A Pat On The Back And A Night At The Movies.

Dear Friend,

What's next -- instead of hard work and good marketing being the path to riches, when you reach the top you get a Coke and a smile?

Check this out:

In the next county over, which is Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), the superintendent of the School Board has a proposal out there to eliminate the Valedictorian award of merit in high school.

In case you don't know what this is, the Valedictorian is the person who has the highest grade point average, over their entire 4-year school career.

Why are they considering this?  Simple:  They feel things are "too competitive", and it puts too much "pressure" on the kids to achieve.

What kind of a freakin' message are we sending out here?

That "pushing yourself" to reach the top no longer means anything?

What's next -- no scoring in high school sports?

If you make a touchdown, it's just "fun".

It's bad enough there's no "service" anymore when it comes to the service business, and "mediocrity" has become the new standard you need to meet to become "acceptable", but what kind of a message do you think stripping away "reward for achievement" is sending?

And "too much pressure" in high school?

I don't get it.

If you think things are tough in high school and you're having a hard time handling all that "pressure", then when your mortgage comes due, and your kid need braces, and your car just blew it's transmission, and your wife just lost her job...

You're going to be suicidal!

We should be ENCOURAGING our children to push HARDER, letting them know THIS is what you MUST do if you want to be successful.

Stripping away the rewards for high achievement, takes us backwards.

Competition is healthy -- especially for kids.  And from what I've seen, the times it becomes UN-healthy, is when parents who have nothing going on in their lives worthwhile on their own, start living vicariously through their kid's lives, and THEY push their kids to extreme levels of success and THEY make their kid's lives un-balanced.

I've seen this many times when my kids were younger and I coached them in sports.

And let me tell you something else -- if you're the kind of person who takes pride in personal achievement -- you're going to be that same person, whether there's a "reward" in it or not.

If you're a student who strives to be the "best", you're going to strive just as hard whether or not there's a official "certificate of recognition" in it for you or not.

All this does is send out a message to all the "non-achievers" out there, that it's "O.K." to be a non-achiever, instead of trying to ratchet their level of success higher

Has society become so mediocre, that recognition for achievement doesn't even matter any more?

Sheesh, what's next?

A pat on the back, ice cream and a night out at the movies, just because you "passed" your class?

I certainly hope not.

Oh, and if you're better than just "average", then you DO want something to help you figure out WHAT you should be doing to move along and up the ladder of success, so check out my 2006 Magic Marketing And Resource Guide right now:  http://www.kingofcopy.com/magicmarketing

Now go sell something,

Craig Garber

P.S. Want to know what else you can do to bump up your sales, easily outwit your competition, and position yourself as the top dog in your industry?  No problem, go to http://www.kingofcopy.com/22ways

Any comments?

Send them to me by scooting over to the contact form on my "Here's How To Contact Craig" page, and maybe I'll publish them -- I appreciate your feedback!

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