Raven Magwood is a teenage author, motivational speaker, and TV talk show host. At 19 years old, she has accomplished more than most do in their lifetime.
When she was just 11 years old, she was a national gymnastics champion and published her first book, On to Victory! The Winning Edge.
By 13, she had published her second book, Double-Sided that is being made into a movie. At 15, she was a state titleholder in track-and-field competing nationally.
At 16, she had graduated from high school number one in her class with a 5.1 GPA. Now, she has a new book entitled: The 7 Practices of Exceptional Student Athletes.
In this video, Raven will help us understand how failure in sports can lead to success through the use of these practices indicated in her book “The Seven Practices of Exceptional Student Athletes”.
The first practice is what I call visualize the end goal. Set goals and own it.
You have to know where you want to go, if you are going to get there. I tell people all the time to visualize, what is it that you want out of life? Then you can start working towards achieving what you want.
The second practice is called bring the house down.Work hard in everything. Whether it is at practice or competition or just in life, you have to give that effort. I can guarantee you there are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
You have to work hard and you have to go above and beyond. That is the second one, bring the house down.
The third one is to recognize your true strength. That is your mental strength. Your body cannot do anything unless your mind tells it to. You cannot give up unless your mind tells you to. You can say, “I am going to get down and do 25 push-ups,” but what happens?
You do 25 push-ups. What if your mind told you to do 50? You would have done 50. I tell kids that all the time. Set the bar high and understand that your mind is a powerful thing. Be positive with yourself and how you are going to show up physically.
The fourth practice is to use a time out. This means to prioritize, set your schedule and use your time management skills, because you can’t do everything at one time. You have to learn to prioritize. What is the most important thing for me to do right now?
Then you do it. Time out also means to take that time to relax and take care of you. A lot of times a student athlete, even parents, will run and run to do this and do that. We do not take the time to unwind and relax.
We don’t take that time to renew ourselves spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally and I do touch on that in the book as well. Take that time out to prioritize, use time management skills, and also take care of you.
The fifth practice is called cut your losses. Cut your losses I mean remove yourself from negative people and negative situations. You are not going to achieve success if you keep hanging around the same group of friends that tell you that you are not going to achieve success.
You need to surround yourself with people who are going to uplift you and tell you that you can do it. When times get hard, they keep you in a positive mentality and they help you achieve the next level. You have to cut your losses.
People don’t realize that other people are like infectious diseases. If they are negative, we are going to start to be negative. If we are around positive people, we are going to be positive. I think it is a very important practice to cut your losses.
The sixth practice is to go back to square one. This means when you make a mistake, you learn from it and you start right back up. We make mistakes all the time, but that is what allows us to become the people that we are supposed to be. We cannot give up. We have to keep moving forward.
With not giving up, it brings us to the seventh practice called never throw in the towel. Of course, that means don’t give up no matter what. I look at outlines of stories of athletes and other people who did not give up no matter what.
One of my favorite quotes is by Michael Jordan and he said, “In my career I missed over 9,000 shots. I lost over 300 games. 26 times I was entrusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeeded.”
I tell kids all the time you will have setbacks. You will have failures. Things will happen that you do not want to happen in your life, but you cannot give up.
Finally, use your loss and look at what you did wrong, how you can do better, and take that into the next competition.
To go to the next part of this series click here.
As a motivational speaker, Raven started the Student Athlete Pledge in an effort to encourage student athletes to be well –rounded individuals who excel academically, athletically, and professionally.
For more information, visit www.RavenMagwood.com or www.StudentAthletePledge.com.