“I judge my success not by competitions won but my how many graduation and wedding invitations I receive” Tony Retrosi
Hi Tony, I have been to many of your sessions at congress in the past. Thank you for all the wonderful information you share!Last year one thing that stuck with me is you said you base your success on how many graduations and weddings you get invited toI thought that was a great way to look at it. A lot of my original gymnasts are graduating and they are inviting me to their graduations. This is wonderful, and I am lucky! Can I ask how you handle giving gifts? I am having a hard time trying to decide what is fair and affordable for kids that meant so much to me and I to them, and they spent many years in my gym. Thanks again for all your great posts, sharing, ideas, and congress lectures! I hope to continue to learn from you for many years to come. Have a great day! Thanks again!
The only thing that is constant in the gym is change. Kids come and kids leave. Every child you work with today is going to leave. They may quit. They may go to a different gym. They, hopefully, will graduate and go off to college.
My goal is that during their time in my gym, I have impacted their life in a positive way. Don’t mistake my overall goal as a lack of competitiveness. I want/ need to be good at what I do. I do not want to be “just average”. That goes for the gymnast that are graduating. I do not want them to be average or basic.
Every gymnast I coached (and my own two children) receive on graduation the book, “Oh the Places you’ll Go” by Dr Seuss. I take a great deal of time and care in the inscriptions I write. I want to recount our highest highs and our lessons learned.
I’ve written a few blogs on my gyms blog for graduating seniors . As well as for my daughter on her graduation from college and my son on his high school graduation.
The young ladies and men who work at my gyms through college I take out for a nice dinner. The Head and The Heart
Here is some advice I would give graduating seniors today. This falls under the “keep it short and sweet” category I wrote about the other day.
5 RULES ON GRADUATION
- Do not ADD to the population
- Do not SUBTRACT from the population
- Do not show up on the TV News, Newspaper or social media doing something stupid
- Do not get thrown in jail
- If you wind up in jail, establish dominance early.
