One of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is that of language.
In my case that means English and Japanese as I’m British (though I sound American) and my wife is Japanese.
As we live in Japan and our son attends a Japanese daycare we’re not concerned about him picking up Japanese but whether he’ll be able to speak English smoothly is a real concern for us.
To balance all the Japanese he gets outside of our house we let him watch a lot of TV.
Recently I was able to pick up the Ice Age series and he absolutely loves it although he can’t really understand what’s going on.
With that said, he does understand fear, some humor, and the basic plot.
His absolute favorite part in the movies is the squirrel.
For those of you who have never seen any of the movies each one begins with a squirrel doing something with an acorn.
In one movie he’s looking for a place to keep it, in another he’s fighting over one with a female squirrel.
And boy does he (the squirrel) love his acorn.
He jumps off cliffs, battles dangerous animals and outmaneuvers temptresses all for an acorn.
The words “give up” simply don’t exist in his vocabulary.
He just keeps on trying.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tries or how close he comes, he always seems to fail right at the moment when he thinks it’s his.
Now that’s the movies. In life, it’s another story.
Have you found that the things you REALLY wanted, you got.
Now I don’t just mean wanted. I mean REALLY REALLY wanted.
The reason is because you followed the simple success principle of never giving up.
You wanted it with your heart and soul and you did whatever it took, no matter how hard or how long it took.
Or to put it another way – determination, ice-age style.
The thing we must realize is whether we really do want something. Sure, we say we want it.
But do we really? Here are some of the things I’ve wanted.
- To come to Japan
- To learn magic
- To study success
- To understand investments
- To keep in shape
- To help my wife master English
Remarkably, I got everyone of them. How?
Determination, ice-age style.
Here’s what I did to achieve the results above.
- I studied 6 hours a day for a month forsaking my X-Mas vacation.
- I studied 2 hours every night for over a year.
- I have studied 2 hours every day for 5 years.
- I have studied 1 hour every day for 4 years.
- I exercise an hour a day while watching TV.
- I have taught her English every day for 9 years.
It’s not a question of whether you can, it’s simply a question of will you.
The more you do it, the faster you achieve it.
So, go for it – ice-age style.
Adrian Shepherd