Everyone’s a winner in Waitley’s world

Press, 27 July 1989, Page 10

Everyone’s a winner in Waitley’s world

by

MAVIS AIREY

Having inspired a generation of corporate executives with the winner’s edge, the American motivational speaker, Denis Waitley, PhD, has now turned his attention to making winners out of parents and children as well.

His set of six sound tapes and an activity workbook, “2005: A Child’s Odyssey” has been written in conjunction with another adult educationalist, Georglyn Rosenfeld, but the reassuring, low-hype voice on the tapes is Waitley’s own. So is the message — self respect is the key to successful parenting, and a successful transition from childhood to adulthood, just as it is to a satisfying career.

Denis Waitley, a doctor of human behaviour whose original degree was in organisational management, has been involved in motivating the United States Olympic sports teams and astronauts progammes, as well as the managers of companies large and small. But his approach is far removed from the “rah-rah” stereotype.

He sees himself more as a corporate conscience, encouraging people to achieve high performance through self development, and to value quality above the fast buck.

He castigates the yup-

pies for wanting to get the most for giving the least. They ignore what he calls the Stradivarius syndrome: “If you find something in life that you love and do well, it also will benefit others and will have some socially redeeming value. Your work and your name will outlive you, and your product will always be in demand,” he told an American journalist, Terri Gautier.

His philosophy of winning does not presuppose there have to be losers. “There are no losers,” he says, “only players and superstars. Everyone is a winner, but until they hit superstar status, they are players.” It’s a philosophy he has also been carrying into American schools for the last 20 years. The father of six children, the youngest of whom is now 17, Deifis Waitley is a member of the United States National Council of Youth,

and the National Council for Self Esteem, as well as directing a task force on the prevention of child abuse.

He has also produced video programmes called “The Winning Generation,” and “The Positive Parent.” The rather curious title of the latest tape set: “2005: A Child’s Odyssey,” is really just a high-flown metaphor. "The first objective of the program is to give you insights and navigation aids to help you lead your children to discover their own potentials and destinies as they are launched into the orbits of adult life.

"The second objective is to help you understand how to build your own self-esteem so you can enjoy life tto the fullest and take more effective command of your decisions as you reach for the stars that represent your own dreams and goals,” writes Waitley in his in-

troduction. Fortunately, it is not all in this vein. From Side Two onwards, the tone is more down to earth. He outlines what he regards as the four interrelated aspects of selfesteem: identification, worthiness, belonging and control. We need to understand what makes us special, our personality traits, our strengths and weaknesses.

We need to feel good about ourselves and the values and standards we live by. We need to be wanted, loved, and accepted by others. And we need to feel confident in our ability to cope with problems, set realistic goals, and have power over our lives.

He considers some of the masks people wear to hide low self-esteem, and how parents own feeling of self-worth affects their children. One cassette is devoted to hints on developing children’s self-es-teem, another to dos and don’t of discipline, and a third — perhaps surprisingly — to television.

While he claims not to be anti-television, he is seriously concerned about the possible effects on children of long periods of unsupervised viewing, particularly of violent programmes and commercials. The average 18-year-old will have seen

350,000 commercials, he warns.

He encourages parents to make a commitment to keep a close eye on what their children watch, or watch it with them, so that they can have a discussion about it afterwards and help them develop the values parents want them to have, not the ones presented on television. He has some nice lines: “Commercials are just socially acceptable falsehoods,” and “P.G, may stand for ‘pure garbage’ ” are two of my favourites. The last cassette suggests ideas for encouraging creativity and a winning motivation in your children. “Teach them to see problems as opportunities,” he says. “Focus on the rewards of success. Develop positive feelsings about yourself and your children. Winning is a state of mind.”

Twelve tape sides is a lot for one voice to bear, and the folksiness of some of the material may grate

a little on this side of the Pacific, but it is worth persevering for the essential good sense of the message.

Strip away the “educainment” veneer, and the ideas about communication, positive parenting, discipline, and building self-esteem are very much the same as those propounded by child psychologists, teachers, and childcare specialists in a dozen different books reviewed in these columns in the past five years.

At $165, “2005: A Child’s Odyssey” costs considerably more than any of these books, but there will be families for whom the combination of listening to a well known and highly respected voice, and following a programme of familyoriented activities will be more effective than simply reading a book.

"2005: A Child's Odyssey" is available from P.O. Box 13-495, Christchurch.