To better explain what I mean by this title, let’s go back to the story in Part 1 of this series. As I was saying, the Grade 5 gifted students were not expected to achieve the higher objectives in their projects, such as synthesis. In the end, I was one of a few students who were able to achieve the synthesis objective. For my project on the Brain and Nervous System, I decided to create an original board game where the players must learn about and better understand the nervous system in order to move ahead in the game – that is, I was communicating the information and ideas I learned in a new and original fashion.

Of course, this idea was no accident. It’s not like I was sitting around one day contemplating how to achieve the synthesis objective and the idea of a board game just popped into my head. I already knew the board game would be an acceptable idea for the synthesis objective – I had seen with my own eyes that it was.

Recall those previous two years where I went to my brother’s class’s ISP showcase. I had observed their projects and the ideas they used to complete their ISP objectives. For whatever reason, many of them chose to use board games to achieve their synthesis objectives. And while the board game idea was nothing to marvel at from an older student’s point of view, for my class that was new to the whole ISP thing, it was completely unheard of.

I was able to achieve a near perfect mark on my ISP because I was successful at completing more of the objectives than most of my peers. And I was able to do so because of my ability to observe how previous students were successful and implement those same solutions for my own problem. Not surprisingly, the other students in my gifted class caught on pretty quick, and almost everyone created a board game to achieve the synthesis objective in their ISP’s the following year.

Many Solutions Are Already Out There

If you think about it, many of the problems we face today are nothing new – they have been solved before by someone else. However, while most people can’t solve the problem on their own, of this group, only a few are resourceful enough to research how this same problem has been solved in history, and then simply mimic that solution and achieve success.

A lot of the answers are already out there, but only the successful individuals know where to look. Thanks in large part to the Internet, how-to advice for success is often just a click away.

Most of the successful individuals I have met are like sponges for information. They have a thirst for knowledge of “how-to’s” for success. Don’t believe me? Think again – you are likely such a person.

Many of the readers of this blog found it through the Student Awards website. You may not realize it, but you are part of a minority of students with both the desire and resourcefulness to actually seek out scholarship/application information and advice. Most students don’t even get as far as a search engine.

It won’t surprise me at all if many of you end up doing well in school, or the scholarship/admissions process. The fact that you take the time to read this blog means you were resourceful enough to find it, and have the drive to soak up anything relevant I have to offer.

Recently, I have been receiving some great news from some of you. A few of you have recently become TD Scholarship finalists and have attributed some of your success to the advice I have provided on this blog. While I can’t say for certain that my blog has truly been useful, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a correlation between the readers of this blog and success rate in the scholarship hunt. Those of you who believe this blog is helpful obviously recognize that I was fairly successful in the scholarship process, and it is definitely smart of you to analyze what worked for me (and what didn’t), and use that information to your advantage.

Public Speaking

To further prove my point, I want to share with you how my own resourcefulness allowed me to develop as a speaker. I wasn’t a naturally born speaker. In fact, I used to stutter sometimes and speak way too fast. Yet over the past several years, I have been invited for quite a few public speaking opportunities, including keynotes, panels, and workshops at conferences, as well as speeches at events.

The reason why I love speaking is because it moves people, both mentally and emotionally. It makes people think. It inspires and motivates people. I know this is true because it works on me – I love watching great speakers.

I can still remember one particular speaking opportunity where I was putting some newly developed speaking skills to work. It was late August 2004 – I had just created SMARTS and was delivering a presentation to students at the OSClub summer science program, trying to motivate them to get on board with my new project. After the presentation, a bunch of students came up to me, asking: “Where did you learn to speak like that?”

As I was saying, I had just developed some new public speaking skills. No, I didn’t take a course or have a mentor or anything. I just observed.

A few weeks before that presentation, I had attended a leadership conference run by Leaders Today – a youth leadership organization co-founded by Craig Kielburger. I had seen Craig speak before, and I personally think he’s a phenomenal speaker. At the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, so I decided to analyze him closely when it was his time to present at the conference.

As I watched Craig speak, I noticed a lot of the little things he did. It’s a bit hard to explain, but he frequently changes the dynamics, speed, and phrasing of his voice with very well-timed hesitations (you should be able to find clips of some of his speeches if you do a quick search). The overall result of his public speaking style is that it comes off as very passionate and inspiring. While most renowned speakers are famous for their content, many of them lack the skill in speech phrasing and dynamics that Craig has mastered. While Craig may not be any more passionate about his beliefs than any other speaker, at least to me, he sure comes off as more passionate when he speaks. I don’t know whether Craig normally speaks like that or if it is something he has developed, but suffice to say, I have never seen anyone control this aspect of speech as well as he does.

After recognizing those speech skills that made Craig so successful, I started trying to implement similar dynamics and phrasing in my own speeches and got great feedback at most events. It was amazing how my words were the same, but changing the way I said them made a huge difference.

It amazes me when I read about public speaking advice or recall some of the speaking workshops I’ve been to, and how none of them have ever shown videos of really good speakers to use as examples. I have never been to a public speaking workshop where the facilitators actually analyzed what made great speakers so moving. Does anyone actually do this? I’d be really curious to see if anyone has ever made a workshop like that.

Most of the workshops seem to focus on basic fundamentals of speaking – stuff like volume, articulation, clarity, etc. Of course, these fundamentals are important. But it’s almost as if people believe there is no value in trying to observe really good speakers or that most people could never speak like them – both ideas I pretty much disagree with.

Really, It’s Ridiculous How Much Information is Out There

Seriously, it really is ridiculous. If you have a desire to learn and a decent work ethic, there is enough information out there for you to be pretty successful at almost anything.

I had never maintained a blog before this summer. Yet with a few Google searches, I was able to find an absurd amount of information and easy instructions for setting one up. You’d think people would charge for information, but it seems like for many of us, it’s human nature to be happy to share.

Yet despite this, many people still seem to deny the fact that they can achieve so much more than they currently are. You don’t always need to have some insane raw talent to be pretty successful at something – often, you just need to be resourceful, and have the work ethic to apply what you’ve learned.

For instance, while I do believe I have the right natural skill set for school, most of the skills I’ve developed for non-academic activities came from researching and observing other successful people, and using trial and error to see if I could develop those same skills.

Whenever I get interested in the success of others, I don’t spend my entire day gawking at that person and telling myself: “Wow, that’s amazing… but I could never do that.”

Instead, I ask myself: “That’s cool, I wonder how he did that?” Then I hop on Google and start doing searches, or I talk to people who have insight into those things.

Since a kid, I have been fascinated by magicians and illusionists. I found it pretty cool that they could do things that appeared to make no sense. I think many people are the same way – they see a magic trick, and think to themselves: “How the heck did they do that?” But most people I know don’t do what I do next – if I’m really dumbfounded by the magic trick, I actually go on Google and look it up. You’d seriously be amazed at how a vast majority of famous magic tricks and illusions are decoded and broken down on the Internet.

The same goes for many skills or activities you might want help on and don’t know where to look. Trust me though, quite often, it is available for free. The only cost is your time and effort.

That being said, resourcefulness and mimicking can only get you to a certain level of success. If you desire success at the highest level, you’re going to have to do some of the initial work yourself.

Part 3: Adaptation and Innovation >>

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Read the other parts of the The Secret to Consistent Success series here:

• Part 1: Not Knowing How To Succeed
• Part 2: Resourcefulness and Mimicking Success
• Part 3: Adaptation and Innovation