Last night I got to hang with my babygirl for the first time in a month. Hannah and I bonded over a bowl of John’s homemade spaghetti while catching up on Survivor, the only television show both of us truly share a love of. My dad, a big football fan, made fun of my love for the reality show until I made him watch one with me. After I pointed out the brilliant strategy of the most loathsome player’s game changing moves, he too began to appreciate the education in human nature.
Just think how much smarter business people would be if we had cameras recording Eisenhower or Churchill’s strategizing about their next move during a battle. Hannah kept repeating “That’s crazy!” at the mental skill behind Parvati giving each of her two teammates an idol which protected them from being voted off, and which instead caused the fool who gave Russell one of those idols, J.T., to go home. And then Hannah said something that makes me proud of her, “I don’t really care for Parvati, but she deserves to win after that. She‘s very smart.”
Hannah is going to be heading to the University of North Texas where she is going to major in entrepreneurship. Even though she spent her freshmen year taking basic classes here in Alpine at Sul Ross State University, she made huge progress in sharpening her entrepreneurial skills by working three jobs during her fall semester, and two jobs on top of playing softball this past semester. There’s no better education than hands-on education. And whether is be changes we need to make in the system at the studio to improve our business, or one of her other jobs, it makes me happy she’s catching on.
It relives me now that Hannah and Michaela are old enough to appreciate good and bad business practices on their own. They often joke about having to put up with me pointing out good business and bad business throughout their life as it took place on a day to day basis. Whether is was good customer service at a fast food restaurant, or the bad customer service we received from AT&T, I used every opportunity I could to help educate them in the game of surviving life.
When they’d come home complaining about the stupidity of one of their teachers or coaches, I’d try my best to point out some good teachers and coaches to help exhibit how the love of one’s career choice makes all the difference in the world. Many of their bad teachers in high school happened to be coaches, who I believe are bitter because they didn’t have what it took to play pro. That happens with many art teachers as well. The bad ones usually harbor resentment for those artists who can make a living with their passion.
But I also pointed out that some of the rules that good teachers have to follow are not of their making. Teacher have follow state rules as well as some imposed on them by school administrators. I always appreciated the education opportunity bad teachers and bad rules offered because they always gave me the chance to point out to Michaela and Hannah why they wanted to own their business: so they can make the rules, and to avoid being told what to do by someone they didn’t respect. It also provided the chance to point out how life was not always going to be fair; that there are assholes in the world who they were going to have to learn how to work around and make the best of.
My mother in law, a retired school teacher, said it best, “That’s why people shouldn’t home school. Kids get a warped sense of reality.”
And that brings me back to the reason I love Survivor. Whiners and the complainers never win. The ones who win the $1,000,000 know how to get along and make the best of their situation. They connect to everyone. Which is exactly what makes good generals, good business owners, good politicians, good teachers….. all the good leaders.
