My son Saatvick was campaigning for the post of the “Sports' Captain” for his house. He was enthusiastic about his speech and its content. When he came home this October, he brought me a copy of his speech. It was intriguing. Here is the speech:
“It is rightly said that action speaks louder than words”. I, Saatvick Kotecha, am a candidate for the Sport’s Captain for this current academic year. I have a manifesto and I hereby commit myself to everything mentioned therein. I will not only encourage sports in the school; I resolve to enforce discipline and add sport to sports.”
“The frequently asked question here at school is what would my attitude be if I were to lose? Here is my answer – I don’t believe I will lose. In case I do, there is no problem. I shall pursue my objectives as laid out in my manifesto. The idea is that no one ever becomes a boss – there is always someone at the top or at the bottom. There are no bosses – only helping hands.”
“My symbol is a traffic light. The red color asks us to stop and think. The yellow color signifies our preparedness. The green is for “Go!” This is the approach I will have in all I will do as your Sport’s Captain.”
“I hope you will make a precious contribution in my favour when you approach the vote box”
This is not exactly your “President of the United States of America” kind of speech. However, there are many lessons that can come to light when we peep in to the workings of children.
1) Why worry about being the boss? The idea is to do work. Robin Sharma talks about a leader with no title and I feel this is exactly what my son was talking about. A leader is a person who sees a situation and takes charge. He is not worried about getting some official title for himself
2) Why worry about who gets the credit? If you see a situation that needs a fix, you go about asserting yourself till its fixed. It is typically the higher-ups who get credit for work. However, a sincere worker does not need credit as he is comfortable with his self concept and self esteem.
3) The words “add sport to sports” are very crucial here. To me, this forms the crux of the speech and also gives me an insight into what my son was thinking. The whole idea of “adding sport to sports” is about integrity and character. Sportsmanship is the ability to play a sport competitively while respecting all the participants’ right to the number one position. It’s about mutual respect. It’s about learning to meet defeat for what it is and not who was instrumental for it. It is the falling and rising and the falling and the rising – and assuming that all this falling and rising is in harmony with nature that builds sportsmanship - and eventually leadership and character.
Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha
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