It’s been a mad week this, a week of goodbyes.
I’ve spent the last six weeks working with loads of different organisations and some of the people I have met over the last six weeks, a lot of these people don't gain anything from it, they are working on a voluntary basis and not getting paid, but their payment is seeing a difference in the kids in their community. It’s been really good.
Today then, has been one of my favourite ones to be honest. The last six weeks I've been working on a programme, which has been focused on MMA and it's been in collaboration with Manchester Violence Reduction Unit, Street Games and Elite Community Hub. The kids, they've been coming in doing some training, some boxing and MMA and they’ve have loved it, they really have and the ones that didn't have fell by the wayside so that was a bit disappointing, but that's life isn’t it? But the main cohort of people that have started it are still here and today really is the last day.
My part in that really has been going in and working with their minds. You know, it's okay going in and learning new skills and the MMA and everything else but the kids are there for a reason, they're in this group for a reason - the way they're doing business isn't working. So, we've concentrated on things like their strengths, their weaknesses, their opportunities and threats, you know, what is going to get them to their end goal and what is going to stop them getting there.
Resilience, we've talked a lot about resilience, and a lot of people can say ‘our kids today aren't resilient as they used to be’ n this and that but I disagree massively, I think kids today have got a lot more to contend with than I did growing up and it's things like that, statements like that, that I think can be pretty damaging. Let's give them some tools, let’s let them understand what resilience is as opposed to just saying resilience.
Today we're going to bring all the stuff that we've done so far, and as individuals we're gonna bring it together as a team. You know, at the end the day if you can't work as a team then you're never going to prosper in life whether it’s in education, whether it's employment, you’re going to have to work with other people and if your behaviours and attitudes are stopping that from happening, then it’s your own fault. Confidence, you know, back yourself. If you can't back yourself why should anybody else be doing it for you? You need to understand how to communicate better, how to deal with emotions, good emotions and bad motions, they don't all need to lead to anger and that’s the main the main message.
