Rekindling A Childlike Approach to Success

On Saturday I read an article titled “Should you let your girls play with princess stuff?” by Ian and Sonia Mendes bloggers at http://www.todaysparent.com. I found the article in a Parenting magazine that was among a pile of dated magazines I usually find in my family doctor and dentist’s offices. Like most articles that I read in my doctor or dentist offices my customary response is usually “wow...how on earth did I miss reading such an excellent article?”

For me the answer to the question about girls playing with princess stuff is a resounding yes! As the father of five year old daughter, Marisa, I simply cannot keep track of the different princesses she dresses up as and play with her imaginary friends. I also cannot begin to tell you how many times I have had to rescue different princesses from all kinds of out of this world imaginary catastrophic events. My rescue missions are so demanding and stressful that I was happy that my father visited from Jamaica this summer. Grandpa McKenzie rescue me from my roles as saviour of princess this or princess that and in the process he became Marisa’s idol.

To the point of my blog today…..What can we learn from a childlike approach to development and success? As I read the article I could not help thinking how as adults we should rekindle some our childlike approaches to development and success. My friend Marc Samodee told me a story from one of his visits back to Trinidad. He was about eight years old at the time. He and his brother had water guns as toys and they were always looking for targets to spray. He recalled hatching a plan with his brother to spray a hornet nest in what he called a 1-2 military-styled attack. As we all know spraying a hornet nest with water is an extremely risky business and you can use your imagination to visualize the comical results of two young boys’ hasty retreat from a colony of angry wasps. For Marc and his brother it was risky but they had fun.

Curiosity, creativity and imagination, eagerness to learn and explore new things are attributes for success in children’s early childhood development. I have fond memories of the things I did as a child sometimes oblivious to the lurking danger. Remember we learned more as children when we were playing and having fun. However, as we get older we sometime lose our curiosity, creativity and imagination, and forget about how to have fun. As we get old we lose our appetite for risk and as such our eagerness to learn and explore new things.

Today I would like to encourage you to rekindle some your childlike approaches to success. Think of the things you did as a child and the fun you had learning. Rekindle your curiosity, creativity and imagination from your childhood. Seek out and learn new things and have fun doing it. Take some risks and rekindle a childlike approach to success.

Mark McKenzie is a leading Subject Matter Expert in financial services regulation and supervision as well as a professional motivational speaker, corporate trainer and youth mentor.  He can be contacted by email mastbmckenzie@gmail.com or by telephone 647-406-4622. Read my blog  http://mastbmckenzie.blogspot.ca/ and always write me a comment and share. Follow me on Twitter @mackynacky. Connect with me on www.youtube.com, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.