MM209 - Searching for the One

Here is a motivational talk for the coaches, teachers, and instructors out there. Heraclitus knew the deal in 500 BC.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel, and I'm glad to be here and I'm glad that you are out there listening now today. I've got one for you guys who find yourself as instructors or coaches or teachers basically anyone who finds himself in a position. Where they need to coach instruct teach other people pass on whether it's physical skills or educational skills, or what have you to a group of individuals a group of people or their it's a sports team or whether it's a classroom full of kids or what have you, and the title is searching for the one I'm going to give you guys a quote and the quote is from Heraclitus of a thesis and Heraclitus according to the internet was a Greek philosopher.
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That was pre-socratic. That means he came before Socrates and one of the things that hair Cletus was noted for having to do was to train. Men during the Peloponnesian War. This is 500 BC. So it goes back just a little while and the quote from Heraclitus that has been around for a while in that I've been using for I don't know a decade or more is this. Out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn't even be there. 80 or just targets 9 are real Fighters and we are lucky to have them for they the battle make but the one is a warrior and he will bring the others back here Cletus was talking about training men for the military and he said out of every 100 men that they send me 10 of them shouldn't even be here.
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Heraclitus just targets 9 or real fighters and one is a warrior and he will bring them back, and as I said here are Cletus was he was BC. He was a PC guy. He lived in the 500 BC time frame so long time ago more than 2000 years ago if you're keeping score. I had the opportunity to work as a full-time instructor for the United States military and I was working actually as a military contractor for a combat skills school and strangely enough when we started with the school. Our average class sizes were around 60 men and then the military in their Infinite Wisdom decided that.
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They needed to put more people through more often, and so they would increase the class size from sixty to a 100 same number of coaches, same number of hours in the day. We're just going to increase the class size to a 100 per class so we can get people through the training, and I can tell you that hair Cletus was 2,000 years ahead of his time. That hair Cletus was a genius because when I examined the classes and I had a lot every month every four weeks we would get a fresh new 100 bodies.
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In our combat skills are essential, combat skills school, and I can testify that seriously legitimately. No kidding. Out of every 100 men that they sent us 10 of them shouldn't have even been there. They had no business being at the school. They were oxygen thieves. They were time thieves had no business even being there. 80 of them were there and they didn't hurt anything, but they didn't help either. Then we have the 9 and the 1 and what do you mean Paul by searching for the one if you've ever been a teacher a coach and instructor what have you and especially if you've been one for a while, you know that every class you get every class that shows up you end up with problem children, and when I say problem children, there are adults that are problem children and what do you end up doing?
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Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is this when we have a huge class and we have people that are there because well why they're there because they were sent there by their unit by their Commander they're there because they have to be. We're talking about law enforcement training or military training or work workplace-related training where it's a mandated course. Everybody has to go through this training whether they want to or not. You're going to have people in your class that would rather be somewhere else. They're not interested in the subject matter.
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They're not interested in learning. They're only there because someone told them that they had to be there, and many of these people become problem children, and as coaches and instructors, what do we end up doing we end up devoting all of our time are in our effort and our attention not to the nine and the one but two those problem children that shouldn't even be there. Anyway, they end up being our attention.
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They're basically attention thieves or attention vampires. So rather than devoting ourselves to the students that actually could and would benefit from our wisdom from our experience from our knowledge. We end up babysitting problem children, and I saw that when I was working for the military. I saw that my coaches and instructors and myself even were spending all kinds of Time Babysitting problem children, and that there were people that really legitimately could have used us could have used us to you know, coach them and struck them, you know, give them the benefits of our experience and our training instead.
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They weren't and I sat down this is been a long time ago. It's been at least 10 years ago, but I sat down with some of my coaches and instructors and. We talked about this I'm and I you know, the hair Cletus quote I've been using as I said for probably 15 years or more, and I said look, this is the problem. This is the issue that we have is instead. There are people that could genuinely use their good and they could be great if we were able to devote some time and attention and help them. They could go from being good to actually being great.
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If we would give them our time and attention I should but instead what we're doing is we're defaulting to the 10 that shouldn't even be here to the problem children, and so my challenge for my coaches and myself from that moment forward was every time we got a class of a 100 instead of searching for the problem children. People that you know that we're going to need to babysit instead I said, what we need to do is we need to be searching for the one.  The one that hair Cletus said one of them is a warrior one is a warrior and he will bring the others back, and that's a totally different way of looking at.
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If you're a coach a teacher and instructor it's easy to become depressed or frustrated or anxious or just burned out by the problem children. By those who you feel like you're constantly having to fix correct hover over what have you and what do we do? We do that so often that we end up focusing our attention. On the 10th it shouldn't even be there instead of those that could actually use our help. So we need to look at it in a different way. If you are in a position where you're doesn't matter, you don't have to have a 100 you can have a class of 10 or class of five or class of 20 or what have you.
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Instead of focusing all of your time and attention looking for the problem children instead. Make a mental commitment to search for the one, and you may not know for a fact who that one is but I bet you you'll know the top 9 and 10 and if you spend that time with the top nine or ten people in the class those who want to be there those who are motivated those who are intelligent and have the drive to actually learn and get better.
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You can change them from good to great and you can actually influence and find that one. So ladies and gentlemen that is your assignment for today. If you find yourself in a position where you are a leader with your coach instructor or teacher instead of focusing all your mental energy on the problem children instead search for that one. The one who can be a warrior the one who could be great. I'm your host Paul Markel, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

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