Bill Cairo

American's sporting events have taken on a new role, a combination of a reality show of the current day and a morality play of ancient Greece, in which the play holds up the human condition to the audience for its judgment and reaction. Sports were the first reality shows, in essence an artificial drama acted out with an unpredictable script and real results. As with those old plays, we can learn something from sports, and especially from those who excelled in their particular sports. Great sports quotations are, like all great quotations, equal parts wisdom and philosophy. Arthur Ashe, the world's first great Black tennis player, who faced blatant racism growing up in Richmond, Virginia, did not let that hold him down, saying, "Without the wind in my face, I could not have flown so high." John Wooden, college basketball's greatest coach, knew that young people were (and are) in need of discipline, that their lives are better with it than without. He knew the true nature of discipline: "The purpose of discipline is not to punish but to correct." This is good advice for parents everywhere.

From sports we learn about ourselves, and the greatest athletes and coaches have much to teach us, if we listen.

Bill Cairo

970 203 4382

info@pubtz.com

sportswise@lpbroadband.net

No athlete or coach can compete and excel at a high level without optimism. In the last century, I cowrote a book called The Mental Diet, which explored the abilities of the human mind to make our own lives better. In essence, what we tell ourselves, what we consume mentally, will determine how our minds work.

Optimism is a mental choice, and we can all learn to think more optimistically with a few simple bits of knowledge and a small set of skills. My program/speech on optimism will leave the audience thinking YES instead of NO.