Today my older boys scrolled open the mind maps that they had created a couple months ago and reviewed their old notes. We looked over together the various possibilities that they had written down and compared them to where they are now and where they want to go. Some items were accomplished and some were not. Caleb was able to acquire a professional size belt grinding machine for his metal work. This was thanks to a friend in the community who wanted to share a grinder kit he was putting together for his own needs and wanted to encourage him when he saw the evidence of the current knife work he was doing. Jonathan was able to save up and buy a camera stabilizer for his aerial photography. This was in response to his first few trials at filming real estate property and realizing that a much smoother first time video would save days of post-edit time for his clients.
It was interesting to see that some opportunities had gradually become more fruitful. This was expected, but we didn’t which would work out that way. So those opportunities were then favored while the others were gradually abandoned. This is the right kind of adapting strategy you want to encourage in your child as soon as possible.
At this Mind Map check point today, it was a pleasure for me to realize that the personal confidence and resolve of my two older sons (ages 16 and 14) had clearly increased even within the short two-month period. I was expecting that the ownership of their talent journey would grow and so I was not disappointed. They are showing more initiative at contacting the necessary people in their field of talent and at trying new ideas to push their talent forward. What I did not expect to grow as quickly, was their ability to be much more emotionally flexible in the light of changing opportunities. In the past, it took a lot more conversations in order to get them to give up an activity or a club that had at first time helped them, but then outlived its usefulness. Now the conversations about ending what needs to be ended are much shorter and perfunctory. They have become decisive!
Yes, daily work discipline will move you forward down a path and it is absolutely necessary, but work discipline will not care about the destination of that path. What you need in addition is the ability to daily make small courageous decisions as to the worthiness of some opportunities over others in the pursuit of 10,000 hours of talent. I’m happy to report that my boys are showing both work discipline and decisiveness.
