simply aren't that important or that memorable. BUT what do you think of when you hear the word extraordinary. After the Summer we've had I would be surprised if words such as amazing, wonderful, talented, gorgeous, outstanding and brilliant aren't coming to mind? We almost always think of a particular individual or a particular place that fits the description: an amazing Olympian, an incredible Paralympian, a hero, a partner, a child, a friend, a great school, a great restaurant, an incredible footballer, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, a great poet, or your favourite place.

Strange that so many people believe that if you are an ordinary person with an ordinary job, you have no hope of ever achieving success or doing something extraordinary: something that really makes a difference. What we should have learned this Summer is that this is not true. Jessica Ennis, Andy Murray, David Weir and Victoria Pendleton all started off as ordinary mortals like the rest of us. Master coaching, deliberate practice and thousands of hours of hard work helped them become extraordinary. Just remember that you are a unique and extraordinary individual with incredible potential and the difference between being ordinary or being extraordinary is not skill, the difference is attitude!
Chris